MetWest: Senior Thesis Project (Part 5)
MetWest is a small California high school (about 160 students in 9-12 grades) located in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). It is part of a network of Big Picture schools in the nation. In a recently built facility housing an elementary school, social service agencies, and a television studio, MetWest’s atrium is spacious with walls covered in photos, posters, each teacher’s advisory students, and upcoming events. Classrooms are on the ground and first floors of this part of the complex.
Demographically, nearly 60 percent of the students are Hispanic, nearly 30 percent African American with the remainder split among Asian, white, and multiracial students. English Learners comprise just over 20 percent of the students. Nearly 80 percent of the school is eligible for free and reduced lunches.
As one of about 65 Big Picture schools in the nation (the original Met is located in Providence, Rhode Island), MetWest replicates the model with a schedule of three days of academic/advisory classes and two days when students are out of the building working as interns in businesses, public agencies, and places where adults agree to mentor the intern for the quarter. There is an all-school meeting chaired by students that gathers on Fridays. The overall aim of the program is to engage students by putting them “at the center of their own learning.” Or as the literature says:
[Students] would spend considerable time in the community under the tutelage of mentors and they would not be evaluated solely on the basis of standardized tests. Instead, students would be assessed on exhibitions and demonstrations of achievement, on motivation, and on the habits of mind, hand, and heart – reflecting the real world evaluations and assessments that all of us face in our everyday lives.
As in other Big Picture schools, all MetWest 12th graders must do a Senior CONTINUE READING: MetWest: Senior Thesis Project (Part 5) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
