S3 Ep3 Exploring C-SPAN Classroom's Impact and Student Cam Competition with Pam McGorry and Zach Lowe

PODCAST Season 3 EPISODE 7

 Pam McGorry

C-SPAN's Education Program Senior Specialist

Zach Lowe

C-SPAN's Education Resource Specialist

Quotes of the Podcast: 

Pam: “The child's own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education.” John Dewey, philosopher and psychologist 

Zach: “If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.” Jim Valvano, former NC State basketball coach

Introduction of Guest BIO – 

Pam McGorry was born and raised in Queens, NY. She earned her B.S.Ed. and graduated Summa Cum Laude from Long Island University and then went on to receive a M.S.Ed at the university. After spending several years teaching in the classroom on Long Island, McGorry joined C-SPAN Television Network's Education Relations team in 2010 where she continues to contribute content to the website and connects with educators and students nationwide to share C-SPAN Classroom resources and programs as the Education Program Senior Specialist. McGorry is a member of the National Council for the Social Studies and The WICT Network. 

A native of Cortland, OH, Zach Lowe is a 2014 graduate of the University of Akron, having studied social studies education. Beginning his teaching career in Sumter, SC, Lowe was named a top-five finalist for South Carolina State Teacher of the Year in 2018, representing the state's 50,000+ public school educators. After spending six years in the classroom, Lowe served as his school's curriculum coach before assuming his current role as the Education Resource Specialist at C-SPAN. At C-SPAN, Lowe uses the network's video coverage of public affairs to design instructional materials for use in classrooms across the country. A National Board Certified Teacher, Lowe also holds an MEd in Educational Administration from the University of South Carolina and a PhD in Global Leadership and Change from Tiffin University. Outside of his professional endeavors, Lowe is an avid runner, serves in multiple community-oriented roles in the D.C. area, and is happily married to his husband, Erick.

Interview

Agents of Change: Leaders/Innovators

•  30,000 Ft. View – Why do we, as a society invest in education?
• What drew you to education?
• StudentCam - https://www.studentcam.org/ 
• C-SPAN Classroom - https://www.c-span.org/classroom/
• What are the biggest challenges to you?
• What would you like decision-makers to know?

Transcript

Liza Holland [00:00:02]:
Welcome to education perspectives. I am your host, Liza Holland. This is a podcast that explores the role of education in our society from a variety of lenses. Education needs to evolve to meet the needs of today and the future. Solving such huge issues requires understanding. Join me as we begin to explore the many perspectives of education.

Liza Holland [00:00:28]:
First, we have Pam McGorry. Pam McGorry was born and raised in Queens, New York. She earned her BSED and graduated summa cum laude from Long Island University and then went on to receive an MSED in the university. After spending several years teaching in the classroom on Long Island, McGorry joined C SPAN Television Network's education relations team in 2010, where she continues to contribute content to the website and connects with educators and students nationwide to share C SPAN classroom resources and programs as the education program senior specialist. Mogori is a member of the National Council For the Social Studies and the WICT network. We also have Zach Lowe, and as a native of Cortland, Ohio, Zach Lowe is a 2014 graduate of the University of Akron, having studied social studies education. Beginning his teaching career in Sumter, South Carolina, Lowe was named a top five finalist for the South Carolina state teacher of the year in 2018, 50,000 plus public school educators. After spending 6 years in the classroom, Lowe served as his school's curriculum coach before assuming his current role as the education resource specialist at C SPAN.

Liza Holland [00:01:48]:
At C SPAN, Lowe uses the network's video coverage of public affairs to design instructional materials for use in classrooms across the country. A national board certified teacher, Lowe also holds an MED in educational administration from the University of South Carolina and a PH d in global leadership and change from Tiffin University. Outside of his professional endeavors, Lowe is an avid runner, serves in multiple community oriented roles in the DC area, and is happily married to his husband, Eric. Welcome to both Pam and Zach. And we are so excited to have Pam Migori and Zach Lowe with C SPAN with us here today. Welcome to both of you.

Zach Lowe [00:02:30]:
Good morning, and thanks for having us. Yeah.

Pam McGorry [00:02:32]:
Excited to be here.

Liza Holland [00:02:34]:
It's always more complicated when we have 2. I love that. So, Pam, let's start with you, and then we'll get the same from Zach because I am always fascinated to hear the perspective that is offered from our first question, which is, from, like, a 30,000 foot view, why do you think that we as a society invest in education?

Pam McGorry [00:02:56]:
Well, to be as succinct as I possibly can and to reflect on my own education experiences, I think, as a society, we invest invest in education because I think we want an informed public, a public that can contribute their strengths, their interests, and their passions to their communities, but not just at that level, but to the republic as a whole.

Liza Holland [00:03:19]:
Good answer. Zach, how about you?

Zach Lowe [00:03:22]:
You know, my my elevator speech, I guess, for this question, keeping it, you know, 30 seconds or or less is prepare our youth, young adults, you know, even old adults as well, for college, career and or military service. So, you know, within the social studies realm specifically, which is our bread and butter, with, with C SPAN, you know, thinking about what is civics and how do you employ civics or what is history and how can we learn from history? So you have the pedagogy aspect. You also have the content aspect. And how does that play out in those three realms, for, for folks that we're investing so much in.

Liza Holland [00:03:59]:
Excellent. And I'm gonna go ahead and direct this next question to you first. You know, you're in a very unique kind of a situation with Seaspan and having that kind of social studies background, what drew you to this work?

Zach Lowe [00:04:11]:
Not social studies at all, actually. It was, my high school band director. I had had, you know, not too many friends, I guess you could say in high school, I was relatively socially awkward child, but the marching band, the concert band, those areas were safe spaces for me where I was able to connect with other people, find my passion, and in that case was playing my trombone. But those, those teachers, I think back, set the stage for respect, for love, for engagement, for passion and content that some of my other teachers did to certain degrees, but that was definitely most prevalent in those music classes. So I actually had gone into my undergrad as a music education major until the first question that, one of the, folks had asked me as I was trying to get into the honors college was, who's your favorite composer from the 18th century and why? At that point I realized music is not my passion. It's definitely a hobby. I had made those connections with, with other people. I had loved everything about it.

Zach Lowe [00:05:17]:
So then I kind of switched gears a bit, still in the education realm because I wanted to cultivate that same type of feeling I had in the marching band. But now with social studies, which was a second class that I felt, relatively comfortable in my senior year anyway. So actually in fact, I know if I'm going off on a bit of a tangent now, but I had hated social studies until 12th grade. And I had again, very similar experience like I had with the marching band and concert band teacher, where I had this finally, this one teacher in social studies that just everything made sense. He was able to relate the global conflicts that we were experiencing at the time back into our classroom, into our local communities. So, you know, coming full circle, that's how I found myself in social studies and in education.

Liza Holland [00:06:05]:
Stories like that are just awesome. And the fact that it connects back to significant teachers, I think, is really powerful. I had a very similar experience myself. I don't know that I was a natural social studies person, but my favorite teachers were in social studies, and I I lucked out in that, in that section. So, Pam, tell us a little bit about your journey. How did you get to, working with students in C SPAN?

Pam McGorry [00:06:32]:
Well, I'd have to say and and this is the truth. Throughout my life, there's a thread of working with young people has always been a passion of mine. And so, you know, when I thought about my own educational experiences, what I learned, how I learned, and how it impacted me. And then as I raised my 2 children, I was very involved in their schools and their, education even from nursery school. So I get involved in in those areas and, thought about how they learned again, what they learned, and took what I could from there and and got involved in education programs and and groups and started reading a lot more. Just, like I said, it was a passion of mine and an interest that I developed. And I decided that I wanted to be really active in the education community. And even, my volunteering experiences throughout my life and getting my children involved in volunteering programs in our community was so impactful for all of us.

Pam McGorry [00:07:33]:
So that's how I started, and I got into the classroom and, from there, just felt like I could have more of an impact and made my way to C SPAN classroom.

