David Wyatt’s father always told him, “‘Never stop learning.'”

And David did just that during his senior year at Monument Mountain Regional High School. He learned during every step of his WISE project.

Interested in video production, David filmed, edited and produced a documentary about the WISE program at Monument Mountain. He traveled to WISE events and interviewed faculty at MMRHS, gaining perspective on what it means to succeed, whether in college or in general.

“I would always get annoyed, because [my dad] would bring that [piece of advice] up every day,” said David. “But through WISE…I can definitely see that there is always stuff to be learned.”

David plans to attend Vincennes University in Indiana in the fall, where he will continue learning about video production as a Television Production major.

Watch David’s WISE presentation, which includes a trailer for his WISEmentary, here.

Excerpts from David’s WISEmentary

The WISE community at Monument Mountain High School speaks out about their WISE program. Below is a collection of quotes from David’s WISEmentary.

Marianne Young, Principal at MMRHS

 

“I think WISE…fits perfectly [within] Monument’s mission to engage everyone in our community…I think WISE is…a leader in the way we think about education.”

 

Ed Barrett, Teacher and WISE Coordinator at MMRHS

“[Students] still have a lot of freedom [in WISE] to create, to fail or succeed, which I think is really unique. I don’t think there are that many programs that will just say to a student, ‘It’s okay if you fail…It’s okay to not reach your goal as long as you have taken steps towards it and learned along the way.’”

“No one is going to tell you, ‘On this day have this done. On this day have that done.’ You may set up a timetable with your mentor, but you’re still responsible for it…If you’re not going to do it, no one else is doing it for you. And people are going to say, ‘Okay, you didn’t do it. Here are the consequences.’…And that’s, I think, a dose of reality that a lot of students don’t get until they reach the job market…So I think [WISE] is a little bit of an easing in process, even though it might not feel that easy to the students when it’s happening.”

Alex Berliner, 2013 WISE Graduate

“[WISE] is beneficial to the individual who is doing the WISE project and…the person who goes to watch it…You can learn a lot from these things. It’s a whole semester of people putting in their work and research on information they just learned or they had previous knowledge of.”

 

William Fields, Founding WISE Coordinator at MMRHS

“I must have ten different high schools’ programs that we looked at, and we tried to take little bits of each and then work it into Monument Mountain, [into] what works for us. And what works for us is…not…set guidelines with a handbook…because that was actually what we were trying not to do. We wanted to give seniors an opportunity the second half of their senior year to explore something that they would never have gotten the chance to in a regular academic setting.”

“[WISE] morphed into what [Monument Mountain] wanted, and we sold it on the fact that it was going to be a Monument Mountain model, not a model from another high school.”

Vic Leviatin, WISE Founder

“WISE is one of the best staff development programs you could imagine. You don’t have to be a certified teacher in order to be a mentor. Some of the best mentors we’ve had have been custodians, security people, secretaries….Every adult in the building is a teacher, potentially. And WISE allows that to happen.”

 

David Wyatt, 2014 WISE Student

“Originally when I heard about WISE, being totally honest, I thought the journal was busywork or not important. And I take that back fully, because I look back now and see why it is so important…The journal is the documentation for WISE…You are documenting everything that is going on in your life as well as what you learn [and the] issues you come across…So that’s a valuable part of this whole program.”

Nancy King, Teacher, Mentor, and Task Force Member at MMRHS

 

“The WISE process is a journey of personal growth. And..I think recording their experiences in the journal [is] going to allow [the students] to reflect back on it and see areas of growth [that] maybe at the time they didn’t feel were areas of growth.”

 

Tara Birkett, Teacher and Mentor at MMRHS

“I know the WISE program doesn’t start officially until the second semester, but I found it helpful to meet with students at the very beginning of the year to really understand what their project is going to be…Once the second semester does start, I meet [with them] every single week and look at their journal, ask them questions, make sure they are on track. Most of the time it is a fairly easy process, because the students are motivated.”