Middle school pupils benefit from hands-on career training

By SABRINA ZIEGLER for the Recorder

March 26, 2009 – 7:37 PM

A handful of pupils from Bartlett Middle School met Tuesday to learn the ropes of video filming, and to catch a glimpse of one of the subjects they will train on in coming weeks.

Catherine May, program coordinator for GrizzComm – a grant-funded academy at Granite Hills High School – visited with the pupils to give them a sneak peek at area high school offerings for the career-minded via hands-on training, as well as a warm welcome into the four-year educational chapter that lies ahead of them.

Middle school pupils, she said, will learn from staff and students in GrizzCom, a training program in video filming, journalism, yearbook, animation, Web design and graphic design.

Between 12 and 15 children attended an after-school introductory presentation that included each of them playing a role in the filming process, May said.

May said she brought four video cameras and allowed the pupils, in groups of four, to use them for 10 minutes at a time. Each group had a camera person, director, interviewer and interviewee.

The groups then watched videos from an LCD projector, she said, and as a group discussed what they could have improved, as far as lighting, background and other filming components.

“It got them excited, and they got a feel for the camera,” May said. “It’s kids that actually want to do this. They are kids that will actually be going to Granite, so we want to show them what we will be doing, to kind of encourage them.”

The program is open to students who showed an interest in any of the offered fields based on an interest inventory survey each of them took, Patty Serrato, a School-to-Career Specialist for the Tulare County Office of Education and organizer of the project, said.

That excitement showed in the smile of Briana Ceballos, in the seventh grade at Bartlett, who took part in the after-school presentation.

“I think it’s just fun, just to get cameras and record people,” she said.  “I just like art and media. I like those two things.”

Martin Ramos, in eighth grade, said he learned a few new things about filming during the presentation, such as, how to zoom in, stop recording and how to get the prefect angle, as well as how to control brightness.

He said after the presentation, high school now isn’t as intimidating an idea as it was to him.

“At least I’ll know how to do a little bit more stuff like working with electronics,” he said.

May said over the next two weeks the middle school children will learn how to use software such as Notepad, Photoshop and Garage Band (used to create sound), and will also learn interviewing skills.

The Bartlett Middle School pupils are only part of a greater picture involving projects across the county, according to Randy Wallace, project director for the Tulare County Office of Education School-to-Career Program.

Tuesday’s orientation marks the launch of Porterville Unified School District’s Middle School Career Education Project, a six-week after-school program that joins high school students and teachers with middle school pupils and exposes the latter to career options they can begin to harness at the high school level.

The project is being funded throughout a joint collaborative between the Tulare County Office of Education, Porterville College and College of the Sequoias, Wallace said.

It is one of 24 projects spanning Tulare and Kings counties, being funded by an 18-month Career and Technical Education Community Collaborative Project, a $350,000 grant through the state, he said.

On the local level, the visits are mapped out in a six-week itinerary that involves three local high schools and three middle schools, and a plan to create career awareness and pique young interest in career possibilities.

Students and teachers representing area high school programs in three career sectors are scheduled to visit their feeder middle schools Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday over the next six weeks, and offer hands-on training sessions, Serrato said.

Program representatives from Porterville, Granite Hills and Monache will alternate every two weeks working with children at Pioneer, Bartlett and Sequoia middle schools.

From construction, to health, to multimedia and technological training, the youngsters are getting a taste of it all – at the high school level. Their instruction comes from a group of teachers and students who have been trained, and are willing to train, in their respective subjects.

Besides enabling the pupils to try their hand at a sampling of skills for the real world, the program, Bartlett Middle School Principle Jeremy Powell said, is also helping to prepare them to make the transition to high school.

The purpose of the project, he said, is, “one, to give them an awareness of careers that are out there in different fields, and secondly, to let them have contact with the teachers at the high schools and students at the high schools that they will be attending in a few years.

“It’s a great opportunity for the students at the middle school level to participate and get some hands-on activity and to get to talk with their potential high school teachers, and it’s a great opportunity for the high schools to meet with their incoming eighth graders and seventh graders who will be there.”