Welcome to Virtuality High School!

Up and running in Cyberspace (c), finally!

I started a virtual high school role-play community for college and career exploration in 1998, named Harrington City. It was just after Winter Break, and those young men and women in my standard level senior English class were not about to start the last months of public school by reading another novel! I had taught shop on and off for six years, and was much inspired all along by Eliot Wigginton and his Foxfire (c) project in Red Gap, Georgia: my interpretation was: have your students make a study of their immediate world, following their God-given hearts' desires, and their drive to acquire adult vocational competencies, and the curriculum will be served. I will describe this source and the many others that were the inspiration for this, in forth-coming entries. The results have been -- without exception -- spectacular, awesome.

In the coming times, I shall attempt to blog the progress of the efforts of my Harrington Project classes. The Founders Class, that first group of restless, hungry teenagers, are now out there, somewhere. One young man suddenly appeared in front of my desk, one afternoon, two years ago.

"Remember me?"
He had been particularly troubled, from a tragic childhood, and had struggled to just barely fit in to American public high school -- he had an accent, and felt the pull of returning to the European country of his childhood, as soon as he came of age and could get away from his father. He hated being in America, but really hadn't figured out who he was. He was one of the students who was going to make that Spring semester insufferable -- he particularly enjoyed quarreling with spoiled Americans. Back then, when I asked him what he enjoyed doing most, he replied: "I want to sail my sailboat."

And here he was, five years later, telling me he had to come back to thank me.

"You saved my life. I had to come back and tell you and thank you. I just got back with my college debate team from a tour of Europe. I am the captain, and we won more competitions than ever in the history of the university. I also had to tell you that I just won a gold metal in single shell rowing at the Dad Vail Regatta. I'm graduating in a month with a bachelor's in economics, and I going back to Europe to a job that my father and I found together. I'm planning on grad school because the company will pay for it. I was going out of my mind in high school, and then we started playing that game in your class. And I built my marina. I saw that I could sail my boat and make a living. You saved my life, and I wanted to come back and tell you and to thank you."

Welcome to Virtuality High School!

Up and running in Cyberspace (c), finally!

I started a virtual high school role-play community for college and career exploration in 1998, named Harrington City. It was just after Winter Break, and those young men and women in my standard level senior English class were not about to start the last months of public school by reading another novel! I had taught shop on and off for six years, and was much inspired all along by Eliot Wigginton and his Foxfire (c) project in Redburn Gap, Georgia: my interpretation was: have your students make a study of their immediate world, following their God-given hearts' desires, and their drive to acquire adult vocational competencies, and the curriculum will be served. The results have been -- without exception -- spectacular, awesome.