JJSE Portfolio Panels

At June Jordan (JJSE), in order to graduate students must demonstrate Portfolio work, or a series of in-depth papers covering each high school subject area. Students have to present and defend these “Masterpiece” papers to a panel of teachers. This is intense! Teachers ask some serious questions.

I went to watch two students from the Food class presenting and defending papers they wrote for our class. Above, Jimmy is speaking about the ethical issues of industrial feedlots (sick cattle) compared to small-scale cattle farms (happy cows!). Below, Wenwan is wondering why Americans are so absloultely gluttonous about eating fast food, when she doesn’t see this (yet?!) in her native China.

I was very inspired to see students demonstrating their knowledge in such an in-depth, creative, and useful way, rather than through standardized tests like the horrible California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) everyone had to take earlier this week. Not fun, or useful. If only more schools were like JJSE!