Interactive
high schools take off
Museums, malls and zoos serve as
classrooms
Tuesday, January 04, 2005 • BY DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP
• ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEATTLE -- Students at the new Aviation High School
learn in the shadow of the massive jetliners this region has
produced for decades.
Holding classes at Boeing Field and the Museum of
Flight, the Highline School District believes that moving
students out of large, big box high schools and toward
smaller learning communities will keep them engaged and
enrolled. District officials are also hoping the school will
help boost a dismal district graduation rate of only 63
percent.
"The key thing is this school is trying to capture the
interest and inspiration of kids and maintain that," said
Principal Reba Gilman.
Aviation High School, which opened its doors in the
fall, represents one of the many unconventional approaches
high schools across the country are taking to keep an
interactive generation motivated: From the airport to the
zoo, students assemble in unfamiliar settings and
participate in hands-on projects that trigger their creative
juices.
The 105 students in Aviation High's first freshman class
travel from throughout the region to attend the college-prep
high school using aviation and aerospace as a context for
learning.
"I would describe it as a school of science, math and
technology. Aviation is the application," Gilman said.
Along with core subjects, there's a seminar on aviation
law, where students investigate an aviation disaster and
participate in a mock trial, and an aircraft design seminar
that includes humanities and math that's taught at the
Museum of Flight. Students also learn meteorology,
navigation and geography.
"We learn best when we're known, we're cared about, when
a teacher has time ... to give individual attention to
kids," Gilman said.
Another school taking a similar approach to learning is
set to open in Oakland, Calif., in 2005.
The Northgate Mall Academy, which meets at Seattle's
Northgate Mall, is part of a national chain of high schools
set up by the Simon Youth Foundation, an arm of one of the
largest mall developers in the nation. With malls in 37
states, Simon Property Group, Inc. has dreams of spreading
its high school franchise across the nation. The foundation
already supports 21 schools in 10 states.
The academy, whose enrollment includes primarily
students who are falling through the cracks, houses 76
students in a windowless corridor one floor above the mall's
main passageway. The bustle of shoppers rarely intrudes on
the quiet academic setting, where students study math,
science, social studies and English. Rick Markoff, the
foundation's executive director, said 90 percent of those
who make it to the 12th grade at a mall academy eventually
earn their diplomas.
Mall officials say the students are ideal community
members and merchants appreciate having them as customers as
well as potential employees.
A year ago, Abukar Abdalla was thinking about dropping
out of Northgate because he was having trouble coordinating
his classes with his job, and his family was depending on
his income. His adviser, Beth Brunton, helped him find a way
to stay in school and still earn a paycheck. He could take a
bus to work from the regional transit hub in the mall's
parking lot.
Abdalla is back on track, focused once again on earning
his diploma.
Brunton, who teaches civics and world literature, said
she values the opportunity to work with students navigating
their complicated lives in a small school setting where help
is actually possible.
"A lot of us have taught before at schools with great
needs," she said. "It's great to be here where you can do
more for them."
To that end, the faculty at Henry Ford Academy at the
Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Mich.,
believes that students learn by doing. To help students
understand the hardships of the early 1900s, teachers had
them study museum documents from personal and business
collections, visit historic homes on museum property, plow
fields and make candles.
"We know that kids do not learn best by sitting in a
seat all day and listening to people talk," said Cora
Christmas, the principal.
The academy's administrators are ready to compile what
they've learned about teaching teenagers in a kit that could
be used to replicate the museum learning experience at
museums in other cities.
As part of the Los Angeles school district's plan to
create smaller schools around specific topics like
performing arts, math and humanities, North Hollywood High
School Zoo Magnet Center was created about 20 years
ago.
About 300 students spend part of the day in nine
classrooms in semipermanent buildings in a parking lot at
the Los Angeles Zoo, studying biology, zoology and
conservation. They may choose several electives not
available at other city high schools, including physiology
and animal behavior.
As seniors, they have an opportunity to study animal
husbandry and work directly with keepers in animal
care.
"We get a lot of students who just like biology and
zoology, and a lot of students who just like the idea of
coming to a smaller school," said school coordinator Lee
McManus.
More than 90 percent of the seniors go on to graduate,
he said. Some even go to universities where they study
veterinary science or zoo keeping; others have become animal
trainers for the movie industry.
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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