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It's crazy that in a system that is meant to teach and help the youth,

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there's no voice from the youth at all.

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If students designed their own schools, what would school look like?

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SANDY: Crime and Punishment is first and foremost a test.

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Probably something like this: no quizzes, no grades, not even classes.

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And most of the time, no teachers or any adults in the classroom.

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Sandy: It's a completely alternative academic program. We have 9 kids in it.

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We look at the 4 main bodies of learning: English, Math, Social Sciences and Natural Sciences.

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This is a school within a public high school, designed by the students themselves.

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The program, known as the Independent Project, runs for one semester

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and is divided into three parts.

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All follow the same basic rule: design your own learning.

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Every monday, each students comes up with a question he or she is curious about.

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It should be related to one of their core subjects.

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Peter: The most important thing about your question is that you actually want to know the answer.

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They spend the week doing research or experimentation.

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And on Friday, they give a formal presentation to share what they've learned.

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Peter: If the question is yours, the answer is going to feel great when you obtain it.

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Peter: My goal every presentation is to be as engaging as possible

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and make my care for my subject as infectious as possible - try to make everyone catch it.

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The week I visited, the questions touched on diverse topics that included...

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unexplained mysteries, the novel Crime and Punishment,

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the naturalist John Muir, a local music establishment called Music Inn,

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and HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

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Jake: For a week, I went out and took a flight lesson

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and built myself a model airplane.

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Each day, I wanted to know why a wing generates lift.

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And it was that question that kept guiding me through all this research and it was fun research.

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These weekly questions usually take up half of their time.

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The other half is spent on their individual endeavor,

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which is a much more ambitious project that they work on for the entire term.

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Some learn to play an instrument for the very first time and put on a recital.

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Sergio: In two short years, I've learned

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to play the piano fairly well. I can play with other people.

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I'm in a band now. I can hold a beat.
I can play.

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Others work on writing a book and a collection of poems.

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Matt: I try to write 2 to 4 hours a day.
A 1 hour day is really bad

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and a 5 or 6 hour day is excellent.

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Some choose to devote their time to researching topics such as education or the environment.

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Again, it's whatever they decide, as long as it demonstrates effort, learning

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and a mastery of skills.

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Joe: The thing you center your semester around doesn't have to be academic.

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It can be something that you can really develop a strong passion for.

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Peter: This year my Individual Endeavor has been a complete blast.

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I've been making a mockumentary of the kids in my school.

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It's been an organic process, a lot of improv. There's no script. I've been making it up as I go.

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I think I've gotten better work from having it open ended.

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Your friends can suddenly think of something and you build onto that and they build back onto that

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and you have something that's 20 times funnier than you originally thought.

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Aside from the weekly questions and the Individual Endeavor, students also spend the last three weeks

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working on a group project, called the Collective Endeavor.

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Here, they are starting to debate what they should do.

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The goal of the Collective Endeavor is to produce social impact and to make a difference.

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Peter: Just tell me why you're clearly not digging it and I want to know why.

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But as you can see, it's also a chance for this group to practice collaboration skills

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and to unite around a common cause.

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Self-directed learning in small doses can be found at many schools

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but few public schools have taken it to this extreme.

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Giving students full control of their school day was a big gamble on the part of the principal,

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Marianne Young: "My personal and professional investment

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in these opportunities is to create a school and a way of educating young people

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that allows them to be completely invested

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and to stop trying to move every kind of human being through the same gate."

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When the Independent Project was first proposed,

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it was met with a lot of resistance from some of the teachers,

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who felt there were too many unanswered questions.
"What's the role of the teacher?

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Who decides what's good work?
Who decides what earns credit

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and merits a diploma from this high school?

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The project did find strong support from the guidance counselor

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and a few teachers who became advisors.

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So Principal Young agreed to pilot it not once but twice.

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This is the second pilot.

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Lisa Baldwin: It's a pretty good risk to
take on a student to allow them an opportunity

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for this sort of independent freedom and thinking because it can't really fail.

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I can't tell you how many times the question get me thinking

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and then I go and try to learn or refresh.

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Everyone has gained or will gain something positive.

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After two trials, what tangible benefits do they see?

