Gifford Street High School

After School District U - 46 received a grant for video production equipment, Dr. C. R. Bradford brought me on board to create and teach a television production class. Since no such curriculum was in place, I had to create the course from scratch. I didn't want GSHS to invest in an expensive textbook, only to find it was less than desirable, so I wrote my own. The book we are currently using has 70 pages and is complete with illustrations. Regular handouts supplement it.

Grants are nice, but they don't pay for everything. We had to get pretty scrappy with a lot of stuff. The cases for our light kits are "under-the-bed" containers from "The Container Store". The boom arm in these photos is actually an old mop handle.

About Gifford Street High School: Gifford Street High School is the alternative educational program for School District U-46. People assume that they are the "bad kids"; the "dumb ones" - they are not. They are the students who learn differently. And they are the students who are castigated because of it. If we learned anything from Howard Gardner, it is that reading books and writing papers is only one type of intelligence. We, teachers need to address those other types-which is exactly why Principal Dr. C. R. Bradford asked me to create this program.

It is easy to say, "If a kid can't learn, the student has failed." I say, "If a kid can't learn, the teacher dropped the ball." Our educational system seems to think that it is easier to medicate students than to make lesson plans more interesting. To the teachers of America, I say, "quit teaching English and Math and start teaching STUDENTS". Figure out HOW to teach them before you figure out WHAT to teach them. When you do that, all of your standardized test problems will go away.

The big project is writing, producing, directing and editing Elgin Alive, a News Magazine Show about Historic Elgin. To learn more about it, press the link below.