So, I just finished the syllabus for journalism.

[MoseySusan]

Which of you would like to be my guest speaker during the unit about scholastic journalism and trends in media? 

[Destination]

I'd be willing, but we've got a slight geographic gap.

[UglyBob]

I'd be willing, but we've got a slight geographic gap.

That's what Skype is for...

[Destination]

In that case, it's a possibility.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

In that case, it's a possibility.

 

While there's a language barrier, when you download Skype be sure to also download the add-on that takes out all the unnecessary u vowels from words like favo(u)r, colo(u)r, and such.  It's not perfect but it does render Canadian into a reasonable facsimile of real English.

 

 

[Mr. Silly]

Can I do the lecture on how to use Wikipedia as your primary source to expedite writing the story so you can pocket your per diem?

[Nate]

right here Sue. I'll teach them kids things they can't learn in school

[Mr. Silly]

I have classroom experience.

 

[KrAzY]

I have classroom experience and now afraid of public speaking.... as long as improper grammar is ok

[Kzoo]

I don't right to good and i don't speak to splainly but I've red my fair share of school papers.  I spent 6 years in hi school.  I'd be glad to help.

[Nate]

we need to teach these kids how to do a real boiler room expose on the school board members

 

yellow journalism is still a kind of journalism, you know

[Nate]

 I was actually on my school paper for a semester in high school. I did a feature story thanking the administration for using the clocks around the school to let us know what time it was in various parts of the world, then I did a real story about the use of funds in our district.

 

We were putting all this money in to our football team. Hired a top coach and all his staff, new equipment, sprinkler system in the practice field..all that

 

meanwhile, we could do anything in the computer math class because there wasn't any paper for the printer that semester

 

I interviewed the head of the teacher's union, a candidate for the school board, wrote it all up

 

...and got kicked off the paper and suspended from school

[MoseySusan]

Nate, if your journalism was accurate, unbiased, grammatically correct, and didn't incite disruption, getting kicked off the paper and suspended was illegal action by your school.  There are organizations that advocate for student journalism/journalists.  

[jsharr]

I stole a presentation on plagiarism that I would be glad to present.

[MoseySusan]

I stole a presentation on plagiarism that I would be glad to present.

I can fit that in after our lesson on legal protection from prior review, just as soon as I run it by the principal first.  

[Nate]

Nate, if your journalism was accurate, unbiased, grammatically correct, and didn't incite disruption, getting kicked off the paper and suspended was illegal action by your school.  There are organizations that advocate for student journalism/journalists.  

 

back when I was in school, parents didn't sue schools, they grounded kids

[Nate]

so Sue, I know what you're thinking, but I didn't write a rant. I wrote a good story, but this is how it all went down...

 

The story never got published. I get called down to the office to see Coach Balridge. He used to be the football coach, but after they hired that ringer of a football coach and all his staff, they made Coach Baldridge the Vice Principle in charge of discipline

 

So I go to his office, close the door and sit down. Coach leans back in his chair and puts his arms up behind his head and says in a slow Texas drawl, "so you think you're a writer do ya boy?"

 

I said, " no sir"

 

He says, " a good writer writes about stuff he knows about...take Jack London"

 

this is where it started getting surreal. I was thinking "Call of the Wild", "To Build a Fire"...what the hell, is Jack London some sort of lunatic or something?

 

Then Coach reaches in his desk drawer and produces a copy of my story and slams it on his desk

 

Then he read me the riot act

 

Coach didn't need a script, either

 

Then he told me I was getting moved to office aide during the period we had newspaper and that I was suspended for 3 days (the standard suspension, trust me on that)

 

I had to tell my dad I was suspended, and pop really didn't seem too interested in my Constitutional rights

 

That's just how it was back then

 

Your parents didn't fight your battles and dad didn't want me making a fuss about it, so I was an office aid the rest of the semester and that's just how it went

 

I did manage to steal a hoodlum's ransom in hall passes though

[UglyBob]

I see where you made your mistake, Nate. In Texas football isn't just a game, it's a religion! ;)

[MoseySusan]

back when I was in school, parents didn't sue schools, they grounded kids

The first Supreme Court case regarding student rights under the 1st Amendment was decided in 1969.  You didn't have to file a lawsuit because your rights were protected already.  There are newspapers all over the city, state, and nation who would have gladly tried your case in the court of public opinion.