Liza Holland [00:07:44]:
That is fabulous. And it it it echoes my own experience. I I got involved in all of this through the very involved parent route. And so there's many different ways that that you can approach being involved. But I am loving the fact that, you know, C SPAN as an as an entity is looking at ways to invest in, in our student development and that sort of thing. So, and you can choose who would like to, to chat about this one, but you have a student cam, and I would love for our listeners to know a little bit more about that and maybe how they can get involved.

Pam McGorry [00:08:22]:
Well, I can kick it off, Zach. We can talk about this for a very long time, but, yes. Student cam is our annual video documentary competition that we put on each year, and and we select a theme. And, it's available for students in grades 6 through 12, middle and and high school. And, the goal is to get them thinking about issues that are important to them and their community. And to it provides a platform to, for for their voices to be heard. So it is something that the whole company gets behind. Our team is we really manage the project.

Pam McGorry [00:08:56]:
Right? And we're the primary, our other colleague, Craig McAndrew, Zach and I are the primary judges of the competition. So we love to connect with students and teachers across the country. To introduce the topic to them, we just launched this year's theme. Zach, if you wanna talk about that in a minute, I'll just give the overview. And then, we're happy to launch it, connect with students and teachers to, help help them, work through the process. And, the deadline is is January 20th, 2025. And I will say that that's Liza, I love that's that's how we connected. Right? Back in the spring, jumping ahead of myself when, we announced the winners.

Pam McGorry [00:09:35]:
Our team and several colleagues at C SPAN go out into the communities and try to visit as many winners as we possibly can. We have these incredible ceremonies in the schools, in their communities. We have elected officials at all kinds of levels show up, experts. They're just to celebrate these amazing students who produce these winning, these winning documentaries. And, I appreciate that you came out, and that's how we connected because it really is about spreading the word. You know? It's all about recognizing these students and having their voices heard and what they see for the future. So, Zach, you wanna take it from there?

Zach Lowe [00:10:11]:
Yeah. I was just I mean, piggybacking off of of the gracious lead that you gave me there with, with the theme for this year. It you know, of significance for folks who are listening, you know, January 20th, bing, bing, bing, inauguration day. We have a presidential election cycle going on right now. So this year's theme is your message to the president. So, we're asking students all across the country, make a 5 to 6 minute documentary about what issue they'd like to see addressed by the president after, inauguration day and why and what steps should be taken. So, you know, applicable across content areas. And in fact, you know, stepping back a bit from what Pam had just mentioned, how you 2 both connected at one of these winter ceremonies.

Zach Lowe [00:10:52]:
I, when I was in the classroom, probably about 5 years ago now, actually had my students engage in the Student CAM Competition. It was, you know, I've been, associated with C SPAN Classroom for a while. I was in a teacher conference back in the day, teacher fellowship. So I thought, you know, myself having no video background whatsoever, no documentary background whatsoever, I'm gonna try this competition. Suffice to say we didn't win that 1st year and then I ended up leaving the classroom after that. But you know, aside from the winning from the cash prizes from these events, just engaging in the competition is so worthwhile. So not only do we have that theme that could be directly addressed in government class, history class, civics class, English class, even with librarians, media specialists, but the process of engaging in the documentary development process, students are interviewing folks, students are researching. So I had a lot of students, engage in the minimum wage, I think was the, was the most popular topic that year.

Zach Lowe [00:11:51]:
So they had interviewed some local business leaders. They had interviewed some local government officials and while none of the students won, they had all made these connections where later on they got internships with these local businesses when they were in high school. So, you know, there's so many things that you might not expect are going to come from this competition if you bring it to your students in your classroom, but it's all all worthwhile, all great stuff.

Pam McGorry [00:12:14]:
Yeah. And I just wanna just reiterate well, I should say reiterate, just reflect on a point you hit on, Zach, is those interviews and all the skills that the students learn from generating questions, getting out into a community, securing those interviews, and packaging it all together and all of that, you know, really, just reflects C SPAN's mission of providing, multiple perspectives on an issue. And, you know, not just the 2 leading parties in in the country, and we're going into an elect you know, into our election, seasons. It's just providing awareness of others that are out there and just giving people as much information as they possibly can on an issue and on a candidate so they can decide for themselves what they think on an issue. And that's what we hope students will do throughout this process of researching a topic that's important to them is talking to different people, being open to listening to different perspectives, and then make an informed decision. Whatever decision it is, that that's, you know, up to them. That's their personal choice, but that's it. And so this year, we're really hoping to hear from them what is the most important issue to them in this campaign season and their message to the president?

Liza Holland [00:13:25]:
Boy, that's so exciting. And, you know, just putting my, another hat I wear is the president of our local League of Women Voters. And what a cool opportunity and what a great prompt. I'm going to have to move up this, this episode on my episodes list so we can get people having more time to be able to do this. But it just seems to me that that offers an incredible amount of opportunities for for other organizations to, you know, to help and to make themselves available for interviews and those types of things. That is so fun. I can't wait to be able to, to listen to and watch the documentaries. So does all of that live at, student cam.org, or where's the best place for people to reach out to find out more about the the competition, what's involved, etcetera, etcetera?

Zach Lowe [00:14:21]:
Yeah. Everything lives at studentcam.org, as you said, including, which is, is one of our most favorite things too, just in terms of longevity of the competition. All of the winners from the last 20 years, are also live. All of their films, for, winners, I think probably the last 10 or 15 years as well. We also have pages for them that include all of the, different congratulatory messages that they've gotten from elected officials, from their interviewees, press releases, news hits, and things, because we want these to live as portfolios for students as they move on in the next spot of their life afterward. But all the details are there. All the requirements are there on the website, but also say that, you know, we're a small team. As Pam said, it's it's us 2 plus, Craig, who's back at the office today.

Zach Lowe [00:15:13]:
And, we address any sort of concerns, any sort of questions. We exist just to help students and teachers, and they can reach us anytime at our email address as well, which is educate at c hyphen span.org.

Liza Holland [00:15:27]:
Super. I will drop all of those links and whatnot into our show notes here as well. So that that is a fantastic and, like, the model of the great things that you are doing, but there are some supports and whatnot for teachers at C SPAN Classroom. Right? So, Pam, do you wanna give us a little overview of what, C SPAN classroom is all about and what listeners can look for there?

Pam McGorry [00:15:51]:
Sure. So Craig, Zach, and I make up the C SPAN education team, and what we do is sift through all of C SPAN's programs. And we're not just the coverage of the house and senate, And, we're we're much more than that. Yes. The 3 branches of government, but we have American history TV programming. We've got book TV programming interviews with nonfiction authors. We like to say there's something for everyone. So our team sits through all of those programs and, thinks about what would be supportive for teachers to use in the classroom.

Pam McGorry [00:16:22]:
So we have over 30 subject topic areas, right, on our on our website, our C SPAN classroom website. And so we'll create short video clip based resources that are free, for teachers to use in their classroom. I'll let Zach highlight some of those specific areas in a minute if that's okay. But just, the general overview is they're all free. They are ready to go, and, we update them daily. So

Liza Holland [00:16:48]:
Lot of rich resources there. Tell us a little more about it, Zach.

Zach Lowe [00:16:52]:
Well, yeah. As Pam said, you know, there's something for everyone on C SPAN. That said, we also say you never know what you're going to find on C SPAN, because we'll air anything and everything that relates to public affairs. So that will address US history, government, branches of government. We have Supreme Court oral arguments, so on and so forth. Right now we have over 8,000 different resources, all free, readily accessible. You don't even need an account to log in. Most of our resources are also packaged with graphic organizers, choice boards, different activities like that.

