Part I: Recommendation Letters From Swampscott High

Recommendation Letters Part I

I’ve always thought it was a shame that the only people who ever see college recommendation letters are the teachers who write them and a handful of college admissions officers.   Teachers work so hard to capture the essence of each student’s achievements, character and potential that the result, it seems to me, could be as rewarding and instructive to the student as any classroom feedback – perhaps the most concentrated, nuanced portrait of that student ever committed to paper.  Yet the student never gets to see it, nor do his or her parents.

Thus over the years I’ve been intrigued by the idea of somehow sharing my recommendation letters with my students, their families and possibly the wider community. In addition to praising some deserving young graduates, it might  provide a window into a process that goes on annually and quietly, without much celebration but with a lot of hard, careful work, a true labor of love.   The fifteen or twenty letters I write each year, for example, are probably less than half of what many teachers of English or Social Studies are asked to write, not to mention all the work the guidance counselors do for hundreds of students each year.

However, in writing these letters, I do usually balance praise with some careful description of ways in which the student could improve in the future.   This feels more realistic to me, and, I suspect, to admissions officers.  Would I still feel free to do this if my letters were written with an awareness that the students or their parents might read them?  

It wasn’t until I was in the midst of writing my letters for this year’s seniors that I started to feel that this was the year in which I could write openly, without self-censorship, and show the students the results.  I know them well; most of them have taken three or four courses with me in TV Production and/or Media Literacy.  They are an unusually mature and honest group of individuals whom I knew I could trust to be able to appreciate with interest and respect whatever I had to say about them.  I decided to give each of them a copy of their letter as a little gift during senior week or on graduation day.

I started discussing this plan with teachers, guidance counselors and administrators.  Not only was the response quite positive, but also several of them encouraged me to put the full plan into effect and publish these letters, perhaps on graduation day, to celebrate this extraordinary group of Swampscott High School graduates. 

At first, I considered publishing every letter I had written this year, which would have been close to twenty.   In the end, out of space concerns and because of the logistics of contacting every student and/or parent during the last weeks of school, I decided to draw the line at publishing just the letters I had written for students to whom I would also be giving an award at the senior banquet. 

So this past week, either before or during the senior banquet, I talked to all of these students and most of their parents, and showed them their letters.  They all gave their permission and support for what should probably be seen as a one-time experiment.  It would be ill advised for any future student or parent to assume that I or any other teacher will show them their college recommendation letter.  I’m not trying to start any kind of trend.  Teachers need the confidentiality to honestly and directly represent our students to the colleges, and students need this kind of clear-minded, confidential representation, even more than they need to be celebrated in the local press.

Having said that, I hope that, besides celebrating these individual students, these letters also help illuminate a simple truth of education that I feel is sometimes overlooked in this era of the MCAS, the SATs and standardized curricula.  That truth is this: each student is different, and thus, it is sadly limiting to judge them all by the same test, the same grading rubric or the same vaguely-defined standard of “rigor.”   Those of us who love the arts know that you don’t judge every work of art by the same monolithic criterion; should we be any less flexible in the way we respond to our students?

So in reading this small collection of letters, I hope you will remember that each year here in Swampscott, dozens of teachers write thousands of letters for hundreds of students, and each letter, like each student, is a unique creation.

Tom Reid

TV Production and Media Literacy Teacher

Swampscott High School

reid@swampscott.k12.ma.us

For Alena Korsunskaya, Dec. 3, 2010

 To Whom It May Concern:

Alena Korsunskaya’s enthusiasm for ideas and debate has impressed and delighted me for the last year and a half, during which time I have been her teacher in two media-related courses and her advisor for an independent study project.   She is wonderfully impassioned and responsive to challenging art and challenging ideas.  I am happy to give her the highest possible recommendation.

One of the things I enjoy and admire about Alena is that she disagrees with me as often any student I can ever remember!   In a culture in which too many students defer too readily to their authority figures, either from a lack of confidence or from a belief that this will help their grade, Alena does what a brilliant, sensitive, emotional young women should be doing.   She writes, speaks and reacts openly, quickly, and equally from her heart and from her mind.   Her statements of opinion are dramatic, sometimes even melodramatic, but they are wonderfully honest.  Her thoughts about films and ideas can range from lyrical appreciation to scathing criticism, often expressed with humor and always with a mixture of adolescent sensitivity and an intellect way beyond her years.

