Journalism

\ˈjər-nə-ˌli-zəm\ the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media

One of the classes I am assigned to teach is Journalism. The school is excited at the prospect of actually having a school newspaper… for the first time in a long time, maybe the first time ever. “What an exciting opportunity!” one might exclaim. Well, yes… and no. You see, there are no newspapers available in Kwethluk other than the Delta Discovery, a locally owned and operated newspaper out of Bethel. The DD comes out once each week, is distributed free in the villages, and has only been in operation for about 3 ½ years. It has been making its way to Kwethluk for less time than that. Therefore, most of my Journalism students have had very little contact with an actual newspaper. Most have NEVER seen a large newspaper.

Add to that the fact that even though the school has one-to-one laptops (a laptop for every student), we are two weeks into the school year and the district has yet to assign the students login IDs. Therefore, there are no, zero, zip, nada computers for the students to use.

Try to teach Journalism to a group of 9th graders in a remote Alaskan village without a newspaper or a computer. Believe it or not, it can be done! I’m doing it!

The most interesting part of class right now is when we do our Journal writing. I (having a computer and projector for teacher use) project an image on the screen and have the students write about it. I tell them to pretend that they are a news reporter (some of them do have TVs and have seen news reports on television) and have just come across this scene. What’s the story? What’s going on? Answer the 5Ws and H (who, what, when, where, why, how). I tell them nothing about the picture until after they have had 10 minutes to write. Then, we discuss. These discussions have been my most teachable moments in Kwethluk thus far. Our first picture was of the new-age bus system that China is building in Beijing. It had been at the top of the Yahoo! news feed over the weekend and provided ample discussion in class Tuesday afternoon.

The next photo for class was of the Running of the Bulls in Spain. It was actually an image of a poster, but the message was the same. While the kids were writing, I had one girl ask me what kind of animal that was. She had never seen a bull. She had never seen a cow, for that matter. When we discussed, I discovered that not one student in the entire class had ever heard of the Running of the Bulls in Spain. Wow! What a teachable moment! They wanted to know what a bull was (a male cow). They wanted to know why only bulls run down the streets. They wanted to know why, why why. It was great. They were interested in class and wanted to know more.

Because of being on a block schedule, we only have class three times each week. So, when we had class on Friday, the picture that I displayed was this one of a community in an area with lots of water around it. The kids wrote furiously for 10 minutes and then when we discussed, they were all certain that it was Napaskiak (a neighboring tundra village). When I asked why, they answered that they could see the tundra and a few of them even identified relatives’ houses. I had to laugh. It was, in fact, a picture of Grand Bayou, Louisiana. Their mouths literally fell open. I explained to them that the "tundra" was actually swampland. I then displayed a map of the United States and showed them exactly where this picture was taken… down at the very southernmost tip of Louisiana – about as far away from Napaskiak as you can get and still be in the United States! Again, they were filled with questions and the discussion was exciting. I explained that the swamp was filled with alligators and people even ate alligator there. The kids all said, “Ew,” in unison and I quickly informed them that the people of South Louisiana would also say, “Ew,” at the prospect of eating seal. The students laughed wildly at this, finding it hard to imagine that people would have never eaten seal before. They loved the fact that where they live looks so much like South Louisiana and want to plan a trip there. Whew! We’ll have to see about that…

Those pictures have motivated my class to see newsworthy items where there was only blank space before. It has brought the outside world to them. It has opened their eyes to the possibilities outside of Kwethluk. Above all, it has motivated them to begin to ask questions. As for me, I've learned that there's more to teaching Journalism than meets the eye!