Zach Lowe [00:17:25]:
But just to give you an idea of something that we have relatively, I'd say free reign to delve into the C SPAN video library that has everything, everything we've aired since the eighties and stuff way back before as well. So you're talking nearly 300000 hours of content that we're able to go into. So one idea we had from a, I think it was a teacher fellow from this past summer that, that we had joined us was a lesson plan about the Republican and National Democratic National Conventions and celebrity endorsements of the candidates. So that's one thing I've actually spent my morning today going through because we have aired every convention in their entirety since, 1988. So I'm pulling one example from each convention of celebrity endorsements. So I have, you know, right now, one that I just finished watching actually was Clint Eastwood in 2012 for the Republican convention and then, Meryl Streep from 2016 for the Democratic convention. So, you, again, you never know what you're going to find on C SPAN. You also never know what you're going to find in C SPAN classroom, but I'd say our bread and butter for our site anyway, we have a lot of teachers in AP US government.

Zach Lowe [00:18:33]:
We have a lot of resources for that, but really we're always looking for brand new ideas. So between our teacher conferences, our teacher networks and our teacher fellowship, we continue to get brand brand new ideas. So, one other example, and then I'll be quiet for a minute was, I was a teacher fellow in 2019 and I taught state history in South Carolina. So I thought it'd be great project for me as a C SPAN teacher fellow to mine everything that we had for state history. So we also have a now robust, state history collection for all 50 States, Washington DC and Puerto Rico. So, but that extends to, we've had teacher fellows who have taught economics. So we have economics resources, geography, world history. Again, you never know what you're gonna find.

Pam McGorry [00:19:17]:
Generally. So if you're looking for lesson plans, those are all mapped out with, most of them have Google Docs with, hyperlinks and, ready to go. We have bell ringers if you're looking to use those to start a classroom, a short video with related vocabulary discussion questions. If you're looking for current events, we have those too, short videos of of what's going on in in the country and the world. Our Amist Day in history collection, those are super cool. Those are focused on large events that have happened throughout history, a collection of short videos. And, we also have our constitution clips. Can't forget that since we just celebrated Constitution Day.

Pam McGorry [00:19:55]:
We've taken the text of the constitution and paired it with short C SPAN videos either showing that provision in action or explaining it. So that's another one. And then we have our deliberations, which, are, really more in-depth lessons that, are framed with a question. And students get, background videos with the leading positions on them and, can engage in a in a deliberation discussion debate. And it they're really customizable. So that's just, in a nutshell, some of the things that we have.

Liza Holland [00:20:26]:
Well, the more that we talk, the more I realize that there are are levels and and, depth and richness to to the resources that you have there. I would love for one of you, and maybe, Zach, let me ask you since you were 1, What is it in what's involved in being a teacher fellow for C SPAN?

Zach Lowe [00:20:46]:
Yeah. So that actually changed during the, COVID pandemic. Back when I was a teacher fellow, we would bring fellows to Washington DC for 4 weeks, to work in the office 9 to 5 for those 4 weeks. Now that has since transitioned to give some more flexibility to teachers. So it's a virtual based fellowship, but still it's over the course of the 4 weeks. It's each July. And basically we ask applicants for the fellowship to give us a plan. What do you want to create resources on? How do you want to use the C SPAN video library? How do you want to make our resources better? So each of them will come, to us with a different idea, a different thought about, what to create, how to create it, and then based on the availability, based on our conversations with them, we're able to, select, typically it's been now, 5 fellows each year and they're able to work with us.

Zach Lowe [00:21:38]:
And there's also a cash stipend along with that. But just this past summer, we had, one teacher thought that it'd be great to make a lesson about propaganda in political speeches. So she mined the video archive for that. We had another teacher fellow, wanted to mind the Supreme Court oral arguments. So he had made 10 moot court lesson plans based on recent Supreme Court cases just from the last 10 years or so. And then we've also had other teacher fellows, create other things this year. We had, one created a Google doc that paired the text of the Federalist Papers with the text of the US Constitution. So what are the overlays between those? Again, all using the C SPAN video clips.

Zach Lowe [00:22:18]:
So plenty of different ideas, but we're always, always looking for new ideas each summer.

Liza Holland [00:22:23]:
That is exciting. And so if someone did want to be a fellow, would they go to C SPAN classroom to find the opportunity to apply, or how does that work?

