REFLECTION & ACCOUNTABILITY | 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 exhibitions

Johnny: You can cheat your way through other high schools, and you can cheat your way through elementary and middle school, but here you can not cheat at all. It’s impossible. When you have to stand in front of everyone and do your exhibition, you’ve got to have something. [1]

Anderson: The first exhibition is pretty stressful, but after that it gets easier to talk in front of all those people. Practicing really helps. When it’s over, it’s really cool to read what the panelists thought of the exhibition. Later my advisor will write a narrative about me and my work for the quarter, and our parents read it, too. [2]

Freddie: Before, I had to do reports, but not like the way The Met makes me do it. In the eighth grade I had to tell a little bit about it, maybe two minutes. Here I have to do a half-hour presentation, everything I learned, where I got my information, all that. Unhhh, very painful... My first presentation was a total disaster—it was bad, very bad. The second one, I did the stock market. I found out you could make so much money, so I tried to find out as much information as I could. It was 120 percent better than the first. Some of the people were there for my first, so they saw a big difference. I was nervous, but it just started to flow. It could have gone on for about two hours. [1]

On self understanding

Maya: Every year at The Met, it’s like, oh, I realized something new about myself. It’s not always peaches ’n cream I have to go through. This year, every year, I go through this low point, but that’s also related to out of school issues and that’s what kind of affects you at school. And I talked to my mentor about it —I don’t want it to affect my school things, because I know it can happen, and I’ll probably give up, and I don’t want that to happen. [1]

Freddie: What did I learn this year? How to get along with others, especially different races. Like the first quarter, I said, “Wow, all white people.” At Central [High School] they had ’em, but I would never talk to them... But now I just talk to anybody. This school gives you the opportunity to focus on a lot of things that you want to learn and do. Even things you don’t want to learn, you end up learning it, just general habits. Like shyness, or if you talk a lot, you learn how to control that, your anger. Students in this school had real bad attitudes, now they’re all friendly with everybody. The school really changed them. My attitude would take a long time to come out of me, now it never wants to come. [1]

On internalizing high standards

Nadia: ...I think next year I can take on more challenging things... My writing I feel like I should keep improving, because I know it’s not something you learn and then you learned it. It’s something you keep improving at. It has improved a lot, just the way I approach different tasks and the way that I reflect on what I do...

We’re constantly comparing ourselves now to ourselves a few months ago... Before I thought this was good; now I think it’s just okay and this is better. The standards that our teachers have for us are definitely getting higher. We’re going on to more complex things, really proving it with evidence... So every year they do raise the standards, because we are able to do more. And it’s always to have standards above and not below, so that way you’re not doing any mediocre work; you’re doing the best that you can. And I’ve always set standards for myself that were higher. I try to do that, because if you don’t, then you’re not always going to try your best. [1]

Freddie: You should see some of my first drafts, from my first papers. You’d be like, “hmm, all right,” then you’d move on to my next draft, next draft, next draft. You’d see I improved. Sometimes I just skim through them, and I read them. [1]

Leah: I used to throw my work out right away. Now I want to keep everything. [1]

Maya: I changed the way I do my work. [Before] I did my work, but it wasn’t top quality. It was usually just sloppy, just do anything. Now I do more, I concentrate, go into depth with it... I’ve improved on my writing really a lot. You have like five people go through it to make sure if it’s good. First, I read it over, and then I give it to my advisor and then to anyone who wants to read it, other students, people pass it on. Finally I give a copy to Doc and Elliot, and they put it in a big book. My last paper was like 30 drafts. Before, I would just turn things in, no corrections.

They refer to us as the Senior Institute people, and you have to live up to that. The work hasn’t gotten harder, but it’s more in depth, there’s more of it... Now we have to start thinking about senior thesis projects. You can’t just make a sugar castle. I used to do that. But these are like something is yours and everybody knows about it. It’s not just any project. [1]

Elliot Washor [Met co-director]: We refuse to set a specific content standard, because every student starts at a different place. We do it one student at a time, based on their learning plans. You need to have different ways of setting high standards for different students. A test is not a high enough standard. Using knowledge—grappling with real problems and real people—that’s the real test. [3]

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