The Truth
What education looks like in San Diego
By Mishayla Hamlett
By Mishayla Hamlett
High Tech High Media Arts stands on the 3rd story of Truxtun Rd. If you go any time between 8:15 and 4:30, you will see a bunch of high schoolers roaming about. I started attending this school on August 27, 2012. Out of hundreds of applicants, I was lucky enough get into this project-based learning school. Walking into the school, the first thing you will notice is all the projects that have been put out to show visitors and other students what this school is about. Looking at them, I knew that this was no ordinary school.
When I tell people I go to this school they usually reply with something along the lines of, “So do you like do all digital stuff?” The thing I noticed about having many high schools in San Diego is that there are too many for anyone to know about all of them, unless you know someone who attends one. Morse High School, for example, I don’t know anybody from that school but I hear a lot of bad rumors that I cannot confirm. We have a huge population of schools, which makes it easier to stereotype. San Diego is known for many things; one of them is high schools. There are over 28 high schools in the San Diego Unified School District. Whenever I meet someone from a small town they always talk about how many high schools there are in this city. It made me wonder, if the quality of our high schools matched the quantity of them. The huge population of schools can make things hard, and what happens to the kids at bigger schools that have a big student population? I’ve tried to shadow a student at a regular public school in San Diego, but none would let me which confused me. I decided to ask the director of High Tech High Media Arts, Robert Kuhl. “Why won’t other schools in San Diego allow me to shadow a student?” I asked. He answered, "Schools like that have too many students to keep up with. They’re more of an institution than a school.” I found that really interesting. According to the San Diego Unified School Districts enrollment reports of September 26, 2014, High Tech High Media Arts has a total of 400 kids. Compared to Patrick Henry high school that has over 2,000. Now I understood. With over 2,000 students, I wouldn’t allow student visitors either. I figured that it must be really hard to keep up with all those students. It must be hard to give attention to every student. I know that even though my school is small, sometimes we don’t all get the same amount of attention. They try really hard to, with academic coaches and all. Even then sometimes it’s not enough. Mia Deptolla, a friend of mine, is a student who currently attends Patrick Henry, and spoke about her life at that school. The question I really wanted to know was how much attention they got in a school so massive. She explained that “There’s certainly people that get more attention than others. It also depends on how the students act in class like some kids are trouble makers and always get in trouble, therefore they get more attention than the quieter children.” I thought about the kids in my school. Do the troublemakers really get more attention? Then I realized that my school didn’t really have any of the so-called “trouble-makers”. There might be stuff that goes on that I’m not aware of but if you walked into one the the 11th grade commons you won’t see anyone being a “trouble-maker”. She explained that she feels as if the teachers at her school are “unreasonable”, or just dumb in general. She told me a story about her P.E. teacher. Mia and her friend wanted to get water after they had finished a workout, they proceeded to the fountain that had been 5 minutes away when the teacher had threatened to mark them truant because they had not asked permission. Mia felt that she had a right to get water without having to ask permission. I noticed that there is a big problem between students and teachers at every school. Most of the time students don’t want to be babied, but on the other hand the teachers legally need to know where you are and how soon you have to be there. I think it’s good to have student-teacher relationships so that you won’t butt heads all the time. I wondered about what other charter schools were like. What do those student teacher relationships look like? Are they the same as High Tech, or are they like a general public school? I remembered a friend I had who currently goes to Audeo charter school in the hazard center between Fashion and Mission valley. She used to go to Point Loma High School, up the street from the High Tech village, but she transferred. She found her new teacher to be someone who doesn’t really care. She can forget to turn in an assignment and the teacher wouldn’t even care to remind her. That is a down side from her switching to Audeo. At High Tech High Media Arts the director, Robert Kuhl, makes sure that we have good relationships with the teachers. He makes sure to hire teachers that genuinely care and are willing to help the students in most moments. The relationships with teacher is only the really big problem she has. She still feels like she made the good decision to switch because a traditional school wasn’t cutting it. “It took up too much time, I spent seven hours in a classroom a day, then I would go home and do three hours of homework plus whatever extracurriculars I had going on,” Sarai told me. “I didn’t have a life, and I didn't like that.” I can see where she was coming from. It is overwhelming to go to school for so many hours in a day. In the morning and afternoon you see people so out of it and tired. You hear them complaining about wanting to go home throughout the day. Another thing, the director of media noticed from working at High Tech High Media Arts from the beginning, was that students tend to switch to our school around 10th and 11th grade. I found that highly interesting considering Sarai Kelley had switched out of a traditional public school to charter before she started 10th grade. It’s obvious she didn’t have the best experience at a traditional school. At High Tech Media Arts, we have the same amount of hours as a regular public school. So she wouldn’t have liked it either. Throughout all my research I have learned a great deal about schools in San Diego. I hope to continue to learn more. |