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.

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Planting Community

Students read about and researched issues related to agriculture and biology before working in groups to create large mobile planters for kindergarteners to learn from.

Staircase to Nowhere

Students created art pieces and accompanying posters inspired by the quote “If a staircase goes somewhere, it is craft; if it goes nowhere, it’s art.”

Toy Story

Students created their own toy alongside local pre-schoolers and write a story about what that toy does when no one is around.

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.

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Chemistry & Conflict

Students conducted research and interviews about a specific molecule and its role in history. The information they gathered was used to create art pieces for a book on the different compounds.

Voices and Visions

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.

The Voiceless

After learning that suicide was the second largest killer of young people, and the growing need for education about mental health, students partnered with families to discuss their loss of a loved one on camera for a student-run video and banner campaign.

Chapter 3: With each other

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

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Dribble and Rebel

Fourth grade teachers designed a project for students to look at history through the lens of sports and to explore how sports build and shape communities.

The Whole Meal

In this project, students chose a “food philosophy” and kept a journal of all they ate for the eight weeks of their study. They interviewed family members about favorite recipes and their history, tried them out, and wrote a cookbook containing the best of them.

Toga Night

Students read plays by three Greek writers before adapting them into an onstage version following themes of genocide, war, refugees, and the treatment of women.