A new high school proposed for Cleveland, Ohio, would make use of the digital arts of film making, sound recording, and video game creation not only to teach many parts of the standard high school curriculum; students would use these art forms to show what they have learned, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
If the developers of this teenage dream can get funding—their application for a grant from the state was denied, but several philanthropic groups are interested—the Cleveland High School for the Digital Arts could open in the fall and give Cleveland students another choice when it comes to nonstandard pathways to a high school diploma. Think High Tech High charter schools in San Diego, or the High School for the Recording Arts in St Paul, Minn.
Marsha Dobryzynski, of the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning, a Shaker Square non-profit formerly known as Young Audiences, pulled out the grant application to explain the main idea behind the school. It will “utilize digital arts as a means to actively engage students who struggle to learn in traditional school models, as well as to meet the needs of students who may be interested in a career in technology fields. CHSDA students will learn both digital arts and core content and demonstrate learning, understanding and application of math, science, English language arts, social studies, and other art forms with the creation of digital products—games, recordings, or films—that shows mastery of essential concepts.”
In other words, students will use the digital arts “as tools to access core content. It’s the hook to help them learn,” she said. “They’re not going to come to school to play games. They’re going to come to school to create games.”
The upside is, kids are naturals when it comes to digital arts. They’ll post a video on YouTube faster than adults can use Google to find out what YouTube is. And consider the model being proposed at the Cleveland school: Students will create a video game, say, about a history lesson. The rules won’t allow them to create shooter games, so they’ll have to do a little research to make the scenes historically accurate. Then, they’ll have to develop the technique of graphics design, computer programming, and so on, to make it functional. Then, they’ll have to develop some sort of script, since all video games or movies have a script, which will require old-fashioned writing skills. Get the idea?
Aside from not having any funding in the bank yet, the downside might be that this is another charter-like school. That means on paper, it promotes equality of opportunity. The question, though, will be, Is the school doing enough to promote equality of opportunity for all students who want to attend the school? We’ll only know the answer after the school has been operating for a while, if it actually gets off the ground. Are they doing what they need to do in order to promote diversity, and how’s it working? Those are the questions we would want to know in the long run.
See, while students will be learning and demonstrating their understanding of science, government, math, English, and so on, using digital arts and developing digital skills have their own merits in today’s world. Job opportunities for students, arising out of possible internships a school like this is destined to create, will be abundant in the future, and we would want to make sure that this public school is truly serving the public in Cleveland, not a small minority of Cleveland’s students.
