We all know that kids can do amazing things when given the opportunity. Often, kids crave more responsibility and part of learning in schools is giving kids more responsibility. We want kids to become more independent and grow into curious, self-reliant learners. There are many roles in a school that kids can do instead of adults. Our Leader in Me program helps us identify various roles that kids can take on and many tasks that kids can do instead of adults. After all, we are a community of learners and we all teach each other and learn from each other.
One of the areas in which students have excelled at is the morning news program. Under the direction of the school media specialist, kids present the morning news program to the rest of the school on the closed circuit television station. There is a combination of factors that make a news program good, or bad.
Our fifth graders this year made our news program excellent. They were professional in their jobs, they were lively on-air, and they were fun and engaging. The rest of the school got to see these kids' personalities while they delivered the news. Students and teachers consistently reported that the news was engaging and they got to know the anchors a bit over time.
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In the newsroom, there are four "jobs" that kids can do. We train each kiddo on every job. This cross-training comes in handy when someone is absent or is not able to do the news one day. It is easy to switch around personnel to make sure that the news goes off without a hitch.
We have our "Slider" - the person who controls the PowerPoint slides to correspond with the script that the anchor is reading.
We have our "Scripter" - the person who controls the script, keeping it just ahead of the anchor so that there is never a long pause while delivering the news.
We have the "Sound Master" - the person who controls which video feeds are seen on television and controls the microphones and other sounds. Everything revolves around the Sound Master.
And we have the Anchor - the star of the show. It is imperative that the anchor delivers the news smoothly and with feeling, inflection, and life.
I cannot convey how proud I am of this year's fifth grade news crew. Last week was their last week on the news crew so that we can move fourth graders into those positions for the last two weeks of school. We do so in order for these fourth graders to be ready on Day 1 of next year when the news begins. Our fifth grade team was professional, crazy, fun, and excellent at their jobs. They have set the bar extremely high and the fourth grade team knows it. I have no doubt that next year's news crew will perform as well as this year's team. After all, they had some amazing role models.
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