Zach Lowe [00:22:33]:
Yeah. Absolutely. There's, actually a big button right at the top of the C SPAN classroom website that says teacher opportunities. So that includes not only our teacher fellowship, but also I'll turn over to Pam about, you know, we also offer free virtual PD and we also have teacher conferences as well. So not sure if you wanted to speak about those, Pam.

Pam McGorry [00:22:53]:
Yeah. So as Zach mentioned, you can get details about those programs on our teacher opportunities tab on a cspan classroom.org website. And we update information and applications become available more toward the, you know, the beginning of the year and throughout the spring. We're excited because this upcoming summer will be the first time since before the pandemic we're going to be able to host an in person, summer educator conference, which is just so exciting for us. As Zach said, those those opportunities, whether it's a fellowship or a virtual professional development, we're happy to meet with, teachers all across the country at a time that works for them virtually to run them through all the resources programs we have. But, in our in person conferences, we learn so much from teachers everywhere about what is important to them because they can tell us what they're seeing and what they need. So it's a perfect opportunity for, collaboration among all of us. But, yeah, look for that if you go to our website.

Pam McGorry [00:23:53]:
But a great way to, as I noted, if you go there, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter that goes out on Sundays. And that is a compilation of new resources, resources that might be topical and timely that are coming up, as well as free offers, whether we're going to be sharing a new poster that might be coming out. The American presence timeline poster in the past has been a very popular one that those are free. We also have our electoral college map poster, that we've distributed as wildly popular with teachers across the country, but also these opportunities for teachers. So applications will be available and teachers can stay on top of that. And, if they register for our weekly email, yeah. That's it.

Liza Holland [00:24:38]:
No. That is exciting. Let me ask you this because, you know, I come from the support type of side of education. And so immediately, things like the League of Women Voters, like Girl Scouts, like those types of things kind of come to mind of out of the classroom educators that might be interested. Are your do you have to be a teacher to be able to access the C SPAN classroom resources?

Pam McGorry [00:25:05]:
Yeah. You don't. They're all free. Free and clear. So help yourself. And we, not just traditional classrooms. We have homeschool teachers. And we say they're geared for grades 6 through 12, but university professors use our content.

Pam McGorry [00:25:19]:
And you just reminded me when you pointed out the Girl Scouts that I had gone to a student cam ceremony locally in the DMV area, and these students did it as part of a Girl Scout project. So, you know, student cam does not just need to be done in a classroom. It doesn't need to be a class project. It could be it could just be an extra credit project. Just inform students. We've had students who've seen a poster or heard about it and did it on their own because it sparked an interest, for them. These clubs outside get involved. So I know I moved that in another direction, but you just reminded me that these programs and resources are available to everyone.

Pam McGorry [00:25:57]:
That's so exciting to me. And, you know, it's there there's part of, again, why I started this podcast that education is not the responsibility solely of classroom teachers. Right? It is it is a societal type of a responsibility that all of us are teachers and, influencers and all those types of things. So very exciting that you you make those types of opportunities available. So, Zach, I wanna start with you on this question. What do you find are the biggest challenges? You're doing lots of great work, but what what challenges do you face?

Zach Lowe [00:26:37]:
Well, I think in our charged political climate, it's oftentimes, I won't say difficult for for folks to use our resources to implement our, programs in their classrooms, but it is difficult. You know, for instance, there was, and I can't remember exactly which district it was recently, but we just saw a news article on social media that there is a district that has banned the teaching of anything related to the 2024 presidential election. So, I mean, you think about for better or for worse in terms of, you know, focus on standards and, you know, the applicability of certain lessons and topics you think about, you know, inside the classroom, just trying to maintain constructive discourse. So I won't comment on that necessarily, but in terms of all these resources that we are producing with that frame of mind, that we think that they're balanced, or we know that they're balanced because we have multiple perspectives, we'd like to see them used, but oftentimes us being the producers of this content, the consumption is out of our control. So it's our hope that we put everything out there that it's able to be used by teachers constructively, that it helps to, to build classroom communities, that it helps to build civic awareness and understanding, you know, across multiple, content areas. But again, that's out of our hands. So we will do everything that we possibly can. As, as we've said, we're, we're here to support teachers, anything we possibly can to help teachers implement the lessons and resources in their classroom, to help implement student cam in their classroom.