 

Now, about Jack London...your football coach was more than just a scriptwriter for the riot act.  London is considered one of the foremost feature writers of his era on the topic of imperialism and largely noted for eyewitness accounts of the earthquake that devastated San Franciso in 1906.  His personal adventures, which he recounts in numerous non-fiction pieces and in fiction, are notable for "re-imagining" the American west.  His legacy in journalistic writing has been overshadowed by his successful fiction.  Kind of like John Steinbeck...you remember Steinbeck, right?

[MoseySusan]

I see where you made your mistake, Nate. In Texas football isn't just a game, it's a religion!

...and religion needs a lot of money.  

[Nate]

The first Supreme Court case regarding student rights under the 1st Amendment was decided in 1969.  You didn't have to file a lawsuit because your rights were protected already.  There are newspapers all over the city, state, and nation who would have gladly tried your case in the court of public opinion.

 

Now, about Jack London...your football coach was more than just a scriptwriter for the riot act.  London is considered one of the foremost feature writers of his era on the topic of imperialism and largely noted for eyewitness accounts of the earthquake that devastated San Franciso in 1906.  His personal adventures, which he recounts in numerous non-fiction pieces and in fiction, are notable for "re-imagining" the American west.  His legacy in journalistic writing has been overshadowed by his successful fiction.  Kind of like John Steinbeck...you remember Steinbeck, right?

 

 

rights or no rights, I wasn't going to be fighting anything. My folks didn't want any of that

 

Sometimes a guy has to learn that "right" don't mean nothing.

 

besides, you are looking at the world through modern eyes. Its real easy now to say what I should have done, but you have to understand that parents didn't go fighting kids battles when I was in school. You think I wanted to get the hell beat out of me for being a mommy's boy? That all that would have happened

 

 

its no big deal. I wrote a story, they kicked me out of school, so what? I got to be an office assistant with some pretty girls

 

but don't let that stop anybody from getting up on your high horses

[Nate]

this trip down memory lane reminded me of another time when 3 friends of mine wrote an underground newspaper. We were about 16, but Kenny was in college already, and they wrote a real newspaper that was really political. they talked about the situation in Central America (this was around 1981-82), they wrote about the economy...well, that part was actually pretty Marxist. That was Kenny

 

but anyway...they paid the cost to print 1000 copies out of their own pocket. This was before computers and printers, so printing meant lithography, and it cost money

 

they were distributing the newspaper on campus when they got busted by Mr Collins who confiscated all the copies of the paper they had on them

 

Rick, some days later, tried to get them back but they had been incinerated

 

Somehow the ACLU got wind of the whole deal and wanted to sue the school, but they needed one of the fellas to be a plaintiff (I'm not a lawyer, so please don't bust my chops, I'm just relaying what I remember from a long time ago)

 

Neither Rick nor Kenny's or Dave's folks wanted any part of it and the fellas had to just lose the money for the 500 copies that got burned up

 

I'm saying this to illustrate a different time in our culture. Yes, these days we would have had the national press and a social media firestorm

 

but this was over thirty years ago and when the school said the kids fucked up, then that meant they fucked up and the parents disciplined the kids and that's just how it went

[Pokey]

 I was actually on my school paper for a semester in high school. I did a feature story thanking the administration for using the clocks around the school to let us know what time it was in various parts of the world, then I did a real story about the use of funds in our district.

 

We were putting all this money in to our football team. Hired a top coach and all his staff, new equipment, sprinkler system in the practice field..all that

 

meanwhile, we could do anything in the computer math class because there wasn't any paper for the printer that semester

 

I interviewed the head of the teacher's union, a candidate for the school board, wrote it all up

 

...and got kicked off the paper and suspended from school

Proper civil disobiedence. (Whether or not I can spell it) 

 

As far as the rest of the thread, that's pretty much the same parental attitude when I was growing up. You know...looking back, there were quite a few buttholes running our high school. They would have done the same as yours did to you.

[Nate]

Proper civil disobiedence. (Whether or not I can spell it) 

 

As far as the rest of the thread, that's pretty much the same parental attitude when I was growing up. You know...looking back, there were quite a few buttholes running our high school. They would have done the same as yours did to you.

 yea, its a far cry from today. My parents weren't baby boomers, they're older than that. When dad went to school, girls wore skirts and sweaters and boys wore ties.

 

The school he went to, John Harris here in Harrisburg has bars over the windows now