Sophomore Slump: Wait! What?
“Holy Crap Mr. White! It’s December!” exclaimed one of my freshmen.
“You were right! I did blink and the semester is over.” I have to admit. I kind of feel the same way. It’s December. I have to get my plans ready for next semester.
Here’s the deal. This semester, I had less than 20 students total. Before you go all “I have 348 kids in each class and only have 1 chair and 2 8mm cameras,” I am building a new program. Last year, I am fairly certain I had the highest failure rate in the southeast United States. When you have that, it’s hard to come back the next year and have a huge class load and still have kids progress through the system. I also have a VERY understanding administration who believes in doing things the right way no matter the cost. Next semester, I have more kids on my roster than I have seats in my room. I know that number will drop dramatically the first time I explain that they will not only have to be on camera all semester but have to write every day as well. All of my classes next semester are first year classes too!
I had a conversation last week with another teacher about my plan and their response was “Wait? What?” Here’s what I am planning. I have two first year tv production courses. One at the beginning of the day and one at the end of the day… so why not bookend the day with a news show. Seriously two shows a day. Live. On ALL of the internets… as I write that I say “Wait? What?” We are a couple of weeks removed from a kid dropping a “GD” live while we were streaming to 4 different services. (That takes a couple of minutes to find and remove before it goes too public.) Our morning announcements show is going to be the traditional “all of the students and staff watch it at an appointed time” show but our afternoon show will be pushed to social media. Yes, this is aggressive almost to the point of dumb. I get that but I want to make sure that my students are all prepared with the same tools. As I build the program, I want to eventually have layered classes where the upper level students work to help teach the new students and my role becomes more guidance and leadership than hands on teaching every day. My passion isn’t making video professionals but making adults. If I can get the upper level student buy-in then the new students will be lead by a peer and learn more than by being taught by “some old fat man.”
I am actually really excited about doing the 2 shows a day because it allows us to expand our footprint in the county and will help build the program through relationships and marketing. I believe that you have to have community buy-in in order to build a truly successful program that puts kids to work in real, meaningful ways.
My 3rd class next semester is an “Introduction To Digital Media” course. The state standards for this one are interesting. For an intro class, the standards are FAR too complex and since there is currently no “end of pathway” exam, I loosely stay with the standards. This will be the 3rd time I have taught this course and to be honest I still don’t know what I am doing with it. I do think I have a plan for next semester though.
In the past, I had the students do projects in progressive order - learn to use a camera, learn to compose pictures - learn photoshop… I did not like that style of class when I was in school and I loathe it as a teacher. I have to have a reason. What’s the why? Well next semester, the why is going to be social media. I am going to position everything we do in the class around social media. Right now, most of our social media efforts are either reactive or just putting stuff out there to put stuff out there. We are marketing different things but to be honest, it isn’t “cool.” It’s just content. It’s news content.
The projects for the class will be ways to promote events, students, etc but with the student perspective more than the teacher. I’m wrestling with our target audiences for our social media feeds. Right now, I brand out instgram to the students, facebook to the parents, and twitter to sports and media. Doing this will allow me to teach and drive home the idea of target audience to those in the class but will also help me message the content differently. I will have students work to promote the same thing but with different messages because of the different audiences.
Some of the project will be simple still graphics but I will also teach them how to make gifs in photoshop, how to do the really cool connected instagram graphics that as you scroll look like they are one really wide photo, and a ton of video stuff. This will be different from what I have done in the past. Previously, I had the students work toward animating cartoons. I HATE that. It takes too long and makes my ADD tip off the charts.
Next semester will also bring some new stuff to our sports broadcasts. We are going to finish basketball season with a full NDI show. I am pretty excited about that because it will not only allow more students to work on broadcasts but will allow them to work on broadcast more similar to what they can expect at the next level. I am extremely excited to offer those opportunities to the kids.
Finally, as I write this, I realize that I have said “I” and “my” a lot in what I write. This comes from my passion for the plan and the program. I do my best to make everything in this classroom about the students. Not in a “I am a great teacher and you can look at the results to verify” kind of way but in an “I get to serve these students.” My goal is to put the students in the spotlight and make them shine. I have shone for a long time. I have done a ton of really great things in my life but the students need to have some shine. There had been no greater compliment to me this year than when a football coach, who doesn’t work in the school so I have a very limited relationship with, asked me who does the live stream of football games. He knew I did the coaching footage because when I share the footage he gets an automatic email “from” me but he had no idea who did our live broadcasts. That really made me proud because it meant that my exposure in the public eye is very limited. As we move into the next semester and school year, I highly suggest that if you are the face of the program, consider stepping out of the light and let your kids show their face.
