Remaking student journalist freedom when its already there
Jim Anderson down here in Olympia, a teacher and a blogger, writes a great education centered political blog. Today he takes on the effort to protect student journalists:
One thing Schraum, Watts, and everyone else should agree upon: in Watts' words, "Too little faith is put in students' ability to determine appropriateness and to handle controversial topics." I want student journalists to be given greater responsibility to challenge and provoke their peers in the service of learning. My desire, though, arises from practical, not sacred, obligations. It's because I want smarter, savvier journalists, not because of a righteous misreading of the First Amendment.
There are other ways to get administrators to cave, each a potential civics lesson. Protests. (Professional) media coverage. Angry parent phone calls. Reasoned, impassioned argument. And, dare I say it, blogging. Ill-founded, won't-survive-the-appeals-court lawsuits aren't the answer.
I have to admit, even though I'm a former student journalist myself, I have to admit I didn't pay much attention to this issue until I read Jim's post. And, I'll admit, I agree with him. Most of us have read horror stories of administration censorship of student run papers, but I wonder how applicable they are any more. I mean, what is stopping a student reporter/editor from simply putting whatever censored piece online? And, who's to say that an online, well run, student publication without any censorship from school officials wouldn't be better than a "school paper."
My first experience in publishing was when my high school's literary journal folded after the advisor left for another school. No teacher picked up the slack to sponsor it, so a handful of students got together and put out our own. It didn't last very long, but it came out more often, included some pretty bad, but very emotional stuff that we didn't get into our school sponsored journal. We took care of the distribution by handing it out to our friends. And, even though we eventually got lazy and quit doing it, we were never edited because it was our own.
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