Integrated Learning: Broadcasting and Social Studies (Transcript)

Joseph: The collaboration with the teachers fuels our students, they get interested and engaged and work on projects. It just makes education real.

John: There are no walls between departments. The collaboration between the academic and the vocational is one of the core pieces of what makes High Tech work.

Joseph: We accept students based on interest, such as performing arts or science, and with that goes the hope that their interest in their vocational program will drive their interest and accomplishments in their academic programs. The integration between broadcasting and the social studies started this year. Mister Jefferson said, “I’d like to bring my students into this studio. Mister Pluchino, your students could run the studio.”

John: John and I sat down and talked about doing a history show, something where we can invite the students. The first week that I offered the students the opportunity, we could either sit here and do the regular stereotypical history class, or we could do a year’s worth of radio shows and still learn the same stuff, it was ten out of ten. Everyone wanted to do the radio shows.

Good morning, welcome to another episode of the Jeffersonian Show. Today we’ll be talking about Vietnam, so let’s talk about the protest side of the Vietnam experience. What are some of the protest songs that stick out with some of you ladies?

Kelsey: There was one particular song where it caused a lot of controversy. It was, “You’re old enough to kill but not for voting.” In 1971, the US Constitution was amended and they lowered the age, the voting age to 18. So music is not only a way to express yourself, it’s a way to make it change.

I’m just going to call it really awesome. My major is broadcasting and now that I can combine history and broadcasting together, it’s a very different approach to learning.

John: You think that the war was a good idea to fight in the first place?

Student: The war was good to those who were in the arms creating factory, the bomb making, but as a country it was bad, because we went in blind and we lost a lot of men.

John: We have a planning session at least once a week before we do the show. John goes over the background of the show. The kids have to go home and research. I want them to come informed, you know, we just don’t want, “Yeah, I heard about that.” That doesn’t make a show.

John: We’ll have a goal and then we’ll backfill on how to reach the goal. Thursday is the radio show and Wednesday is the team teaching prep day with John Pluchino. The Monday and Tuesday, we’ll usually spend on instruction.

How should we open the show?

Student: We could lead up to the Watergate scandal in the end.

John: They’ll come to me with ideas, so they’ll read things on their own and they’ll bring me articles that they’ve found. They’ll come up with bullet points and things that they want to hit on and we’ll build a discussion around those things.

Michael: We step away from the textbooks, which is refreshing. I like to bring what I’ve learned and what I’ve exposed myself to the show.

Help prevented North and South Vietnam from unifying, because they didn’t want them both to become Communist. A year after the war ended, the entirety of Vietnam became Communist anyway.

John: The way we prep non-broadcasting majors is we try to be basic and simple, how to talk into the mic. Learn how to listen to each other, let the knowledge that you have drive your communication.

John: The big thing with the skill sets is not so much learning how to operate the mechanics of the broadcasting, but how to be comfortable talking to an audience that you can’t see.

John: I consider the radio station a great learning laboratory. So it allows them to take the next step with their studies.

Joseph: We have a collaboration that gets the students more excited, because they have a perspective from two different areas.

John: Instead of just writing book reports and tests, they now can express what they’ve learned. I told the students, it’s larger than your grade.

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High Tech High School