Real School Makers - student-made web series

[xcriteria]

So far they have an indiegogo campaign:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/real-school-makers

One of their reward levels: $1500 "We make your school - or school you direct us to - into the Real School Studio and your students are the Real School Reporters. You are given a credit as a Real School Maker in the body of the show"

I wonder what that could look like. In general, I want to do something like this... get the student perspective told in compelling ways. What they're doing could be a step in that direction. And, it's inspiration for other models as well.

Real School Makers joins adults to students by bringing adults to the school world where students learn and grow. Students – who are already recording their world – are brought to be media makers. They are reporters on their own education, exploring and reflecting the world about which they are learning. And by doing this we bring out-of-school audiences inside the schools adults support. By making students the reporters of their own series we bring real education to public entertainment. We join our adult, teacher and student audiences together to experience education as it happens.

What do you all think?

[James Comey]

This could be great. I'm tired of hearing raging, ranting parents/teachers how this generation is getting bad, but a student perspective would be very nice. But my only concern is that this could possibly be censored in order not to make the education system look like the shithole it actually is.

[Trekkie_Aspie]

What do you mean possibly? It will be....

[James Comey]

Just a possibility. If I'm right, in the main website, it said many films about the education system were usually censored by a lot of schools and had to also put the educational system in a positive light.

Theoretically, though, this is a great idea. I hope we get to see students report on their schools honestly. I know I'd probably report a lot of crazy shit.

[xcriteria]

With the Internet, the problem is not so much censorship as making something that people can find through the noise.

That, and the question of how to actually get more people discussing change, rather than just preaching to one choir or another.

I've been talking to some teachers who are very on board with doing something like this... who get what's wrong with factory model schools. The biggest question, perhaps, is, how can we get reluctant parents and other teachers to start realizing why school-as-usual is so unhelpful for so many of us?

[James Comey]

Pamphlets?

[Trekkie_Aspie]

Well, there is the problem of internet blockers. To be honest, we need all the teachers and parents we can get on board because well... "no kid ever liked school" is a common attitude. The corollary of "Well, it should be changed if no-one likes it" never seems to occur to those people. They also seem to think that one person won't make a change.

They're right and they're wrong. Think of a pebble thrown in a lake. For a moment, nothing happens and then the surface ripples, starting with just a little bit near the pebble. Then that ripple makes other parts ripple and that ripple follows suit and so on until suddenly, the whole water body is full of ripples. Sometimes, it isn't what you do that changes the world either but what you don't do.