SPRING 2013
P10.V53.I4
Page 10A
DJNF Teacher of the Year
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‘The readiness is all’
Preparing our students to be both nimble
and flexible both in thinking and in
expectation of what the future may look like
may be the best guidance we can give
cyan
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Adviser Update
By Ellen Austin
Ellen Austin
is the News Fund’s 2012
Journalism Teacher of the Year.
She advises the Viking sports
magazine (vikingsportsmag.
com) and is co-adviser to
INfocus broadcast network
(palyinfocus.com) at Palo
Alto (Calif.) HS. She chairs
the Student Press Law Center
Steering Committee and is a
JEA Northern California board
member. She can be reached
[email protected].
H
ockey great Wayne
Gretzky supposedly
said, “I skate to where
the puck is going to be, not
where it has been.”
Ask your students where
they would skate if they were
moving to where the puck will
be in their futures. My hunch is
that after naming a pro career
in their sport of choice or a
Nobel prize-winning cancer
research track, they will likely
start listing the hip tech-based
companies of the day as
their goal: Apple, Facebook,
Google, and the younger
even-hipper versions that are
springing up in tech incubators
in San Francisco, Seattle and
New York.
Best place to learn to skate
to where those pucks will be
in the world of tomorrow’s
opportunities? In our
publication staffrooms. Right
now. Today.
Our staffs bring together the
holy trinity of critical thinking,
tech fluency and adaptability
to change — key skills in
the job markets of their
futures. We are at the leading
edge in providing key core
competencies our students
need as they move into the
shifting sands of what awaits
them in the marketplaces of
their futures.
It’s a buzz kill for an
educator to talk about “getting
a job.” I’m the first to say
that the true reason for a
university education should
be the further shaping of a
honed mind. But the reality is
that our culture does see the
path through high school and
college as providing those
without independent means
to live a life of leisure with the
skills to find and sustain a
career of meaning, whatever
that entails.
Preparing our students to
be nimble and flexible both in
thinking and in expectation of
what the future may look like
may be the best guidance we
can give.
The sort of rapid change
we are living through right
now is not easy, and it’s not
comfortable. We are living
in a moving target of the
“how” of both journalism and
education; and maybe even a
flux in the “what,” as well.
Since science, tech and
math are the buzz words
du jour, we have a great
opportunity to save our
journalism programs — and
grow them — by “co-branding”
as tech hotspots in our
schools. We need to do a
better job of training our
administrators and our
school community that we
are where the rubber hits the
road in terms of 21st century
readiness.
As Hamlet put it, “The
readiness is all.”
Where else in a high
school do students have daily
experience with tweaking
HTML code, converting file
formats and installing widgets
as part of their English
Update photo courtesy of Ellen Austin
DIGITAL— Alumni editors from the 2012 Viking staff leave a digital “message” on a desktop computer for the current staff during a visit to Paly on
their university break last fall.
coursework?
Where else are students
thinking in terms of crosscollaborative work teams,
since that term aptly describes
what happens when a writer,
editor, photographer and
designer start moving through
a story package?
Where in our schools
(outside of the computer
programming class) do our
kids get a chance to try and
try and revise and revise and
plug in a piece of software
(that doesn’t work) and try
again?
“You have to be there and
get what you want done, but
be ready to adapt,” current
Viking co-editor-in-chief Nora
Rosati (’13) says.
But wait, there’s more.
Facebook’s Mark
Zuckerburg and Microsoft’s
Bill Gates recently joined
forces on a campaign that
emphasizes ability to code
(as in computer code) as a
necessary skill today and
into the future. Learning to
code for free online with
Codecademy is another
trend. Dropbox creator Drew
Houston likens those coding
skills to a “superpower.”
If that’s true, then for our
publications which run online
sites that are a daily exercise
in digital media and a little
coding, it means we are
advising a veritable room full
of super heroes.
Au contraire, Pierre, you
say? The world of tomorrow
needs fewer screen kids
and more world citizens
who look up at their fellow
humans instead of a digital
representation of same?
We’re on the same page
there, too.
Get