I should mention that Alena routinely scores 99 or 100 on my tests, but where I do challenge her is in our discussions and in the dialogue between us that occurs, for example, when she writes one of her reviews of a film or an idea.   She writes at great length, combining precise prose and rational argument worthy of a graduate student with emotions appropriate to a sensitive impatient adolescent girl.  I answer in depth, but without taking the emotional bait (for instance, not getting defensive when she informs me that the “great” film I have chosen to show the class that week is beneath me and that sometimes she wonders about my aesthetic and intellectual inconsistency . . . ).    

She has a best friend, another Russian girl named Marina, and the two of them virtually dominate any discussion they engage in.   They usually express a more conservative ideological point of view than other students, not to mention me, but they are fearless and take on all comers.    In fact, the two of them were such thoughtful and passionate contributors to my Media Literacy class last year that when I decided to create a Media Literacy II class in foreign film and global media this year, I asked them to help me design it. As a result, this semester they are taking an independent study, viewing foreign films, doing research on them, co-creating lesson plans and discussion questions and even test questions.  Then next semester they will be co-teaching the course with me.  This is the first time I have ever asked students to co-create a course with me, but they are proving to be highly motivated and thoughtful as we work on this project.

And of course, we continue to have some lively debates, but working with just the two of them has also helped me see more of Alena’s quieter, more deliberate side.  In the relatively relaxed environment of just two students and a teacher, she is proving more balanced than in large-group situations, more able to work towards consensus, more appreciative of discussion that incorporates examination not just of our ideas but also of the ways our personalities and characters are embodied in our opinions and in our means of expressing them.  In other words, she has proven capable of enjoying dialogue as a means of thoughtful self-examination, not just as a blood sport!

Similarly, even though Alena still loves heated debates, I’ve also seen more of her silly side this year (she and Marina spend a lot of time laughing, at each other as well as at some of the foreign films they are viewing).  I’ve  also seen Alena’s more sensitive side.   My students view excerpts from the British “7-Up” series, in which the same people have been interviewed at ages seven, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and 49 (so far).   The film examines the question of whether one’s early circumstances determine the outcome of one’s life (and the answer, of course, is a resounding “sort of”).  For many of my students, their greatest enjoyment is how funny it is, for example, when a seven-year-old girl says she wants kids, then at 14 and 21 she hates the whole idea of families, then at 28 she happily has two children.  For Alena, however, the whole film, the whole concept of how many ways people’s lives can change, of how hard people can work to overcome a tough childhood, was so inspiring that she was in tears, albeit somewhat discreetly.  

I suspect that she has a lot of deep feelings about her own life, too, about where she might be going.  I’m sure she senses that she could go a lot of ways.  For example, she has a tendency to veer towards a right-wing ideological perspective, understandably appreciative as she is of what America at its best can offer that far surpasses the grayness of the Russia she remembers, yet when I see her transcend ideology and laugh wholeheartedly at clever left-wing media hoaxsters The Yes Men, I realize that, much more than wanting to think she already has all the answers, she wants to be challenged, she wants to be delighted, she wants to see and be part of something brilliant and innovative.  She wants neither old-fashioned traditionalism nor knee-jerk liberal political correctness.   I know that a school such as yours would provide this kind of diverse, cosmopolitan, intellectually rich and challenging environment.

And she would prove, I believe, to be the kind of student you would be happy to have in your classrooms and on your campus.  I can envision the conversations she will have with professors and with students from all over the world, the ways   she will influence them and they will influence her.   She is more than ready for what you can offer her and I thank you for considering helping her in the next stage of her growth.   If I can be of additional assistance as you evaluate her candidacy, please don't hesitate to contact me. 

