All of My Fears Were Dispelled.
It was a long, long weekend, waiting to hear back from the media specialist.
My greatest fear had been realized. I was afraid that Shane would be overlooked – again. I was afraid that all of the kids who made the morning show spectacular would be overlooked.
Within an hour – from the time the media specialist called me, to the end of Shane’s description of his morning – all of my fears were dispelled.
On Monday afternoon, the media specialist called.
“I don’t know why Shane thought there wouldn’t be a morning show,” she said. “I guess I just figured everyone understood that it was just a shorter show.”
Because indeed, there is a morning show. It’s substantially shortened, but it’s still run by students. It’s still full of student-made intros, anchors reading announcements, student camera people – and of course, a director.
“The principal actually made the decision to change the format before I was hired,” the new media specialist said. “In hindsight, I think she would have presented it differently.”
In fact, when Shane came home from school he said, “I guess I just thought that when they said they would have announcements, it would be over the loudspeaker.”
He heard some of what she had said – and then assumed the rest.
Both the media specialist and Shane said the same thing: that maybe the new format for the Friday show was emphasized so much, that many kids got the wrong idea. They thought it was a replacement for the old show, when in fact, it’s just an additional opportunity for kids to produce a new kind of show.
Shane told me that the new show might even be better than the old one.” He elaborated, and from what I can tell, it’s more succinct and more interesting to kids than the old show. Or at least, it’s more interesting to Shane.
The media specialist, too, said that everything ran smoothly, even on her first day. She’s new to the school, new to the media center, and didn’t know any of the kids. “I knew how to use all the equipment,” she said. “But I wasn’t sure how it would all fit together. Then the kids came in, and they set up everything, ran everything, and the whole show went off without a hitch.”
Her fears were dispelled, too.
Shane is going to be director. And now he’s probably going to help create a fun show on Friday mornings, too – with his old friends, with some new friends, and in a brand new format that’s going to be creative, whimsical and fun.
Plus he’s going to do a quick show every morning.
What could be better?
(I guess it would have been better if we’d known that all along… but I am no longer complaining.)