One School's Quest        

By Lawrence Kohn

Quest High School engages students in seeking out knowledge and prepares them to deal with an ever-changing world.

The humanist psychologist Carl Rogers once wrote that teaching is a "relatively unimportant and vastly overvalued activity" (Rogers & Freiberg, 1994, p. 151). The first time I read these words, I was shocked! As a teacher, I believed that what I did positively and profoundly affected young lives every day. After having seized my attention, however, Rogers introduced me to a much deeper concept: As we enter a new era in which the only constant is change, the goal of education is no longer direct teaching but the facilitation of change and learning. In fact, Rogers claims,

The only man who is educated is the man who has learned how to adapt and change; the man who has realized that no knowledge is secure, that only the process of seeking knowledge gives a basis for security. Changingness, a reliance on process rather than on static knowledge, is the only thing that makes any sense as a goal for education in the modern world. (Rogers & Freiberg, 1994, p. 152)

Significant research indicates that this goal of promoting change and learning depends on the personal relationship between the learner and the facilitator of the learning. Trust and feelings of connectedness are important factors in creating a positive and safe learning environment and promoting student achievement (Bryk & Schneider, 2002; Hoy & Tschannen-Moran, 2003; McNeely, Nonnemaker, & Blum, 2002).

These ideals—on the one hand, preparing students to adapt to change and continually seek out knowledge and, on the other, fostering positive relationships—drive learning at Quest High School in Humble, Texas, where I spent the last 10 years as an educator. When we were designing the school in 1994, we worked for days penning a mission statement that embraced Rogers's principles:

Quest High School is committed to providing a personalized learning experience in a working partnership with the community to create lifelong learners and successful members of society.

During the last 10 years, Quest has developed three initiatives in particular that prepare students to adapt to change and continually seek out knowledge throughout their life journey: the school's advisory program, called family; its service learning program; and its senior exhibition process.

We Are Family

When we designed Quest's student advisory, our goal was not only to address academics but also to build a community of learners. The result is family—a structure that fosters relationships both between students and their peers and between students and faculty. Within these relationships, family also nurtures the skills and behaviors that students need to thrive after graduation.

All students are assigned to a family when they enroll at Quest. Each family consists of approximately 25 students and 2 or 3 adults. At least one adult in each family is a teacher; the other adult family members are support staff—for example, the librarian, teacher aides, and administrative and specialized personnel. Because students stay in the same family for the duration of their high school careers, families are multi-age groups.

Families meet daily for 40 minutes and participate in academic advisement, skill- and character-building exercises, communication activities, celebrations, and discussions of school and real-world issues. We designed these activities to

• Break down barriers among students.
• Build a strong school culture.
• Foster academic, social, and emotional growth.
• Promote trust.
• Develop communication skills.
• Bond adults and students in the school community.

Further, family provides a safe place for students to practice reacting and adapting to change. For example, students help make important school-related decisions and solve schoolwide problems in family.

Here are a few responses from a recent survey we conducted asking students what they valued about family:

• "Dealing with a difficult student situation was very valuable to me. Trying to accept and understand someone with a different sort of culture really tested our interpersonal skills and patience."
• "My family experiences help me understand how to interact better with people both inside and outside Quest."
• "Playing sports and having family breakfasts made us come together. I like all of us having fun and talking like a real family."

Every other week, Quest holds a family faculty meeting in which participants share ideas, listen to student proposals for family activities, discuss issues to bring up in family, and provide planning time for family facilitators. Quest administrators and teachers give family the same attention they give to academic courses; it is the cultural spine of the school.

Serving the Community

Quest has received numerous honors for achievement in the area of service learning. For example, Quest was named a National Service Learning Leader School in 2000 and a National School of Character in 2002. In 2004, Quest was named a First Amendment School. First Amendment Schools: Educating for Freedom and Responsibility is a national school reform initiative designed to help schools teach and practice the civic principles and virtues vital to democracy, freedom, and the common good.

Quest is the only U.S. public high school to have earned all three of these distinctions, which are the result of its service learning curriculum. In conjunction with family, Quest's strong service learning program builds relationships among students and faculty and enables the school to live its mission to help students authentically effect change.

Every Wednesday morning, each Quest student drives or is bused to 1 of 50 service partnership sites where he or she serves for three hours. Sites range from elementary schools in the district—where students teach reading or assist teachers in other ways—to a nature park, where students perform historical reenactments for children or beautify the park. Other sites include rest homes, women's shelters, and the school district's central office.

