Immersion vs classroom education

Immersion vs classroom education | Daily Tribune

Names and places have been changed to protect the privacy of people.

As a college professor in a prestigious university for rich girls, I was assigned to teach Journalism 101, a basic introductory course that covered Radio, TV and Print, otherwise known as Tri-Media. Preparing the syllabus for the course, I realized that I was, in all honesty, not qualified to teach because I was no longer a practitioner. I had been a teacher for seven years and was no longer a practicing journalist, no longer covering events and conducting interviews, no longer writing for the newspapers. I had no idea about the dramatic changes in the media.

I could pretend to be an “armchair professor,” teaching based on a theoretical syllabus extracted from old obsolete American books that had nothing to do with Philippine media and journalism. I could embellish this with my platform skills. In truth, it would be hypocritical and unfair to the students to whip up obsolete lessons from the air. I could not do that.

So I got this fantastic idea. Instead of me lecturing on obsolete theories, I decided to send my students to the frontlines to find out for themselves about the world of newsrooms, television studios, and radio stations first hand.

This had several advantages: 1) I would not be lecturing pretentiously on obsolete lessons, and have more free time; and 2) the students would be educating me, not the other way around, since they would be immersed in the real world of Tri-Media.

I divided the classes into teams of four or five, with a team leader in charge. Instead of lecturing on absurd lessons, I let the teams meet and plan their strategies. I assigned teams to the to various newspapers, TV and radio stations. I arranged appointments through my contacts and through managing editors, radio station managers and studio directors.

They interviewed everyone —editors, managers, reporters, and coordinators — to get a “feel” of the frontlines. They were immersed in how the news desk worked, how reporters submitted their stories under deadline pressure, how editors had to quickly clean up the reports of wrong grammar and inconsistent logic. They observed TV studios and radio stations broadcasting interviews live. They were so excited they were learning and absorbing broadcast journalism in action.

The teams presented their findings to the entire class. Everyone was learning from everyone else. The students did the lecturing, sharing their experiences to the class.

In each team, one member specialized in interviews of managers, another on observing news staff working together, another team member operated the computer for large-screen displays of visuals. They even included photos of famous editors and journalists. In fact, I learned from them about the changes in the journalism world. I did not realize the idea would work like magic.

Here were some of their findings: 1) there were snake pits as much as there were cooperative staffs; 2) beginners did on-the-job training without pay, just an allowance; salaries were one-fifth to one-tenth of those in Japan or Italy (understandable perhaps since labor standards are different among rich and poor countries).

One team discovered that Liwayway, the famous magazine in the vernacular, was stuck in the Middle Ages, operating completely analog, no computers, as dictated by their senior citizen writers and artists, who preferred the old typewriters and paint brushes and canvas, allergic to the monitor and the mouse.

In spite of their archaic ways, however, they maintained their creative output, beautiful comic book artwork done completely by hand, colors mixed the old way. These old folks deserved an award in journalism. I don’t know if the magazine is still alive today, or if they have finally moved on to the digital world.

A team that went to Manila Hotel news conferences reported that congressmen were asking for their cellphone numbers and trying to pick them up. That is when I obliged them to wear their school uniform to avoid trouble.

Immersion worked like magic, replacing the classroom lectures — experiential wisdom versus theoretical wisdom in action.