Hi all, a few weeks back I was invited by my local high school to do a presentation on "First Amendment Day." A student found me because of my blog
Smart Mass, Dumb Mass: Commentary on Massachusetts Politics Though I hardly post there anymore (instead I post here and at
Blue Mass Group, this student found my blog and invited me to speak.
The instructions were simple. I would have one hour, two time slots (8-9, 9-10AM), about 30 to 45 students per session, and I would have to talk about the First Amendment. A pretty broad subject as it turns out.
Of course, I was never a "government" student or a poly Sci major (I'm an engineer) so I learned a lot - and I think my students learned more...
In the presentation, I try to call the students' attention to the traditional role of the press as the "Fourth Estate" I also point out some disturbing trends on newspapers and publishers, then talk about the power of blogs and how they might be becoming part of the "Fourth Estate."
The title of the Presentation is "No News is Bad News" - a double entendre suggesting that not getting news is bad for us.
The first group of students (9th and 10th graders) was a group that did not really want to be in my session (or any session). But I did the presentation and just assumed they would learn something. I had two or three in the group who actually listened and participated when I asked questions, but I also had a few who were basically rude - oh well, their loss... I lived up to my end of the bargain, some of them did.
The second group however, was clearly there to listen and learn (they were all 9th graders).
During the presentation, I pointed out the roll the press as the "fourth estate" and how important it is to our democracy - none of the students had heard of the fourth estate.
Fourth Estate
Then I discussed the various forms of "press" While I focused on print and typical TV, I mentioned NPR and Public TV shows like Frontline and News Hour. Then we discussed what happens when the press becomes controlled by the government or unbalanced.
What if...
Biased Media
Next I did a little comparison between TV "news" and newspapers, Asked the students how much TV they watched and showed them some ugly statistics about TV Watching in this country. While the first group I had watched lots of TV, the second group watched relatively little.
TV vs. Newspapers
How Much TV?
TV Scary Statistics
From here, I moved on to scary statistics about Newspapers, how the number of papers have decreased, number of papers printed have decrease, how readership has decreased, and the effects consolidation is having.
Household Readership
Paper stats
Paper stats
Consolidation
Here I stopped and asked the students what they thought the impact of consolidation might be. They clearly "got it"
What if
Then I got to talk about Blogs statistics, blogs in general, and gave examples of their power. The kids were quite surprised and disturbed that Senator Allen is a Racist!
Blog Statistics
Blogs in general
Blog Power Examples
I ended the session speculating on the future of blogs.
The Future
When I finished, they asked me a number of specific questions like anonymous vs non-anonymous blogging. They also asked mey Why do I do it, How did I get started, where online can you set up a blog (I had one student who was already a regular blogger!)
When I finished, I received a nice round of applause, then the teacher spoke up. She gave the kids an assignment. Go Read Daily Kos or other blogs and print out what they read and bring it to school tomorrow to prove that they visited a blog!
Throughout the presentation, I used great quotes from founding fathers and other "famous" people (Famous to me but non of them had heard of Ed Murrow).
At the end of the talk, I knew that at a minimum, these kids would see at least one Blog (DailyKos) and that many would check out other blogs. I knew they "got it" with respect to the role of the press in government and what might happen if the press falls down on the job.
It was a great feeling and to top it off, they asked me back next year!
Mark
While much of the presentation is in my head and the slides are more "prompts" for discussion, reading them might not be to interesting. Regardless I've provided links to them here. They are in my photobucket account so should take plenty of traffic.
Slide1, Slide2, Slide3, Slide4, Slide5, Slide6, Slide7, Slide8, Slide9, Slide10, Slide11, Slide12,
Slide13, Slide14, Slide15, Slide16, Slide17, Slide18, Slide19, Slide20, Slide21, Slide22, Slide23, Slide24, Slide25, Slide26, Slide27, Slide28, Slide29, Slide30, Slide31, Slide32, Slide33, Slide34, Slide35, Slide36
Here are the quote slides: