REAL WORLD LEARNING | CLIPBOARD

Sources:
[1] “Forty-Three Valedictorians: Graduates of The Met Talk about Their Learning” by Adria Steinberg (Brown Lab, 2000)
[2] Learning Journeys and The Learning Cycle (Met videos, 2000)
[3] One Kid at a Time by Eliot Levine (Teachers College Press, 2002).

On learning how to learn

Freddie: I got to do a lot this year. Anything I was interested in—I worked on the stock market, economics of slavery, what will people do for money... Now you’re motivated, because there is something you want to learn. I’m learning adult things like how to act, important words to use, correct English and all that. They try to teach you that in other schools, but then again they just slip down and let you do anything you want. I think I learn more here, because they give you more experiences to learn off of than just learning in the classroom. [2]

Nadia: One thing that I think is helpful is how we learn to seek for resources, since when we’re doing projects we ask, “will you help me obtain this for my project or for my exhibition?”...I don’t think that a lot of high school students have that, because they haven’t had the opportunity, or they didn’t need to ask or to search and like we’ve learned, just get the information, get whatever you need from anyplace that you can—the library, Internet, wherever... That helps a lot, because when you are in college, you don’t have a teacher making sure you have everything you need. Or you don’t have a teacher making sure you’re understanding everything that he’s explaining. I mean, sometimes they do try, but it’s not the same. So knowing how to seek for resources and how to basically get what I need to get out of the course and raise my hand if I have a question and not be shy to attend any study groups or even organize any, I think that’s something that has helped me a lot and is something that we practice here at The Met a lot. [1]

Maya: Compared to other kids, I’m more involved, I guess. I’m more aware of what I want. I always compare myself to my twin sister. We’re completely different people. [But] I used to be like her. We were just messy people, don’t keep ourselves organized. Now I can’t live without my calendar, I can’t live without my journal. I just can’t go without it. Her, it’s like, “I’ll remember.” I say, “trust me, you’re not gonna remember.” The Met has changed me, it really has. My god it has. If I had gone to a regular school, I would not be like this, no way, no how. I’d have dropped out. [2]

On persisting

Mentor [about Carlita]: At first Carlita didn’t understand that showing up meant more than being a warm body. It means being productive, preparing for team meetings, and finishing your work—because people are relying on you. At school, showing up unprepared only hurts you. But our work is highly team-focused, so when you’re unprepared it hurts everyone. She learned these lessons quickly and made great contributions to the team. [3]

Advisor [about Loretta]: Note: Some students do several shadow days before finding an LTI that interests them. Most find an LTI by November, but for others it takes longer. Loretta was scared to make [phone] calls. With the help of a fellow student, she set up informational interviews with some stores she liked at the mall. I gave her the name of someone there who had mentored another Met student, but she had left for another job by the time Loretta called. Loretta was so upset that she walked out of school for two days. After that she refused to make calls for a few weeks until her friend stepped in to help. Eventually she did some interviews that went well, but right before her first shadow day the business called it off because of her grunge-style clothing. Loretta was devastated. She’s a great artist, though, and in the end she got an LTI with a graphic design company. [3]

Advisor [about Jake]: Many things you love also have parts you hate. Students need to learn that. Jake wants to be a marine biologist, but he’s disorganized and hates writing. His internship mentors convinced him that he needs to overcome those barriers to become a scientist, so he wrote a 15-page research paper on the winter flounder. His mentors needed the information for their work. Jake hated every second of it, but he did it. After a dozen drafts he ended up with an amazing, college-level paper. If you get students hooked on their interests, sometimes they’re willing to do the less appealing parts. Sometimes they even end up enjoying those parts. [3]

Mentor [about Cesar]: For Cesar’s photography project, he wanted to capture the unique relationships among his friends. But in the end, he had little more than random snapshots. We provided lots of support and resources, but he rarely showed the self-discipline to study the techniques he needed. He didn’t develop the photos in time for his exhibition, and he was unable to speak with any expertise about the parts of the camera and their functions.

So I gave Cesar two weeks to improve the project and redo his exhibition. And he really did improve his project. It turns out that the pictures hadn’t come out because he hadn’t loaded the film right. We shifted gears, because it was too expensive to start over again, and because I had underestimated how much difficulty he’d have learning to use the light meter, adjust the aperture, and all that. Instead, Cesar went through a number of photobooks, picked out several pictures that he felt were powerful, and wrote a beautiful one-page analysis of each one. He discussed the symbolism of each picture and also some technical aspects of the photography—angles, lighting, and all that. It was clear that he had developed a real interest—he wasn’t just getting it done to meet a requirement. [3]

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