My staff, this past year, was the most diverse ever! I have mostly white girls, except for one black students and one Indian student. For a semester, I had a boy. My students were primarily wealthy. It's pathetic; I know.
At the end of the year, I went to our ELL program and asked for student recommendations. I didn't receive any. I did however get recommendations from other teachers--I spoke with those students and invited them to join the staff--as far as I know, no one has done this.
After taking The Newsroom Diversity Game, I had to start thinking about my progress toward recruiting. I suck! How do I get more students involved? My top kids are awesome, but have a hard time fitting this course in their schedules is difficult. My bottom students are unmotivated and can't be trusted to meet a deadline. They also don't want to learn how to improve, all too often.I'm frustrated. I want more diversity. I want to celebrate our diverse cultures.
However, on another foot, we cover diversity as well as possible. We talk to women and men. We talk to 9, 10, 11, and 12th graders. We talk with teachers and coaches. We talk community members. We try to make our content diverse.
Our speakers have some many awesome ideas for growing a diverse staff! I love the idea of using media to do this. I love the idea of recruiting through social media. I wish I had all of this set up before summer! I would like to have this set and ready to go, so I could see the results sooner rather than later. <sigh>
Jamie Nusbaum
Sheboygan North HS
Sheboygan, Wis.
In addition to the challenges of having a visually heterogeneous class, I've struggled with students wanting to work with only one group of students. For example, the junior girls want to sit together and ignore the sophomores. I think next year I'll organize the class differently to force students out of their comfort zones. I'm excited about next year because I have such an eclectic group.
ReplyDeleteI like the fact that you do your reporting with the different grades and with the different sexes at your campus. It is hard to be diverse when people are just not interested. Perhaps you could start creating jobs like social media engagement editor to get students interested?
ReplyDeleteHeather Jancoski
Desert Sands Middle School
Phoenix, AZ
I have the same issues as Donna. In my school, additionlly, only Sophomores through Seniors can take Journalism as an elective. That being said, I need to do some more leg work to get freshmen involved at the club/activity level. I am lucky because journalism seems to have attracted a wide variety of students in regard to peer groups, gender, and sexual orientation (which we addressed in the session today), but with limited ethnic and racial diversity in the school as a whole, I was bound to have limited diversity on staff. However, I can also do some more leg work here before I "throw in the towel." Diversity may be limited in the school as a whole, but that doesn't mean those few diverse students can't be contributing to the school newspaper.
ReplyDeleteAmelia Wright
West Morris Central High School
Chester, NJ
I like the depth and detail in your post on diversity, Jamie. I saw you captured a screenshot of "The Diversity Game." Did you get as inspired as I did from playing it? Did you learn as much as I did from the subsequent discussion? Did you get enough tips to become more intentional, more aggressive and more creative in making our newsrooms look like the world in which we live and report?
ReplyDeleteStan West
Hales Franciscan High School
Chicago