Students try their hand at making a newspaper

Morgan Wall
The Mount Airy (N.C.) News

October 26, 2009

B. H. Tharrington Primary School is trying out a new concept this year.

Flexible Fridays was instituted by Principal Lydia Lovell to give the students a chance to interact with children in other classrooms as well as other teachers throughout the school and to improve on basic skills.

“Different people in the school all work with the kids. They teach basic skills such as math, reading and writing,” said Desi Watson. “These are different things they are not exposed to normally in a more inventive way.”

Some of the groups are working on math by playing math games. One of the first grade groups is learning to speak Spanish. One group of second graders, curious about the decision to institute this program, decided to create a school newspaper.

“They came up with the idea about interviewing the teachers and students and Mrs. Lovell about Flexible Fridays and they came up with the list of questions,” said Watson. “They did the interviews and now they are working on writing a paragraph or two story to print in newspaper format for the school.”

“We thought it would be cool,” said Pation Levill of the decision to make a newspaper.

While the idea of making a newspaper seemed cool at first, the students soon learned that a great deal of work would have to go into the process. They divided into groups to interview Lovell and a handful of teachers and students. They had to create a list of questions for each group and then practice delivering the questions to each other.

“It’s been a long, drawn out process. They thought it was going to be instant,” said Watson.

In the process, the students are also learning about newspapers and about computers. Once the students are done with a rough draft of the story, they will type it on the computer and format it, something other students at the school will not learn.

“You have to spell right, and you have to tell who, what, when, where and how,” said Jaylen Duncan of what she has learned.

“They give you a lot of information,” said Maria Piain of conducting the interviews.

“I was calm. I just wrote stuff down,” said Elex Glidewell of interviewing Lovell.

Lovell enjoyed the opportunity to be interviewed by some of her students, believing that the newspaper is a good idea for the school because it allows the students to have a product to showcase their hard work.

“I think it’s a good idea because the kids get a better understanding of what this education is all about. Some of them think they are just doing assignments for the teacher or the parent. This shows them that there’s a purpose to the things they’re learning,” said Lovell.

As for Flexible Fridays, the consensus at the school is that it is a success. Students are building new skills and fine tuning old ones. They are getting to interact with other students in the school as well as other staff members.

“At first we thought it would be a lot of extra work. Then we got in the groove of it and it’s just like planning for our regular classes,” said Watson of the teachers’ perspective of the new innovation.

As far as the interviews conducted with students, the kindergartners interviewed said that they were learning new things while the second graders thought it was nice not having the same teacher all the time.

Copyright 2009, The Mount Airy (N.C.) News. Reprinted with permission.