Our K-12 education system offers few opportunities for students to develop critical thinking skills. And this won’t change until teachers give kids more autonomy by empowering them with self-run projects. Hiding in plain sight is the ideal opportunity: publishing their own school magazines.
The main problem with education today is that it’s too top-down, teacher directed and test-focused especially in this pandemic world. Print publishing is a great way to empower students to be critical thinkers and act independently while learning valuable life skills that will help them in their educational journey and later in their careers. The more freedom and autonomy they have to develop their own vision, content and design, the more personally invested they are in the outcome.
Working on print magazines enables students to break free of the pressure to meet teacher expectations. If all students do is memorize, they have no opportunity to make intelligent choices and learn critical thinking. This is especially critical in the era of “fake news,” where distinguishing fact from fiction is often challenging. Working on a magazine involves collecting and evaluating information, forming a unique opinion, sorting through the data to determine what to include and exclude, and writing up a story in a way that conveys a specific perspective — all activities that encourage critical thinking.
Student-led print publishing programs also help to build intrinsic motivation, which is important since today’s students are driven primarily by external factors such as making good grades and getting into college. When students are creating a print magazine, it’s completely self-driven, and they develop transferable skills, such as how to determine a theme and vision for the publication, design skills, fundraising, budgeting and more. That’s much more motivating than just getting a good grade.”
A print journalism program supports my TRICK philosophy — which stands for Trust, Responsibility, Independence, Collaboration and Kindness — that is, if schools run them correctly. All K-12 schools should publish a magazine, and it shouldn’t be just an after-school program. Incorporating it as part of the English or Social Studies curriculum is appropriate. And it’s important to use print as the medium for publication. Why? Because print has the element of permanence — which means quality is more critical and kids love it. They want to hold it in their hands, inspite of the big push to digital. My students voted to continue publishing in hard copy because they think it is important.
Kids think that when you’re writing something that an audience of hundreds or potentially thousands will see — and will be in print now and for years to come — you’re going to care a lot about the the content and quality of the finished piece.
When kids see their work in print, it’s a huge source of pride. “It boosts kids’ confidence to have something in writing that they can hold and show their friends and family. All of my students wanted to see their work in print, because they understood that it has a much bigger impact on the community than something posted online.”
A lack of funds may get in the way of publishing quality school magazines, and finding teachers to lead the program can also be challenging. So, when Vivek Garg, founder and CEO of aPrintis, approached me with the idea of using his company’s platform for creating and printing her school’s magazines, I mmediately saw the value.
aPrintis enables hundreds of schools, universities and other organizations across the country to create high-quality, glossy print publications quickly and cost-effectively. My Palo Alto High School’s journalism program leverages aPrintis for collaborating on and printing the school’s publications.
aPrintis is a turnkey solution that makes self-publishing a print magazine a no-brainer for the students. They can upload articles and collaborate with designers efficiently, without having to know anything about design and layout. The printing is extremely high-quality — it’s incredible that each copy costs just one dollar! On top of that, the platform has an integrated fundraising feature that makes it easy to ask family and community members for financial support to help pay for the publication.”
Although the pandemic has completely disrupted education across the country, I believe there’s a silver lining. This is a perfect opportunity to change the way we do things. Thanks to online and remote learning, students have learned to do more and work independently, and their ability to self-publish beautiful magazines throughout the pandemic is tangible proof.