Philosphy

Philosophy

The Met Sacramento’s mission is to educate all students, including those who may have not succeeded in more traditional educational settings. We graduate students who are self-directed, 1independent learners who have the critical thinking skills and core knowledge that will allow them to be successful in college as well as in life. Our graduates are unique and creative individuals who will be able to rise above adversity in the adult world. One student at a time, The Met provides a personalized learning environment that allows students to take control of their learning and gain the skills and knowledge necessary to achieve success beyond high school. The Met relies on strong relationships with family, community, businesses, government and all other educational institutions to expand the role of the school in the community and the community in the school.

The Met is a small school that strives to be a place where students are known well, understood, respected and able to have genuine relationships with adults. Each student's educational program involves authentic experiences with real world standards and consequences, and is designed by the people who know the student best: parents, teachers, mentors, and him or herself. Students’ learning plans grow out of their individual needs, interests, and passions. The overall school program is flexible enough to accommodate change and a broad range of learners. The Met is committed to serving a diverse group of students and creating learning communities that honor and respect diversity.

Evaluations

Evaluations

The Met holds very high standards for its students. The school’s system of assessment is based around five school-wide Learning Goals. Woven throughout the assessment process is The Met’s commitment that learning be meaningful and that each student become a life-long learner. The Met believes that assessing a student in an authentic learning situation must serve a greater purpose than just to evaluate the student’s final product. Because Met student work has real consequences, the process of the work must be assessed and improved continually. To wait until the work is done is to risk a poor product. In any learning situation, assessment should help the student achieve increasingly high standards, and it should inform teachers, parents and mentors on how to reshape and improve the student's learning experience. Met advisors look at the big picture of each student’s learning and challenge the student to do academically rigorous project work that addresses the five school-wide Learning Goals and is focused around his or her personal interests and passions. Older students assist younger students in understanding and addressing the Learning Goals and are valued as role models of self-directed learning and goal achievement. Most importantly, Learning Through Internship (LTI) projects provide students with the opportunity to address the Learning Goals in the real world. Experiential and real-world learning calls for experiential and authentic performance measures that arise from real questions, problems and tasks, and that demonstrate what students actually know and demonstrate. The Met’s assessment system includes the review of hard evidence of student progress and performance levels linked to internship tasks, research, projects, and other community and school-based learning. This evidence is presented both in portfolio form and at regularly scheduled exhibitions. A student’s portfolio will include drafts and final products of, for example: research papers; creative writing; original art; recorded music; designs and models; computer software applications; graphs and charts; videotaped interviews and performances; work products from the internship site; journal writings; and, project proposals. Portfolios also include regularly timed advisor narratives twice a year on student progress, exhibition panel feedback, and self-reflective student narratives.

Learning Goals

The Five Learning Goals

Empirical Reasoning - The goal of empirical reasoning requires that a student learn to think like a scientist: to use empirical evidence and a logical process to make decisions and to evaluate hypotheses. It does not reflect specific science content material, but instead can incorporate ideas from physics to sociology to art theory.

Quantitative Reasoning - The goal of quantitative reasoning requires that a student learn to think like a mathematician: to understand numbers, to analyze uncertainty, to comprehend the properties of shapes, and to study how things change over time.

Communication - The goal of communication requires that a student learn to be a great communicator: to understand your audience, to write, to read, to speak and listen well, to use technology and artistic expression to communicate, and to be exposed to another language.

Social Reasoning - The goal of social reasoning is to learn to think like a historian or anthropologist: to see diverse perspectives, to understand social issues, to explore ethics, and to look at issues historically.

Personal Qualities - The goal of personal qualities is to learn to be the best you can be: to demonstrate respect, responsibility, organization, leadership, and to reflect on your abilities and strive for improvement.

Core Principles

Core Principles

The Met Sacramento’s design is based on these core principles:

Size: The Met includes small, personalized learning communities that serve students of all abilities and interests. Each advisory has a ratio of approximately 22:1.

Advisories: A student's advisory and center of accountability. Advisories meet daily and serve as the core learning community for that group of students for four years. An advisor (teacher) facilitates the advisory for four years. He/she serves as a teaching catalyst, finding educational resources for the students, ensuring that the personalized learning plans target key academic learning goals, working with mentors to ensure the rigor of internships, and actively involving parents in their children’s education.

Personalized Education: Each student at The Met has a comprehensive, individualized learning plan that the student crafts with the guidance of the advisor, parent, and, where applicable, the internship mentor. The learning plan identifies the student’s particular academic and developmental needs, describes authentic project work to meet these goals, and outlines expected outcomes and timelines. It is revised as needed and updated at regular learning plan meetings. The framework for the plan is the five Learning Goals and school-wide grade-level expectations

Real world learning: The Met fosters learning through consequential work in the community. Internships provide the primary structure for engaging students in the real world. The school aims to have each student spending two days a week engaged in meaningful project work outside the school building. Advisors coordinate this work, ensuring that it is integrated with the student’s learning goals and school-based study. It is important to note that such realworld work is intended to foster broad learning applicable to all fields, to be developmental as opposed to vocational.