They’re All on The Morning Show Now.
Shane’s middle school has a wonderful, student-run program called “The Morning Show.” In lieu of standard principal-fed announcements over an intercom, they have a TV broadcast that goes into all of the classrooms by way of each room’s Promethean board.
Dylan worked on the morning show. He ran graphics and credits, and sometimes put the announcements into the teleprompter. Students also run the teleprompters in the studio, where students also anchor the news and run the giant TV cameras. Other students do mic checks, record the program and yell “cut” when they go off the air.
It’s a great opportunity and a lot of fun for anyone interested in the inner workings of television. Unfortunately, sixth graders can’t take part until after the mid-January auditions. It was hard to wait for Dylan – and even harder for Shane, who has been longing to be an announcer, and who is extremely interested in videography.
So it came as a complete surprise when, once again, three of Shane’s best friends suddenly appeared on “The Morning Show” during the first week of school.
For anyone following the blog closely, these same three friends were all patrols last year, too. And Shane – who was oddly overlooked for patrol duty – sat alone outside every day, waiting for the doors to open, while every single one of his friends “patrolled” their elementary school.
Now, with no warning, three kids who’d never even mentioned an interest in the Show were pulled from the vast pool of 300+ sixth graders, and plopped into the Show, four months early and without so much as an audition.
Shane came home from school and told me about it, his eyes glistening just a bit.
“So I guess they’re all on ‘The Morning Show’ now,” he said. He tried to act nonchalant.
I was on the computer so fast, it made my own head spin. I emailed the man in charge – a really nice guy – and begged for an explanation. Whether or not he appreciated it, I even told him the back-story about Shane’s frequently getting overlooked for things for which he is perfectly suited.
The overworked teacher responded very quickly:
“Please encourage your son to write to me directly about the sorts of jobs he is interested in doing (reporter/anchor, camera, sound, captions/teleprompt, etc.), if I have an opening, I will consider taking him in early instead of waiting until winter.”
So, there’s hope that, this year, Shane will somehow be … well, not as overlooked. We shall see.