Below, we describe the core elements that simultaneously support and challenge students as they carve out their own real world learning, with links to student work and other artifacts.

LEARNING PLANS The Met offers neither formal courses nor a standard curricular sequence. Instead, with an advisor, mentor, and parent(s), each student charts quarterly planned activities against the school’s five learning goals and a series of questions (for example, “What will I show at my exhibition?”). Parent(s) and student also answer a common set of questions that assess the student’s plan in light of his or her strengths, weaknesses, and post-Met goals. For new students, completing the first Learning Plan ranks as an enormous challenge. In time, students also take over organizing the quarterly meetings of their learning team, which includes setting the agenda, facilitating the meeting, and recording and distributing notes. Click here for sample student Learning Plan and visual of “Met Learning Cycle.”

INTEREST EXPLORATION In a school that views students’ passions as the spark to deep learning, an early task facing Met students is to uncover their own interests. Aware that most adolescents are only beginning to do so, The Met provides building blocks for what it calls Interest Exploration. Individually or as an advisory group, students complete various exercises, including mapping their most important life experiences, imagining the conversation 50 years hence at their retirement party, identifying unmet needs in their community. Once students define general areas of interest, The Met offers step-by-step guides—right down to reminders about punctuality, appropriate dress, hand shakes, and thank-you notes—as students set up, conduct, and keep a log of informational interviews with local businesses or nonprofits with which they might wish to intern. Before finalizing an internship, students go on a “shadow day.” Click here for prompts given to Met students to spark their interest exploration.

LEARNING THROUGH INTERNSHIPS (LTI) The primary vehicle for learning at The Met, LTIs push students to gain knowledge and skills in the context of authentic work and to develop one-on-one relationships with an adult professional—real world learning in name and practice. During the first two weeks of an LTI (which lasts a minimum of three months and occasionally several years), students acclimate to the job, performing tasks for their mentor as they look for ideas for an LTI project that both challenges the student and is of real value to the work site. Aided by their mentor and advisor, students write a project proposal detailing the purpose and scope, areas of research, timeline, and means of evaluation. The resulting products are as diverse as the internships themselves—a survey on teen attitudes towards police for a neighborhood organization, a promotional multimedia production for a computer graphics firm. Students then present what they did and learned in a public exhibition at The Met. Click here for examples of LTI student products.

MAKING ACADEMICS COME ALIVE At the same time that Met students take their learning beyond school walls, they also cultivate the skills needed for success in college-level coursework. As a result, The Met expects all students to gain proficiency in reading, writing, math, and science, and to immerse themselves in empirical, social, and quantitative reasoning. Advisors and mentors work in concert to provide students with the academic content needed to complete project-based work, with advisors and other Met staff typically providing whatever tutoring or assistance is necessary back at school. Click here for advisor comments on linking academics to student interests and internships.

SUMMER LEARNING Believing in year-round education, The Met institutionalizes the importance of summer learning. Pursuing summer activities like travel, outdoor adventure programs, apprenticeships, or college classes is a school requirement for every Met student in every grade. The Met adds to this expectation an important twist: that these summer experiences push students into unfamiliar territory—teaching special needs kids in a Pennsylvania camp or building a school in the Dominican Republic. Advisors help students find such opportunities as well as the financial aid or funding they may require. Just as important, advisors coach students on what they will encounter. Click here for student reflections and photos from summer travels.

Reflection and Accountability

Voice and Agency

Sustained Relationships

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