Welcome to Harbor City International! We are a public, tuition-free charter high school located in downtown Duluth, Minnesota. Our focus is on college preparation, and we offer a rigorous academic curriculum in an atmosphere of belonging and respect. Because we are a small school with excellent student-to-teacher ratios, each student thrives under personal attention and individualized support. Our students develop critical thinking skills and a mindset of success in the care of teachers who are dedicated to the educational process and passionate about their fields of study.

We invite you to explore our website to learn more about our outstanding programs. Whether you’re interested in enrolling or you’re a current HCIS parent or student, you’ll find an abundance of information to help you make the most of your time with HCIS.

Acquiring Scripts and Learning for Life

An important part of our learning throughout life involves acquiring scripts. Scripts are predictable sequences of events in life. As an example, at the end of each work day I back out of my parking space going straight back with a slight left hand turn that allows me room to pull out of the parking lot without hitting other cars. I know the sequence of events, or script, for this experience: start the engine, put the gear in reverse, look left and right, press the gas, and turn the steering wheel slightly.

One day I followed the script I have learned and I almost hit a large trash dumpster someone had placed behind my parking space. I almost hit the dumpster because I was intent on following the script I had learned, which did not include a step to avoid hitting the trash dumpster behind my truck.

There are two ways we acquire scripts. One is to intentionally collect information that leads to the rules for a script, and the second is to guess using information gained from past experience. In the example I used, I acquired a script for backing out of my parking space based on repeated experiences.

Research shows that early in our lives we automatically use everyday events to extract scripts rather than trying to actually learn from specific experiences. These findings also indicate that we can't remember specific early experiences while we are infants until we have actually learned scripts that help us understand the events we are experiencing. Scientists use the term "childhood or infantile amnesia" to describe the phenomenon.

As adults, we are much better at learning scripts from a single event because we have much more experience collecting information from similar situations. While we may note exceptions in a particular experience, the similarities are reliable indicators of what we may expect. This observation is especially true if we associate a sense of urgency with a specific event.

Teenagers are caught between the early experiences of childhood and the myriad experiences of adults. In fact, they often acquire scripts that work well for teenagers, but may work against them in the adult world. For example, acquiring a script that apathy in school makes you cool with your friends may help one's popularity in high school, but apathy leaves one at a disadvantage after his/her high school graduation.

At Harbor City International School we often discuss standards for our students, but we are really discussing the scripts we want our students to learn so that they are likely to succeed in life following high school. How does one dress to fit the occasion? How does one behave to show respect or consideration for others? Why do we work hard to achieve our goals?

The answers to these questions set forward the quality of the scripts our students learn. The quality in the scripts they learn from us will hurt them or help them when they leave us to make their way in the world. Setting high standards gives our students an advantage in this regard and prepares them to succeed.

Sincerely,

John Haire, Ph.D.
Executive Director