The future of high school—sounds like a serious topic on which serious high schoolers should have some serious thoughts. In preparation for writing a synthesis essay, in which students read multiple sources about an issue but then must develop their own argument about it, Dr. Carol Master asked her AP English Language and Composition students to weigh in on this quite relevant topic. Each student read multiple articles by such writers as Leon Botstein, Horace Mann, Nicholas Wyman, Brentin Mock, Leslie Nguyen-Okwu, Amy Rolph and Amanda Ripley, paying the most careful attention to one of the assigned articles. Soon, all who were responsible for the same article were busy discussing its contents in peer groups, after which they acted as emissaries in mixed groups, speaking from the “I” point of view. Once everyone understood the basic issues in the articles and had a point of view about them, the class was ready for a Socratic Seminar, with inner and outer groups, tossing around such issues as technology in the classroom, vocational high schools even paying students to attend school.

What is the future of American high schools? Many students expressed an interest in a more flexible curriculum. For some that meant the ability to take vocational courses; for others it meant having internships or apprenticeships instead of standard courses, and for others it meant using virtual reality to expand educational possibilities. It was exciting to watch the enthusiasm with which each student eagerly offered his idea in response to the previous one. The choices seemed endless and enticing, the more the students thought of their usual day. By the end of the period, even though the bell had rung, signalling that the class was over, the debate certainly was not.