Changing the Subject

Welcome

Of the thousands of projects High Tech High teachers and students have undertaken since the first school opened in 2000, the fifty documented in this book and website are a mere sampling; we hope they provide inspiration and a starting place for many more creative iterations.  We curated them by asking current and former teachers (now numbering in the hundreds) to nominate work that was both inspiring and replicable.

Our purpose is to share highlights from High Tech High’s first twenty years.  In doing so, we aim to describe, not prescribe.  “This isn’t how to do it, it’s how we did it.” 

“Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the relentless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”(Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, page 53)

Chapter 1: Invention and reinvention

In these projects students and teachers are creating something new in the physical world.

Students created an illustrated book that accessibly explained different economic concepts.
Calculicious was a cross-curricular project at High Tech High, where seniors were engaged in using calculus to make and describe art.
Students worked in groups to research and define an aspect of blood physiology, blood banking, or blood-related diseases before creating multimedia art pieces using what they had learned.

Chapter 2: In the world, with the world

In these projects, students are understanding the need for change in their world and making that change, through service or community action.

Students critically examined the criminal justice system in the US by working with the California Innocence Project (CIP) to analyze actual clients’ case files and recommend to CIP whether or not to take the case.
Students ran a political campaign simulation and conducted extensive interviews with people from the community about societal issues so students could learn about these topics both on a macro-level and through personal experiences.
Students visited the Veteran’s Village of San Diego (VVSD) to interview veterans, write about their stories, and co-design a piece of art with them.

Chapter 3: With each other

In these projects, students are investigating their beliefs and relationships and changing them.

In this student-created and student-run simulation, participants took on the roles of Syrian citizens forced to leave and seek refuge in another country.
Students played a game called MUN Trade War, where they used math to model economic and military avenues of international engagement.