But as long as high schools are full of teenagers, education will always be a battle — or balance — of wills. Any learning achieved should be celebrated; any obstacles examined and removed.

        So it is at the newly equipped Western Hills Design Technology High School. Part of a citywide restructuring of public high schools, this west side mini-school opened two weeks ago to 200 ninth-graders.

        Here teachers plan lessons in teams, so each class feeds into another and students develop relationships with teachers.

        Wednesday morning, an Integrated Math class of about 20 students hunched over high-powered Texas Instruments calculators. They were learning how to access the first chapters of their math textbook, which had been loaded into the minicomputers.

High-tech learning

        The room was dark and silent. Equations were displayed on an overhead projector. Not a student squirmed as they confidently punched buttons and scrolled through display screens, as if they were engrossed in a computer game, not a math lesson.

        I wanted to shout into the unnatural silence, “Don't you kids know this is math? You're not supposed to be this interested.”

        I kept quiet. A classroom full of budding geeks should be encouraged in public school.

        Just down the hall, a larger group seemed more typical of Tristate classrooms.

        In this English class there was strutting, primping and flirting among the hormone-addled, some class clowning, some back talking. Then there were the quiet, studious types.

        They all were supposed to be learning how to structure an essay. The assignment: Write for or against legalized hunting.

        Half the students seemed more interested in their bladders, which seemed weaker than most pregnant women's. One by one they pleaded for hall passes and trotted out of class.

        The teacher, Christine Huber, patiently went over and over again how to write an essay. She even whispered it into some students' ears.

        “They're squirrelly today,” she explained mildly.

        For some kids, standards of behavior and scholarship have to be lowered because of mental disability or behavior disorders, explained principal Herbert Smitherman.

        Put those kids into an $80,000 design technology lab, and it doesn't change things.

Individualized lessons

        This high school maintains two technology labs with computer-based learning centers, or modules, that introduce students to various applications of technology. They learn bits of digital photography, automotive diagnostics, the physics of construction, computer-aided design, computer repair and manufacturing.

        “It's based not on careers but on interests,” said Mr. Smitherman.

        Quizzes, in-school exercises, and tests are done on computers. Students learn at their own pace and move on when the computer system says they're ready.

        But this experiment in individualized learning has pitfalls. The labs are crowded. Students double up on each module, ostensibly working in teams.

        On Wednesday, the English class was there, keeping technology instructor Jeff Carle hopping. As he helped one pair of students, others quickly dialed up music videos on the Internet.

        Some students concentrated on lessons. One girl briefly tried getting her partner to help with a computer troubleshooting exercise. But the partner showed no interest.

        So the girl completed the lesson by herself.

        E-mail damos@enquirer.com or phone 768-8395.

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