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First the Independent Project seems to accommodate different types of learners:

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both the straight A students and those who have been struggling academically.

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Sergio: I have dyslexia so it's very hard reading and writing and doing those sorts of things.

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School has always been a big problem for me. If not for this program,

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I don't know if I'd be graduating. I don't know where I would be right now.

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So I think this has been my savior and got me through the last two years of high school.

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Free from assigned work and tests, they are able to focus on the one thing

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that motivates everyone to learn:
their own passions.

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Joe: I think I've stayed up at night doing work more times this semester

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than in previous 3 years of high school.

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Sandy: I think every single person wants to learn about something.

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Even kids who are barely going to classes - they want to learn something

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and whether that's auto mechanics or the physics of skateboarding

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or how ice cream is made. Everybody's interested in something.

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And this gives you the room and space to really learn whatever you want.

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Another key benefit: learning becomes a group activity.

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There's mutual support every step of the way, starting with the morning check in.

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Mike: It's called the Independent Project but I don't think it can be any more

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dependent on a number of things.

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This program is really dependent on people working together.

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It's dependent on people pushing each other, giving constructive criticism, giving support,

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giving praise. It's dependent on people using resources and finding resources.

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It's dependent on being creative. It's dependent on learning how to ask a question.

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Peter: Group dynamic is everything. That's like one of the most important concepts of

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this program: You are not only doing it for yourself

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but you're doing it for your group-mates. It's like a team.

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Sophie: I enjoy being with people as interested in what they're doing

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as I am in what I'm doing even though we're not doing the same thing.

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Peer support also means peer pressure to stay on track

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and follow through on your commitments.

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Annalena: If you blow off the independent project, you're letting 8

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of your friends down and that feels a lot different than getting a D on a test.

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It feels a lot worse so in that way, there's a lot more pressure to do well than in normal school

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because in normal school you're letting down one person,

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whereas here you're impacting a huge group of people really negatively.

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Do you guys criticize each other?
Yes, period. Yes. That's definitely the hardest part.

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The most visible benefit however is the ownership that students feel over their learning.

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Sandy's presentation on Crime and Punishment sparked a lively discussion but didn't go as planned.

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Although no one else noticed it, he felt he lost control of what he wanted to say.

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SANDY: I just faltered and I couldn't get
the grasp on the book I wanted to grasp.

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And what really frustrated me was that I wanted to give them a taste of what I have learned and

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it felt like the taste I gave them was probably rancid.

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I slipped up on that and that kind of made me upset.

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For the following week, he assigned himself a five page essay

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so he can present his thoughts more coherently.

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During another presentation, Joe started to describe a logic problem he learned to solve.

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Before he could present the answer and without any prompting from him,

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the other students formed two small groups

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and solved the problem themselves, using two different approaches.

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Sandy: I like the way you guys did it. That's a much more innovative way to do it.

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This is like, I don't have anything else, I'm just going to go for it.

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Peter: The world we're coming into right now - we're going to really be on our own.

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We're not going to be able to rely on our elders telling us what to do.

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It's going to be us telling us what to do and responsible for the next generation trying to help them.

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The only way we can learn lessons and be individuals and autonomous is if we do it by ourselves.

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Are students capable of teaching themselves?

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And is it enough for teachers to be mentors and coaches?

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These are the tough questions being asked and tested

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at the most innovative schools around the world.

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Marianne Young: I think the more options we have in our schools

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the more students we will help develop into the citizens we need.

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And it's ok for you to need a little bit of a different approach from mine.

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Mike Powell: The power of a young mind is pretty impressive. One, they're so resilient.

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Two, they're extremely creative.
Three, they're fearless. They'll try anything.

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So the qualities that many many teenagers have go very well with a program like this,

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which makes sense… it was developed by a teenager.

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The Independent Project itself continues to evolve...

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but students are taking pride in the fact that dozens of schools around the world

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have already expressed interest in their model

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and may soon replicate their program elsewhere.

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Sandy: It would mean the world to me if just one other school saw this video and said,

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"Let's start an Independent Project."
That's all I want.

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If that happens then more students will finally get to have

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their say in how to reform education for the 21st century.