Zach Lowe [00:28:05]:
But, it's it's difficult right now, for for folks to be able to use everything that we do produce.

Liza Holland [00:28:12]:
Wow. Yes. I can totally see how that would happen, but boy, how sad is that? I'm so sorry. But, Pam, would you like to to kinda expand upon that as far as challenges that you wind up seeing?

Pam McGorry [00:28:24]:
Yeah. And I have to tell you, I think I just can't thank you enough for having us on this because the the question you had us reflect on just led to really great conversations between Zach and I and our experiences and just allowed us to reflect on what we're doing. You know? And as teachers, always reflecting on what we can do and how we can do it better. We do that with everything we we do. But one of the things we talked about and something in my experience is traveling throughout the country is, equity, the digital divide in classrooms and making sure that classrooms or teachers, they have access to our free resources. So I think that's one barrier that is a challenge for us. And, you know, even shifting into COVID and privacy issues, and that increasingly becomes a problem. And, you know, the great thing about working with, I mean, I'm just so thankful to be able to work with such a a great team because we really we communicate so well, and we're we're available when teachers email us about an issue or a problem.

Pam McGorry [00:29:25]:
We'll get right back to them. The 3 of us will talk about it and who can handle what and and have you seen this. So, that I'll say is something that we've noticed and that we're we work on as we get those inquiries. But, another one is how to reach up and coming teachers. So we were just having a conversation this week about how to spread the word about student cam and C SPAN classroom. We have traditional things we've done, but how can we reach them? I mean, I remember taking my social studies methods class, and I've been I've been out of the clash I've been with C SPAN since 20 2010 when I shifted out. And, Zach, it just reminded me was leading into the 2008 election, and I was teaching, students. It was about primaries and caucuses, and I was using C SPAN.

Pam McGorry [00:30:10]:
And I just saw the difference and the fire in these kids' eyes when they were learning about it and and the passion. And I thought, wow, I wanna do this on a greater scale, which is what we're we're we're doing now. But I I just wonder how we so anybody listening, if you have any ideas on how we can reach these young teachers who are looking for content on certain platforms that they're familiar with or if you know methods teachers who are looking for support, we've done that. Zach and I have done, we've sat in sat in. We of classrooms, met these classrooms. And we've been a part of one evening's class to showcase what we have for teachers because I remember trying to gather as many free resources as I possibly could. So those are the 2 things I think. It's accessing our our free resources and and meeting new up and coming teachers where they are.

Pam McGorry [00:30:57]:
We are definitely living in an age of information overload, aren't we? And, part of that is is shifting, you know, sifting through all the various resources and whatnot. And I know you and I discussed the fact that you really, because of the climate that we're living in, didn't really wanna work in this, work in this last question about what do you want decision makers to know. And so I definitely will respect that. One of the things that I would love to get from you guys, and if you're not able to answer, I totally understand that too, but we are in an age where disinformation is really running rampant. And so would either of you like to comment on how people can look at the information that's out there and be able to, you know, kinda sift through what is accurate and what is not. Maybe some resources you could recommend, that sort of a thing. Because I do think that, you know, to me as an outsider looking in, you all are offering a lot of great resources that are not biased and are, you know, but really get to to the facts. And and that's some true journalism in my personal opinion.

Liza Holland [00:32:12]:
But I wonder if either one of you would be willing to, to just chat about as as you're going through and you're looking at all the resources that are available, how do you how do you sift through that as a, you know, as a citizen?

