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| Retha Hill, Director, New Media Innovation Lab Cronkite School addresses Institute participants about how to increase diversity in their programs. |
Discussing Diversity in the session with Retha Hill and Gerald Jordan today got me really thinking about what should be happening in my publications.
My school, Page High School is about 75% Navajo, 20% caucasian, with a smattering of other races.
My publications classes have more white kids than Navajo, and more girls than boys. So, to begin with I have some recruiting to do.
But what concerns me even more is the content of our newspaper and yearbook.
Almost every time we publish I notice lots of the same people showing up repeatedly, or pages or stories that are either predominantly white or Navajo. It would make sense that there are predominantly Navajo pages, but not really predominantly white. I sometimes get the opportunity to have a student go back and make adjustments, but often it is too late. We notice the problems as an afterthought instead of planning ahead.
We need to be more intentional about our efforts to make sure the content of our publications is diverse.
My school, Page High School is about 75% Navajo, 20% caucasian, with a smattering of other races.
My publications classes have more white kids than Navajo, and more girls than boys. So, to begin with I have some recruiting to do.
But what concerns me even more is the content of our newspaper and yearbook.
Almost every time we publish I notice lots of the same people showing up repeatedly, or pages or stories that are either predominantly white or Navajo. It would make sense that there are predominantly Navajo pages, but not really predominantly white. I sometimes get the opportunity to have a student go back and make adjustments, but often it is too late. We notice the problems as an afterthought instead of planning ahead.
We need to be more intentional about our efforts to make sure the content of our publications is diverse.
Does anyone have a proven method they use to get a wider variety of kids in your pages?
Deann McBride
Page High School
Page, AZ
Deann McBride
Page High School
Page, AZ
I don't have a solution for high schools, but perhaps there are lessons in my experience as an AP bureau chief. I took over a bureau that was 90 percent male and white. In five years, through various hires, we were about 50 percent female and far more diverse in terms of race and along other fault lines. My strategy was casting a wider net in terms of how I promoted openings and where I recruited. The result, I found, was more informed news coverage through diversity of perspectives and experiences and more informed conversations in the bureau.
ReplyDeleteSteve Elliott
Arizona State University
Phoenix
I have a similar situation at Santa Clara High School. I have a bunch of AP kids in my class, and they're largely Asian. But the largest ethnic group on campus is Latino (about 30 percent). The AP/Asian kids just write about other kids like themselves. It's like they're not even aware of the non-AP kids. They probably aren't. It's just human, I guess, to imagine the whole world thinks like us. When I started teaching at Santa Clara High, I was shocked to find out that for most of the kids at the school, reading a book was like pulling teeth. If I loved reading, didn't everybody?
ReplyDeleteNext year, I'm thinking I'll try some of the tips I've heard these past two weeks. I'll take Alan's idea: I'll have them list their 10 best friends and then tell them I don't want to see those names appearing in their stories. Maybe I'll also have someone keep a running tally of who was mentioned in the paper that year. If someone gets multiple mentions, that could be a red flag. One of you guys told me you did this - can't remember who.
I also just thought of a lesson plan. At the beginning of the year, I'll have the photo editor teach what makes a good photograph. Then I'll assign them to fan out across campus and take photographs of students. They'll have to hit a lot of different locations. Before they head out, we'll come up with a list of quick who-are-you interview questions. Someone will tabulate the answers and someone will make a slide show of the student photos. We'll watch the slide show and discuss what we learned about who we are as a campus. As a wrap-up, I'll assign them to find the school's demographic data and we'll discuss what surprises if any there are there.