Reflecting on the film Most Likely To Succeed (Greg Whiteley, 2015), I was surprised to find that the school at the heart of the documentary had less to do with technology – shocking given the name High Tech High – and more to do with innovative teaching practices. I personally would have loved to attend a school like such as someone who found it difficult to sit still and listen – for the most part – for six hours.

Additionally, the engaging and involved method of instruction, which left students with an array of practical “soft-skills,” would have greatly benefited me since I was hit like a truck by university work which was all self-directed and required highly developed time-management skills.

Although the “point” of High Tech High was to better prepare students for the “real world,” I think a lot of the skills they learned there would be transferable in a post-secondary setting as well.

Most of all, while watching I was thinking about how fun it would be to teach there, specifically my subject area French, because of how traditionally separate subjects are combined and integrated into one; I think teaching socials/history or drama and French together would be really interesting.

One problem/question that occurred to me throughout the film was that every group project that I’ve ever been in one/some students always get away with just coasting by off the hard work of their teammates, so since all the evaluations at High Tech High are project/exhibition based, how can it be ensured that some students aren’t being taken advantage of by others? Anyways, I suppose those students would really just be “shooting themselves in the foot” so to speak because in an environment like that you get what you put in – much like what I’ve heard about this program haha.

PS. Here is an openly licensed image which I think represents the film…

Gif credit: By Jahobr – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53799766