Student Well-Being

A Shore Thing

By Patrick J. McCloskey — September 29, 2006 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

How a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter became a mentor-blogger.

In summer 2003, Will Richardson was vacationing with his family on Assateague Island in Maryland when his wife, Wendy, struck up a conversation with another beach-goer, Kathryn Higham. Richardson joined the discussion and discovered that her husband, Scott, was a journalist. The high school teacher told Kathryn that he was always on the lookout for mentors for his journalism students. So Kathryn led Richardson up the beach, to meet Scott, mentioning along the way that he’d won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting a year earlier.

“I almost stopped dead in my tracks,” Richardson recalls.

The two men fell into an intense 40-minute conversation about newswriting, after which Richardson left with Higham’s contact information.

See Also

Return to the main story,

The Blogvangelist

Six months later, Richardson began teaching yet another journalism class at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, New Jersey. He asked his 18 students to track down professionals whom, with his guidance, they’d like to recruit as mentors. He then announced that the student who wrote the best essay about why he or she wanted to be coached by a Pulitzer Prize winner would, in fact, earn that privilege.

“When I met Richardson, he talked passionately about what he did,” Higham, a Washington Post reporter, says of the meeting on the beach. “Then he mentioned blogs, and I had no idea that teachers were using them.”

Higham, it turns out, had agreed to participate in the mentoring program, but forgot about it until Richardson e-mailed him in January, letting him know an 11th grader was ready for his tutelage. Soon afterward, “I had this young woman named Meredith in my life, asking me a thousand questions,” Higham chortles.

He was able to respond to Meredith Fear’s queries from his office, home, or via laptop whenever he traveled. As Meredith worked on a piece about teen apathy, she also crafted a query letter, hoping to submit the story to a major news outlet. “Sharpening the top will increase your chances,” Higham posted to her blog. “Most editors have little time to read unsolicited queries from outside writers, so try to grab them as quickly as possible.”

Higham never met Meredith or visited her school. “But I was impressed with how plucky she was and how curious about the world around her,” he recalls. “She asked many insightful questions, which is exactly what you need for journalism.”

At the end of the school year, however, Meredith blogged: “My big learning experience was that I don’t like journalism as much as I thought.” But, she added, “I liked actually talking to and interviewing ‘real’ people.”

Meredith, now a sophomore studying anthropology at New York University, says “it was huge that someone who had achieved so much communicated with me like a regular guy. It helped me learn that I could succeed, too, when facing difficulty.”

“For me,” Higham reflects, “the benefit was being able to plug into the mind of a very sharp teenager and connect on a professional level across generational lines. I witnessed the evolution of her thought processes and writing skills as she dealt with feedback. Blogs allow a teacher to literally take their kids out into the world from classrooms anywhere in America. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the October 01, 2006 edition of Teacher Magazine

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and K-12 education jubs at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Student Well-Being K-12 Essentials Forum Social-Emotional Learning 2025: Examining Priorities and Practices
Join this free virtual event to learn about SEL strategies, skills, and to hear from experts on the use and expansion of SEL programs.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Professional Development Webinar
Inside PLCs: Proven Strategies from K-12 Leaders
Join an expert panel to explore strategies for building collaborative PLCs, overcoming common challenges, and using data effectively.
Content provided by Otus

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Student Well-Being From Our Research Center Are Students Vaping More? Educators Think So
Teachers, principals, and district leaders are reporting an increase despite previous federal data showing teen vaping is declining.
3 min read
Student Well-Being Boys Want a Strong Relationship With Their Teachers. That Doesn't Always Happen
The key to inspiring boys in the classroom is a strong student-teacher relationship, experts say. Here's how to make it work.
7 min read
Jon Becker, upper school history and English teacher, has 9th grader Demetrios Karavedas stand on a chair and apologize for forgetting his book during their 9th grade English class at Boys’ Latin School of Maryland on Oct. 24, 2024 in Baltimore, Md.
Jon Becker, a history and English teacher at Boys' Latin School of Maryland in Baltimore, has 9th grader Demetrios Karavedas stand on a chair and apologize for forgetting his book on Oct. 24, 2024. Positive relationships with teachers matter for boys' academic motivation and success.
Jaclyn Borowski/Education Week
Student Well-Being Middle School Is Tough for Boys. One School Found the 'Secret Sauce' for Success
Hands-on learning, choice, and other evidence-based practices help boys thrive.
9 min read
011725 Boys Charlottesville BS
Middle school boys chat in the hallway at the Community Lab School in Charlottesville, Va. The public charter school prioritizes student autonomy and collaboration, which educators say motivates boys to want to learn.
Courtesy of Don Barnes
Student Well-Being What 'Boy-Friendly' Changes Look Like at Every Grade Level
An all-boys school gave students more autonomy and time for socializing. The results have been powerful.
9 min read
Students work in groups to build roller coasters during the innovation period at Boys’ Latin School of Maryland on Oct. 24, 2024 in Baltimore, Md.
Middle schoolers work in groups to build roller coasters during an innovation period at Boys’ Latin School of Maryland in Baltimore on Oct. 24, 2024. The private school has reworked its schedule to give students more time for choice and socializing.
Jaclyn Borowski/Education Week