Thoughts on Television & Film (Part II)

As I finished up the readings for the module this week I found myself contemplating deeper connections between my classroom practices and the arts of TV/film. At first, it was challenging for me to come up with more "imaginative bridges" between these arts. This seems to be a common trend! Once again, I sat down to write my entry and had to seriously consider all that I have learned. I worked over a period of several days to brainstorm as I tried to stretch my train of thought. As teachers, we often design our lessons with hopes of getting our students on the path to thinking more abstractly. With this in mind, I found myself having trouble doing the same thing while interacting with the lessons and ideas in the readings this week. Once I finally found a reasonable way to relate the realm of these arts with the field of education, things became clearer. Then I had my "AH HA!" moment. At this point I felt a sense of relief  I am attributing my minor "writer's block" to part of the overall learning process. I find it important to record my thoughts on certain areas of my learning progress throughout this seminar as a way to gauge my personal growth. 

One article in particular stood out to me this week as the ideas within proved to be very compelling for me. I spent a great chunk of time reading through the main points on tvjournalist.net. I discovered that reporters work much like teachers. I was able to pull key ideas from their field of work while relating it to my own. For example, educators must be very knowledgeable on the specific needs of our audience as we decide what objectives and skills to cover each day. Furthermore, I found the parts of the news story to be very similar to the components of a solid lesson plan. Capturing "interest" is the first step and using appropriate "visuals"/"statistics" is key to enhancing the presentation. Students and viewers alike both want to know the "why", or the reason this information is being presented to them. This explanation reinforces the overall "focus" of the goal in mind. "Conflicting viewpoints" open up the possibility for great discussions related to the topic on the table.

Teachers are like reporters in the sense that they are avid researchers. The work is based on facts and concrete evidence. Everything is data driven and in the best interest of our students. Just as a news story is created for a target audience, teachers must keep in mind the most important audience of all- their students! Communication is crucial in all areas of this line of work and in both fields. I will continue to think about these ideas and more as I finalize my module project for this week.