Archive for November, 2011

Visiting a newspaper press

Newspaper printing presses are big-machine loud and inky-greasy dirty. Up close, they look like steam-punk contraptions out of an earlier industrial age. And for me, when I first saw one, magic made out of metal.

I’d like to say my reaction stemmed from something philosophical, say based on the realization of the role a free press plays in a democracy. I’d like to have been thinking of a turn on that phrase Woody Guthrie put on his guitar: “This machine kills fascists.”

read the rest of my column at Pelham Elementary Students Hear, Smell and See the Magic in a Newspaper Press – Pelham, NY Patch.

Fun with journalism

I began my adventure in teaching online newspapering to fourth and fifth grade kids back in January at Pelham’s Colonial Elementary School and added the second, Hutchinson Elementary School, last month. I’m having more fun in journalism than I’ve had in 2o years.

You see, being the jaded journalist is a bit of pose. How can you have the one thing a great journalist needs— curiosity—and be jaded? The kids bring this incredible curiosity to the job, plus energy, and no jade.

One of my favorite moments is when the kids launch their new paper. I have each one type in a few letters of the URL, and then they count down, 5-4-3-2-1, and one of them pushes the enter button. I watch them, not the screen. Up comes the paper and eyes go wide. A couple whisper “cool.” The kids at Hutch did that two weeks ago with the Hutchinson Bear. Check out Pelham’s newest online newspaper.

Any day a newspaper starts up—even one reported and written by nine- and ten-year-olds—is a special one. What’s been started is going to get the news out for months and years to come. The kids don’t know to give up on that good work. And I’m not going to give them reasons to.

Progress on math

When I wrote a column on Pelham’s elementary math curriculum seven weeks ago, I did so with some trepidation. I wasn’t afraid of controversy or outrage. Hardly. I felt the greatest of all writer anxieties: I’d be ignored. The words “math” and “curriculum” in the headline? Instant turn-offs, right? Time to start reading the police blotter.

Boy was I wrong. By the rough measures I have available, the column on Investigations in Number, Data, and Space was the most popular I’ve written. It’s had the greatest number of reader comments, the second highest number of Facebook recommends, and I’m pretty sure it lasted at the top of Pelham Patch’s Most Popular Articles box longer than any other I’ve done yes, that’s a box your columnist obsesses on.

read the rest of my column at Ink By The Barrel: Towards Better Math in Pelham – Pelham, NY Patch.