Through service learning initiatives, Quest students have

• Developed a computer literacy training project for adult English language learners.
• Worked with a local human services agency to procure community services and goods (for example, hair styling, cosmetic services, clothing, and car repair) to support disadvantaged women who are searching for jobs.
• Created a resource guide for teachers, youth workers, and parents to use in breaking down cultural stereotyping and prejudice among groups of young people.
• Linked elementary school students with residents of a nearby nursing home through mutual visits, correspondence, and invitational programs.
• Designed activities for 5th grade students aimed at resolving conflicts in nonviolent ways.
• Increased volunteer involvement at a local day-care center for adults with mental and physical disabilities.
  

Site facilitators assess the students on their work, but more important, students engage in reflective self-assessment. According to our surveys, students overwhelmingly agree that service learning helps them behave more responsibly and improves their interpersonal and social skills. A rich, authentic character education program, service learning has created a culture of caring and afforded Quest students real-world opportunities to practice civic responsibility and good citizenship.

Senior Exhibition

As members of a Coalition of Essential Schools learning community, Quest students engage in senior exhibition, an experience that involves numerous components spanning the entire senior year. The goal of the senior exhibition is to demonstrate what a Quest graduate is expected to know and be able to do.

For one major component of senior exhibition, for example, students form groups of three or four and choose a current social issue to explore. They then divide the issue into subtopics of individual interest. In partnership with a faculty advisor, students research their chosen social issue and create a social action plan (SAP) to address the issue. Each group then implements its SAP, with the expectation that the plan will be viable enough to continue long after the seniors graduate. Groups tap such primary sources as nonprofits, university educators, and business and community leaders to support their research and SAP efforts. ("Social Action Plan: Increase Volunteerism" describes one group's SAP.)

The senior exhibition revolves around an essential question that guides each student's work. Required products of the exhibition process include a research paper, a PowerPoint presentation, and a group presentation. Students may also create other products—for example, a self-portrait, a wellness plan, a literary analysis, or a career plan—that do not necessarily connect to the research project but demonstrate mastery of specific areas in Quest's curriculum.

At the end of the spring semester, the public exhibition is attended by family members, community members, underclassmen, faculty, and staff. A panel of Quest faculty scores the exhibition using rubrics and provides feedback. Students must correct any areas that do not meet expectations and present them again to the panel.

When asked, students cited numerous skills that they had gained through the senior exhibition process, including those in

• Communication. "I am a shy individual, but I have been pushed into the spotlight enough times that I have become more comfortable with getting my message across."
• Decision making. "There were many times where we were forced to make hard decisions that I wouldn't have faced before. The choice to drop that last house [this student's social action plan involved refurbishing homes for disadvantaged people] when that lady needed help was a hard decision to make, but in the end it benefited both parties."
• Organization. "In a project like this, you cannot afford to fail. We laid out specific goals and criteria that had to be met because other people counted on us to deliver."
• Advanced technology. "This was my first time creating an actual Web page. I took it upon myself to establish a practical method of communication between our partners and volunteers. I challenged myself, and as a result, it has taken me to great heights."

These reflections illustrate not only the variety of skills that students gained through participation in the senior exhibition experience but also the extent to which students actualized the process of change.

The Continuing Quest

Carl Rogers writes,

To free curiosity, to permit individuals to go charging off into new directions dictated by their own interests, to unleash the sense of inquiry, to open everything to questioning and exploration, to recognize that everything is in a process of change—here is an experience I can never forget. (Rogers & Freiberg, 1994, p. 153)

As principal of Quest, I witnessed daily the significant academic and affective learning of our students, and I saw their emotional, social, moral, and intellectual skills deepen over time. We designed our curriculum to develop students as lifelong learners and productive members of society. To that end, Quest will continue to create authentic learning experiences for students, provide a trusting and caring learning environment, and challenge students to continually seek out knowledge and actively engage in an ever-changing world. We believe Rogers would approve.

References

Bryk, A. S., & Schneider, B. (2002). Trust in schools: A core resource for improvement. New York: Russell Sage.

Hoy, W. K., & Tschannen-Moran, M. (2003). The conceptualization and measurement of faculty trust in schools. In W. K. Hoy & C. Miskel (Eds.), Studies in leading and organizing schools. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

McNeely, C. A., Nonnemaker, J. M., & Blum, R. W. (2002). Promoting student connectedness to school: Evidence from the national longitudinal study of adolescent health. Journal of School Health, 72(4), 138-146.

Rogers, C., & Freiberg, H. J. (1994). Freedom to learn. New York: Merrill.

Lawrence Kohn (lawrence.kohn@humble.k12.tx.us) is former principal of Quest High School and current principal of Atascocita High School, both in Humble, Texas, and adjunct professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Houston. He also serves on the ASCD Commission on the Whole Child. He is coauthor of Instructor's Guide for Universal Teaching Strategies (Allyn and Bacon, 2000).