“Scavenger Hunt” week!  Kind of like Animal Planet’s “Shark Week”… but this time it’s C.Ramchand girls strapped with cameras, not sharks with cameras strapped to them.  This past Monday and Tuesday we had the girls practice their photo and video skills in a couple scavenger hunt activities.

Monday’s hunt focused on basic photography skills – zoom, straight & steady, angles, lighting, etc.  The girls divided into three groups of four and set out roaming the campus in search of the items on the list.  Despite a few communication hurdles, all of the groups finished just in time for the 3 O’clock bell.  Interestingly, number 25 (“5 different examples of trash”) had everyone stumped, thinking that they needed to take photos of trashcans, not plain “garbage” – what I have come to call the “carpet of the streets.”  On a larger scale, it’s obvious that my liberal northeast, environmental, hippie summer camp upbringing and employment roots tangle with what I see as a total lack of awareness of the connection between environment and health – a larger environmental observation that I’ll get to post on the blog eventually.  Bottom line, I should have been more specific.

Similarly, on Tuesday the girls divided into two groups of six and set about around the campus with video cameras.  This was their first introduction to using the video camera for both sound and image recording; previously, we had them record only their voice.  We introduced Adobe’s “3 S’s” – Straight, Steady, & Smooth.  Everyone in the class went through the various motions of panoramas, slow and steady zooms, and walking with the camera, all the while keeping the lens pointed forward and hands steady.  Having a steady picture, even with a tripod, is a lot of work and can drive someone away from using a camera when obsessed over.  We tried to show the different methods and explain that no one can become a professional Videographer on the first day.  Practice, and assigning activities where the students are allowed to make mistakes, is needed.

It was terrific to see the students’ different examples of each task on the lists, each with a different perspective, and different angle.  We sensed that it was a big leap of faith to give out the cameras with such ease, but our firm trust in the students was not an inexperienced move, rather a confident nod to the students that we believe they have the skills, intelligent curiosity, and responsibility to explore on their own.  Something that I have noted as being different in the structure of education in comparison to my own, is a lack of open-ended answers/ various methods of learning or perspectives/ a whole list of thoughts circling the idea of self-directed learning, which, I believe, needs a certain support system to grow.  In short, there seems to be one answer, one test.  In a creative class, such as ours, it’s difficult to play to that model, while trying to introduce something totally contrary.  In the end, the students showed us just how ready, willing, and able they were to create and answer on their own the questions and tasks we challenged them with.

That being said, I do not want to replace the standardized test, but I would like to poke a few holes in the fabric to allow a few more opportunities and a few more avenues of success to be seen.  So, when we hand out a list of seemingly unspecific tasks, most of the explaining focuses on giving the students the thumbs-up to come up with their own answers, their own methods, their own ways.   Looking at my own education and learning style – past, future, and present – I would have had a difficult time succeeding and going to, never mind, graduating from college in the system of education here.  Am I seeing myself in some of the students I watch struggle (academic & self) with the rote style of learning?  That’s a bit cliché, so I would like to say I’m trying to put myself in their shoes instead of expecting that they fit into mine and can immediately begin running in them.