{"id":37,"date":"2015-10-21T16:21:25","date_gmt":"2015-10-21T16:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/?p=37"},"modified":"2016-02-08T18:38:29","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T18:38:29","slug":"most-likely-to-succeed-glimpses-into-the-future-of-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/2015\/10\/most-likely-to-succeed-glimpses-into-the-future-of-school\/","title":{"rendered":"“Most Likely To Succeed” glimpses into the future of school"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contributed by\u00a0Mark Silver<\/a>, Head Of School.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Last Thursday evening, a packed theater of parents and educators from Hillbrook and the Los Gatos Union School District joined together to watch \u201c<\/span>Most Likely to Succeed<\/span><\/a>,\u201d one of the most widely discussed educational documentaries to appear in several years. The film chronicled High Tech High School, a San Diego-based charter school that has been at the leading edge of conversations about the future of education.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Hillbrook hosted a screening of the film & a discussion panel at the Los Gatos Theater.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0Produced by filmmaker Ted Dintersmith, the documentary focuses on the project-based learning approach at the heart of the High Tech High experience. Through the experiences of two classes – and two students in particular – we see what it looks like when student learning is revealed through public displays of understanding, including a student-written and directed play and an elaborate, multi student-designed artistic installation that merged engineering and historical theory. One student\u2019s inspiring success with the play, coupled with the other student\u2019s struggles, failures, and ultimately success with the installation, highlights the engagement, student ownership, and real world learning that is at the heart of the educational experience. <\/span><\/p>\n

Central to the documentary\u2019s argument is a refrain increasingly heard from educators, corporate leaders, and thought leaders across our nation – the skills that students need for success in life are changing. As technology has made a growing number of jobs that highlighted muscle and intellectual prowess obsolete (as they noted in the movie, now that IBM\u2019s Watson has conquered chess and Jeopardy, what\u2019s next?), schools need to focus on the skills that are fundamentally human. What are those skills? <\/span><\/p>\n

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Courtesy of @MLTSfilm on Twitter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An article in this past weekend\u2019s <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/i>, \u201c<\/span>The Best Jobs Require Social Skills<\/span><\/a>,\u201d argues that what we learned in preschool is the key to success in the work world. Cooperation, empathy, and flexibility \u00a0– skills commonly taught in early childhood programs – are increasingly understood to be essential skills for lifelong success. \u201cWork has become more like preschool,\u201d the author Claire Cain Miller insists, noting that \u201cJobs that require both socializing and thinking, especially mathematically, have fared best in employment and pay.\u201d She points to the work of James Heckman, a Nobel-prize winning economist, who argues that \u201ccharacter, dependability, and perseverance are as important as cognitive achievement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At Hillbrook, we have always believed that social emotional skills are as important as academic achievement. From Kindergarten study teams, where they learn to work together as they explore shared passions, to the 8th grade play, where the entire class comes together to produce a complex theatrical production, we create numerous opportunities for students to work together and to focus on being their best, both as individuals and as a group. So does it work?<\/span><\/p>\n

Last May, we reconnected with members of the Class of 2011 as they prepared to graduate from high school and head off to college. We asked them to talk about their memories of Hillbrook and how it had prepared them for high school, and created this video to help tell their story. <\/span><\/p>\n