The movie “Most Likely to Succeed” is about High Tech High (HTH), a school on unceded Kumeyaay territories in San Diego, California with a radical and innovative approach to education. At HTH, students engage in semester long cross-curricular projects designed to prepare students to be citizens and leaders in a high-technology world. The original school, which is featured in the film, was opened in 2000, and has since expanded to include six high schools, five middle schools, and five elementary schools, all following the same innovative approach. Examples of some of the projects that students engage in at HTH include:

  • Exploring the rise and fall of civilizations throughout history and articulating the key factors influencing the rise/fall of civilizations through a mechanical art installation (Social Studies/Physics/Engineering)
  • Exploring themes of justice, genocide, refugees, and the treatment of women through the reading and performance of Greek plays (English, Social Studies, Art)

More projects can be seen on the HTH website here.

The trailer for “Most Likely to Succeed” a film about High Tech High.

The way that teachers combine subject areas at HTH was really interesting, and frankly, quite amazing. As a teacher-in-training, I found it incredibly inspiring to see these examples of cross-curricular inquiry in action. HTH seemed like a real-life example of a lot of what we have been talking about theoretically in PDPP classes, combining concepts of inquiry, experiential learning, multiliteracies, and interdisciplinarity. Within the new B.C. Curriculum, where there is a focus on broad concepts and competencies rather than specific curriculum, I think that there could be some opportunity to explore this type of teaching and learning. One of the challenges I foresee with applying the HTH model to a classroom in BC is that most high schools in BC offer subject-specific classes in siloes (e.g. Social Studies, Science, Math, French, Art, English). This means that being able to cross the divide between subjects requires collaboration with other teachers in different subject areas who teach in separate class times. In our Social Studies methods class, we learned about Hood River Middle School, where teachers collaborate between different subject areas to approach problems or topics from different ways in their different classes. For example, while students were launching a weather balloon and analyzing the data it collected in a science class, they were also coming up with different types of stories about where the weather balloon may have travelled in an English class. This could be one way to approach something similar to the HTH model within the current B.C. public education system.

It was also evident from the movie that students are incredibly engaged and invested in their learning. In part this may be because the projects they are working on look incredibly fun, but I think part of it may also be a result of the focus on exhibiting their work at the end of the year. The public display of class projects at the end of the term provided them an opportunity to share what they had learned with their community in a spectacular showcase. I was really impressed by this mode of assessment because I think it’s a great example of education not only engaging the community it is a part of, but also being accountable to it. This is something that I have not seen explicitly explored in any of our classes yet but is something that I think is really important. Educators should be accountable to the communities they are teaching in, both as an aspect of professionalism and as an act of citizenship. By displaying their work in a community showcase, students are also learning the importance of being a member of a community and their role as citizens within that community.

I left this movie feeling inspired. It was really cool to see a school taking such a unique approach to education, that not only appears to be really successful, but also looks super fun! It was also neat to explore the HTH website a bit more, learn a bit more about some of the other projects they have taken on, and think about how some of the same ideas could be applied within the education systems we will be working in.