Zach Lowe [00:32:24]:
Well, you know, echoing what you had said too, earlier about information overload. I was actually gonna say too that another one of our our challenges is just getting the word out about our resources because we feel that right now our resources are on, I don't know, Pam probably has tabs on this, but maybe 10 different websites, everything from Share My Lesson to Civics Renewal Network, to a bunch of different organizations, just try and get the word out that, you know, we have these resources and hopefully there'll be very, very helpful in, as you said, this era of disinformation or misinformation. So I think that that also then goes back to answering this question and not necessarily to toot our own horn with C SPAN, but that is what we are known for is this long form coverage of no commentary, no editing, no analysis on our end. We just air what other people are saying. And one idea comes to mind right now, which, I think Pam will also be happy to share some thoughts is I just had the opportunity to attend the Democratic National Convention representing education team. Pam had the opportunity to attend the RNC and you see a lot of social media traction from folks from that are viewing these conventions about just how much they appreciate C SPAN because other networks will chime in with commentary, they'll cover up other people's speeches, they'll talk about, you know, analyzing this last speech while this next person's talking, whereas we just turn the cameras on and let folks see what's happening. So I, again, not tooting our own horn, but Seaspan is a great place to start just to see. I think that that also is reflected in, as Pam mentioned earlier, some of our resources, we call them just our current events videos.

Zach Lowe [00:34:04]:
Each one of those includes a graphic organizer that one of the questions is who is speaking and what is their potential bias? So you can watch everything in its long form on C SPAN or on C SPAN classroom, and then students can begin to reflect on who's talking, what are their motivate or what are their potential or perceived motivations, How might that be skewing what they're saying? And then from there they can maybe springboard into these other resources that there might be generally perceived thoughts that maybe they skew left or they skew right or that's inappropriate or incorrect or or biased or what have you, but starting with C SPAN and then branching out from there because you know what you're going to find on our network is just the words of what the person is saying and that's it. Pam?

Liza Holland [00:34:51]:
You hit it on the head. Primary source. Right? You're hearing directly from the source. You're hearing the the whole story. You can see the whole watch the whole speech or whatever whatever occurred. So that is a note that I made. And, yeah, that's what we do. We don't interpret.

Pam McGorry [00:35:07]:
We don't analyze for you. I can tell you in in thinking about what you, referenced, Zach, being at the conventions, how many people coming up, saying, I loved watching C SPAN's coverage. I mean, what a team we have. I the network is amazing. And how it all comes together is just magic, a lot of hard work, but just I I heard people saying, I just was able to watch the whole thing for myself and hear directly from that individual. And I I did a quick search. So if anyone is interested, if you go to c span classroom, c span.org/classroom sorry. You can search for media literacy, and then you'll see we have resources at a public trust in the media, why does misinformation spread, news literacy skills and misinformation, improving news literacy skills in students.

Pam McGorry [00:35:57]:
So there's there's a variety of of content that that we have available to talk about that very issue, but media literacy is definitely something I know that that's a conversation that's going on across the country.

Pam McGorry [00:36:08]:
It absolutely is. And, you know, all of those talking heads, I think this move to 247 coverage has introduced a lot more bias. So kudos to C SPAN for, allowing people to make decisions for themselves and, and and hear things without a spin. So thank you so much. And I can't believe we have come up to the end of our time already. I feel like I could talk to you guys all day. But I just want to thank you so very much for the extremely important work that you are doing and the opportunities that you are offering both to teachers and to students. And I recommend everybody hop on to, both cspan.org / classroom and student cam.org to be able to to see the fruits of this amazing labor.

Pam McGorry [00:36:59]:
So thank you.

Liza Holland [00:37:00]:
Okay. No. Thank you so much. And I just wanna give a give a shout out because all this, you know, wouldn't be possible without our funding, our cable partners. You know? People think we are not funded. We get no funding from the government, and I just wanted to make that point because they, you know, they come out to our student camp ceremony ceremonies oftentimes too. They were there in Lexington when we were there. So, thank you.

Pam McGorry [00:37:19]:
Thank you for that because we're able to do what we can.

Liza Holland [00:37:23]:
I didn't realize that either. So I'm so glad that you brought that point forward. Alright. Well, thank you again for being part of Education Perspectives, and I encourage the listeners to go and, check the show notes for these links because all kinds of great resources there.

Zach Lowe [00:37:38]:
Thank you so much for having us.

Pam McGorry [00:37:40]:
Talk to you soon.

Liza Holland [00:37:42]:
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Education Perspectives.

Liza Holland [00:37:46]:
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