So I'm the teacher/adviser for a fairly successful high school newspaper (and yes, I realize "fairly successful" and "newspaper" don't seem to go together much these days).
As a result, I get semi-regular queries from start-up websites looking to provide "opportunities" to my young journalism students. Inevitably, these "opportunities" are really nothing more than free labor -- the websites need local content, and they need it cheap.
The latest query came earlier this week, and it asked for the names of students who might want to produce content for a website focusing on local high school sports. Students would get "experience" and "published clips" ... but no pay.
Here is my response, with all names removed to protect me from lawsuits.
***
Dear _________
You should know that my policy, formed over several years now, is that I do
not forward "opportunities" to my students that are unpaid. The print
journalism business -- in which I have a fairly long track record -- has
historically been one of the better industries about paying interns the
actual wage rate of a rookie reporter/copy editor/page
designer/photographer. But as it's been morphing, and as once-proud
institutions have been slowly shrinking and dying, the pool of paid
internships has dried up.
The result has been the rise of opportunities like yours, in which students
are paid in "clips" and "experience." Of course, I already pay them in clips
and experience, and I also offer a grade and camaraderie and an audience of
their peers and instant feedback and all kinds of other intangibles.
Plus, if they start writing for you, they quit writing for me -- which
doesn't exactly help my program.
Sorry about my mini-rant, but if you and other web-based content providers
want quality content, you're going to have to start paying for it. Arianna
Huffington already got her corporate pot of gold, and I'm not willing to be
part of the labor supply chain for Huffington Post wannabes who want to take
advantage of innocent and naive high school students by offering them
"opportunities" they already have as members of my staff.
Sincerely,
Karl Grubaugh
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
Teaching reading
I've been a secondary school teacher – mostly high school, with a few years of middle school experience earlier in my career – for more than 25 years.
I know, within a couple of days, which of my students have been life-long readers, and which students have spent way too much time in front of an electronic tube. I also know it's too late to catch up in high school.
My own three children are an interesting case study. My 20-year-old daughter is a college sophomore, and she was a voracious reader from earliest elementary school. My wife and I (more my wife than me) read to our kids every day when they were small, for probably an hour and often longer. When they were really small, we often had to read the same book over and over again (I can still recite "Goodnight Moon" from memory). In elementary school, my daughter quickly became an independent reader who wanted to read for pleasure.
My oldest son's story is similar, although he has a love for history – he was reading David McCullough in the fifth grade. Today, he gobbles up a daily newspaper and, every week, several magazines. A high school junior, he probably reads 75-100 books a year – Jon Krakauer is a recent fave of his, and he's loving Bill Bryson's humor and his older book, "The Mother Tongue: English, and How It Got That Way."
But my youngest, a seventh grader, is very different. He didn't "take off" as a reader the way his older siblings did. He's much more bodily kinesthetic, and he'd rather run around and practice various sports skills than read.
At least he used to. But in the last 12-18 months or so, reading has exploded for him, too. He loves Harry Potter. He's read all the books in the Narnia series. He often can be found, fairly late at night, with a flashlight and a book under the covers. (He doesn't know we're aware of his late-night habits.)
We limited his screen time to a couple of hours a week. We encouraged and helped him find stuff to read that he enjoyed. And I think he's nearly caught up to where his older brother and sister were at his age.
The point? Kids develop at different rates. We should celebrate their gains and growth and remember that a slow reader today might sizzle tomorrow. And so we should continue to emphasize the things that work (parents reading to young children, making lots of interesting, age-appropriate reading material available to emerging readers, parents modeling a love of reading, etc.) and we should continue to limit things that get in the way (excessive screen time in particular).
My youngest son would love to be a professional baseball player someday. If he makes it that far, he'll also be the unusual athlete with a stack of books on the top shelf of his locker.
I know, within a couple of days, which of my students have been life-long readers, and which students have spent way too much time in front of an electronic tube. I also know it's too late to catch up in high school.
My own three children are an interesting case study. My 20-year-old daughter is a college sophomore, and she was a voracious reader from earliest elementary school. My wife and I (more my wife than me) read to our kids every day when they were small, for probably an hour and often longer. When they were really small, we often had to read the same book over and over again (I can still recite "Goodnight Moon" from memory). In elementary school, my daughter quickly became an independent reader who wanted to read for pleasure.
My oldest son's story is similar, although he has a love for history – he was reading David McCullough in the fifth grade. Today, he gobbles up a daily newspaper and, every week, several magazines. A high school junior, he probably reads 75-100 books a year – Jon Krakauer is a recent fave of his, and he's loving Bill Bryson's humor and his older book, "The Mother Tongue: English, and How It Got That Way."
But my youngest, a seventh grader, is very different. He didn't "take off" as a reader the way his older siblings did. He's much more bodily kinesthetic, and he'd rather run around and practice various sports skills than read.
At least he used to. But in the last 12-18 months or so, reading has exploded for him, too. He loves Harry Potter. He's read all the books in the Narnia series. He often can be found, fairly late at night, with a flashlight and a book under the covers. (He doesn't know we're aware of his late-night habits.)
We limited his screen time to a couple of hours a week. We encouraged and helped him find stuff to read that he enjoyed. And I think he's nearly caught up to where his older brother and sister were at his age.
The point? Kids develop at different rates. We should celebrate their gains and growth and remember that a slow reader today might sizzle tomorrow. And so we should continue to emphasize the things that work (parents reading to young children, making lots of interesting, age-appropriate reading material available to emerging readers, parents modeling a love of reading, etc.) and we should continue to limit things that get in the way (excessive screen time in particular).
My youngest son would love to be a professional baseball player someday. If he makes it that far, he'll also be the unusual athlete with a stack of books on the top shelf of his locker.
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