Rick Burd

Reynolds High School Journalism Institute

ASNE Essay

7 August 2009

The Edge

I want to be a better teacher.  In fact, I want to be the best teacher I canbe.  I want my students to have a betterteacher than they have now.  I know thatthere’s no magic formula; there are no short cuts.  And, so, I keep on pushing forward.  I have been told by a teacher who attendedlast year’s High School Journalism Institute that the rigorous two-week seminarwas one of the most rewarding events of his teaching career.  He highly recommended that I apply for thisyear’s. 

Teaching is my second career, having workedalmost half my life in retail management. As a Career & Technology Educator, most of my classes have beenbusiness and technology based.  Last May,I was asked by our principal if I would be interested in teaching a course injournalism.  I felt honored to be asked,and I accepted unhesitatingly.  Thiswould be Wickenburg High School’s first journalism course, and I felt it wouldbe a great opportunity for me to get involved in a subject that has intriguedme for many years. 

Without curriculum to guide me, I decided to usethe school’s course description as a basis for the direction that thejournalism course would adhere to.  Inthat description, which was written by one of our administrators, it was statedthat the course would include the production of a school newspaper.  “Really?” I thought. “How?”  Nobody seemed to know.

Over the summer of 2008, I decided to makecontact with The Wickenburg Sunnewspaper, a weekly paper that has a circulation of about 5000.  I was extremely fortunate to meet thepublisher of The Sun, Kevin Cloe, whotook an immediate interest in the local high school’s producing its owntabloid.  Mr. Cloe told me that he wouldlike to be involved in the process and promised his expertise and resources tohelp get us started.  I shadowed Mr. Cloefor a day at his paper, met the editor, the sales staff, the production crewand the staff writers; in total, about seven people—fewer than were enrolled inmy journalism class.  However, the helpand the support we received from this group were invaluable.

Wickenburg High School’s first newspaper wasprinted in November, 2008, through the incredible efforts and determination ofa class of 14 dedicated students.  KevinCloe included our first edition as an insert in his weekly newspaper, besidesprinting (at no cost to the school) an additional 500 copies for our campus.  I consider myself most fortunate to have hada senior whom I did not initially know, but who turned out to be agodsend.  The other students elected herto the editor-in-chief position, and she doggedly took upon herself the task oflearning the Adobe InDesign programon her own.  Were it not for this verytalented and creative student, I am quite confident that our first issue wouldhave been severely hindered, if not in extremis.

           I cannotrely on a repetition of the kind of fortune I have had this year in myjournalism class.  Though I have attendedseminars, read books, took on-line courses, subscribed to journalism magazinesand sought advice from professionals, I am still far behind where I would liketo be as a journalism teacher.  In oursecond year journalism class, I intend to use the school’s newly attained cablechannel to do broadcast journalism. Maria Langer, who has written books about WordPress, and who teaches the Lynda.com course on line, happens tolive in Wickenburg.  She has been goodenough to visit our class and talk about on-line blogging, which would workwell with our course.  Our newspaperneeds a web-site, and the students and I would welcome the idea of a highschool radio station. 

We’re a small school in a smalltown.  But, the citizens of Wickenburgare so supportive.  It is my desire to beable to share the expertise of modern journalism with the students, staff andadministrators of Wickenburg High School, and with the community ofWickenburg.  The Reynolds High SchoolJournalism Institute would help me gain that expertise.  I would consider it a high privilege to bechosen to attend your institute.  Yourfaith and trust in me would not be squandered, I promise.