This week, my high-school aged son has been uber-excited about his
Journalism class. He's not a particularly strong writer, nor does he
like to engage people in conversation (which, I think, is an essential
element to reporting). He's more of a computer science and science guy,
so I have been quite intrigued at this new-found interest in
journalism. There's something special going on in his journalism class,
though, which must be recreated in all classes, in all subjects, at all
times. He has been so excited about it he talks about it all the
time-so much that I think he doesn't go to any of his other classes
(which is, of course, not true); he's so excited about it that he has
trouble getting to sleep at night-he can't wait to get back there.
My
son's Journalism class is not run like a class at all; it's run like a
newsroom. Let me explain: When the students walk into class at the
appointed time, they are greeted by Upperclassmen who are the managing
editors of the paper. These managing editors run the class. Journalism
students sit at a seminar table and "pitch" their stories; then they are
assigned duties by the managing editors (remember, these are,
themselves, students). The students spend the rest of the week working
on completing their assigned tasks-tasks that they requested so have a
vested interest in completing and doing well.
There are no grades
in this class. This is not necessarily something that my son is
enthused about. He understands that if he does not do his job, if he
misses a deadline, if he publishes material with typos or bad
information, then his reputation is at stake. People who read his
material (if it is, in fact, shoddy) will understand that he is not a
reputable reporter, or that he doesn't complete his work with care. He
also understands that it takes a lot of hard work to recover from
mistakes like this. This public pressure is a more powerful motivator
than any prospect of him earning an A. My son is a good student, but he
has never worked so hard for any other class.
All classes should
be like this! This is a class that teaches students to take on
leadership roles, to pick work and projects that interest them, to
create, and more importantly, it teaches real-world skills. Here's what I
mean by that (because I know "real-world skills" is a phrase overused
and sometimes meaningless): The real-world does not involve people
sitting and waiting for others to feed them information that they must
memorize and regurgitate. In the real world, people find projects that
interest them, research, investigate, inquire, then create. If we
teachers can turn our classrooms into places of inquiry and creation,
allow students to work on projects that interest them, students will
learn skills and content, but more importantly they will not want to
miss it, AND they will be cultivating skills that they can use when they
leave school. Let's get our students to create!