Body lagging but mind racing

Hawaii is three hours behind Arizona, so I find myself unable to fall asleep.  In addition, my mind is filled with thoughts, ideas, questions from Day Two of the Reynolds High School Journalism Institute.  Steve has mentioned many times that we have to set our students up to succeed and then set them to work. Today was a perfect example. Our task was to participate in an afternoon press conference with Arizona media man Randy Lovely then, in two hours, submit an article and an edited photo. Why were we able to accomplish the task rather than sit in front of our computers paralyzed? What skills were  needed? We needed to be able to efficiently take and use notes. We needed to craft a lead. We needed to know what to put after the lead. How did Steve set us up to succeed? In the morning, we practice observing scenes and listening to speech clips and taking notes. We shared and discussed how we chose the notes to take. He introduced a variety of lead types (more than I knew existed) and we practiced in groups writing two types of leads for a vignette we had taken notes on. Again we shared and learned from each other. Next, we practice choosing a quote to follow our lead. Steve provided slides that walked us through to the end of writing an article but, to be honest, my brain was full by then. Finally, we had a session on editing a photo. Now we had all the tools we needed to accomplish the task. (I hope Steve will agree that we accomplished the task.)

It is so easy as teachers to complain that our students don't do this, can't do that, etc. We have to step back and think WHY they don't do or can't do or ....  The majority of my students will tell me there is no good reason they didn't do something. They just didn't; they're lazy.  I have to take a deep breath and remind myself that they don't know what they don't know, so they blame themselves. We, however, need to always be thinking about what they don't know and then set them up to succeed.

Goodnight,
Cindy Reves
McKinley High School
Honolulu, Hawaii