It's one minute before airtime for the daily KMMI broadcast at Montgomery Senior High School in San Diego, and pandemonium reigns inside the student-operated closed-circuit television studio.
Janee Dixon directs a daily television broadcast via a headset.
The coanchors are preening while students operating the three video cameras prepare for close-ups. Behind a large window, the production crew makes adjustments on editing screens while the director gives the floor manager directions via headset. In a style that's part dancer and part traffic cop, the floor manager gives the camera operators hand signals. Students call out to each other in panicked voices:
"Do we know what's going on?" "Are we doing sports?" "Fix that camera." "Christina, stop moving!" "We're gonna roll." "It's time, it's time!" "Five, four, three, two ..."
"Good morning, Aztecs," says a smiling announcer in a poised and confident voice. "Happy Homecoming Day."
"That's good, that's good," whispers teacher Beverly Berwick off camera. "Inside their classrooms, all the students and teachers will see is a calm little broadcast."
Berwick, a member of the Sweetwater Education Association, is the glue that holds the California Partnership Academy in Print, Broadcast and Public Relations together. The "school within a school" offers students hands-on experience in print and broadcast journalism, Web page design and public relations. Students put out English and Spanish-language newspapers. They also learn advanced, state-of-the-art video production, linear and non-linear editing, and computerized graphic design. A number of students are given prestigious internships or jobs with real world television stations and newspapers based solely on the training they receive at the institute.
Students have the kind of journalism experiences that many seasoned reporters would envy. They have traveled to New York and Atlanta to interview celebrities including Diane Sawyer. They have visited San Francisco to interview Mayor Willie Brown.
Sweetwater student journalist Alicia Zarzosa photographs a football game.
But last summer they made history as the first U.S. student journalists allowed to go to Cuba. There they filmed footage for a documentary and gathered stories for the school's newspapers. Travel to Cuba is forbidden to most Americans due to the trade embargo, but Berwick, seven teacher chaperones and four students received special permission from the U.S. Treasury Department to go.
"I remember the moment when I first thought of it," says Berwick. "I was listening to the radio and heard that President Clinton was doing all he could to open up contact between the U.S. and Cuba to increase cultural ties. I immediately thought, 'We are going to be the first American student journalists to go to Cuba. We can do this.'"
Students and teachers raised the money with a silent auction and Mardi Gras dance. Getting permission from the government was surprisingly easy, says Berwick. But finding out in advance what would and wouldn't be allowed was trickier. "I didn't know if they would allow us to bring in video cameras and audiotapes," she says. "And if we were allowed to bring them in, I didn't know if we would be allowed to use them. Nobody could answer that question very well. We had no guarantee how things would go. But we went anyway." (Ironically, it was her second trip to Cuba; she was on a plane that was hijacked to Cuba in 1968.)
Teacher Beverly Berwick gives her student journalists - including Zarzosa and Olivia Garcia - ample opportunities to field-test their skills.
Once the students arrived in Cuba, they were allowed to interview people without harassment. They focused on the young people of Havana. Students were not allowed to visit deteriorating school sites, but talked to teens on the street, on the beach and in a disco. They found that most Cubans are not allowed near the tourist areas for fear that the Western influence will rub off. One young Cuban who ventured near the tourist area and criticized the government to Montgomery High students appeared to be under surveillance and abruptly broke off the interview.
Language was not a problem, as all the student journalists visiting Cuba could speak Spanish. And students, who collaborated with local media from San Diego before departing, were prepared for their tasks as professional journalists.
"One of the most exciting parts for me was seeing the students in action," says Berwick. "Seeing the students walking up to everyone, asking questions, taping them and interacting with Cuban youth was such a thrill to me."
Visiting Cuba was eye-opening for the students. "I had this vision of Cuba as a place where everyone is more or less equal, under Communism," says Alicia Zarzosa, a senior at Montgomery High School who served as a photographer and print reporter. "But I found that there are still rich and poor. Some conditions are so bad in the apartment buildings that I didn't think anyone could live there. The people who work for the government have special treatment. Still, there were no homeless and everyone has food."
She also came to appreciate her lifestyle at home. "The biggest thing we can be grateful for here is that we can choose our own careers. In Cuba, students take tests and become what the government tells them to." Many professionals - doctors, lawyers, etc. - are driving taxis and doing menial work because of the unemployment problem.
"The trip was the opportunity of a lifetime," says Olivia Garcia, a junior who wrote articles for the newspaper upon her return from Cuba. "I received a lot of experience in journalism and learned so much. I feel very lucky."
Students visited the home of Ernest Hemingway and met the 104-year-old Cuban who is said to be the inspiration for the fisherman in Hemingway's novel, The Old Man and the Sea. They also visited the Museum of the Revolution, where students learned the Cuban perception of their so-called struggle against imperialism.
Upon returning home to San Diego, students spent the rest of the summer organizing their research into finished work. The video Rhythms of Havana has aired on public television stations around the state. Articles, photos, audiotape and video of the trip have been posted on a Web site operated by National Public Radio.
Berwick tries to organize something creative and exciting each year for her journalism students. The idea is to give them a chance to field-test the skills they learn in the classroom.
"It's important for our young people to reach beyond their neighborhoods," she says. "I want to give my students real-life experiences. It helps them see what opportunities lie ahead. It gives them confidence to apply their skills to diverse kinds of situations. For me, that's the most exciting part of my job."
Janee Dixon directs a daily television broadcast via a headset.
Sweetwater student journalist Alicia Zarzosa photographs a football game.
Teacher Beverly Berwick gives her student journalists - including Zarzosa and Olivia Garcia - ample opportunities to field-test their skills.