P.S.  In case I have portrayed Alena as overly dogmatic or rigid, I hope you don’t mind one more piece of evidence of her desire to be challenged and to change.  It’s from a letter she wrote to me recently in asking me to write her a recommendation.   It should give you a sense of how appreciative she is of learning and growing:

“I cannot explain how much of an impact taking Media Literacy had on my education

and on my perception . . .  By the end of last year, I was exhausted from school,

but more so, exhausted from thinking.  Your class made me think

about who I was then, who I was before then and who I wanted to be after then . . .

Thank you for your patience with me and for creating an environment 

that is so conducive to reflection and thought.”

For David Shorr, Dec. 30, 2010

To Whom It May Concern:

 I have been David Shorr’s teacher for the last three and a half years, in at least one course per semester (sometimes more, since he has taken every course I offer in both TV Production and Media Literacy).   His accomplishments over the years, achieved despite significant health challenges that I am pleased to hear are lessening, have been varied and significant. 

I am happy to recommend him quite highly to you as a student who is increasingly hard working and motivated, focusing intently on building a career in film and television. 

To be honest, If I had been writing about him two years ago, I would have emphasized his potential but admitted that he was only usually, not always, a hard worker.   Happily, he has grown during his junior and senior years, even more than the average student.  I can honestly say that he has gone from a bright student who did some very good work but socialized a fair amount to one of the three or four hardest-working students in the TV studio, an excellent example and sometimes mentor to the younger students.  

In trying to explain his unusually impressive growth, I would cite two factors.  First of all, as you’ll read in his essay, he had to face serious health challenges a couple of years ago, including major surgery.   I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, let alone a young person, but it seems to have helped him mature and encouraged him to start focusing more on figuring on what was important to him.   Secondly, and this is only speculation (from a teacher, not a psychologist), I would theorize that he has lived somewhat in the shadow of his parents, who are both TV industry professionals and/or professors of film and TV.   They are well known and successful, and this has clearly helped catalyze his interest in media production.  At that same time, I have frequently seen children who are drawn to the same career as their parents seem oddly slow in getting started, as if hesitant to even dare to compete with their parental figures.  I have met David’s father, and he is certainly an impressive man who speaks and lectures with intensity and authority.  I can imagine how daunting it would be to set out to match his level of accomplishment.

Yet for whatever reason, David has transcended his relatively slow start and really started taking on the world, as well as avidly building his repertoire of skills.  He has done something which, I should emphasize again, is actually quite rare, at least on the high school level – within the relatively short span of three years, he has gone from someone who was doing only good work, often well under his potential, to someone who works harder on getting the details right than almost any of my students, someone who will stay after school for hours to finish a video, to meet a deadline and/or just for the pleasure of getting things done and done well.   It’s really been a remarkable transformation. 

Another aspect of it, which suggests how avidly I think David will work in college, is that he now seeks out other learning opportunities besides high school TV class.  He gets paid a stipend to tape our evening school committee meetings.  He takes intensive after-school courses at Raw Arts in Lynn, a community arts school with very high artistic standards, and is really committed to their program.  He teaches young students camerawork at the Swampscott Public library.  He interns at Boston’s Channel 7, where he is gaining true broadcast level experience.  And recently, when one of my former students, now a professional editor in L.A., was in Boston working at an editing studio for a few days, he told me I could send in a few motivated students to watch him work.  David was one of two students eager enough for the new experience that he made the trip on such short notice, even though it was a school vacation day, to see what he could learn.

I should also add that David has contributed enthusiastically to the discussions in the Media Literacy classes he has taken with me.   He is a lover of film, with strong opinions, often expressed with real wit, and takes great pleasure in discussing why he does or does not like a film.  He is equally happy talking about the technical aspects of a film or debating the philosophical issues it raises.   I should note that his writing is not quite as mature as it could be, but that, too, is improving.  I think he knows that, writing aside, he is the equal of anyone else in the class in terms of his knowledge and love of film, often scoring the highest grade on my tests.  And it seems that just as his seriousness about life is growing, so is his awareness that there are a lot of different reasons and ways to appreciate art.  For example, he seems more open to a wider variety of films right now, in Media Literacy II, than he was in Media Literacy I.

As you can see, I find David a bright, talented and serious (yet often quite humorous) young man who is growing by leaps and bounds, emotionally, personally, creatively and in terms of his work ethic.   If you will grant him admission to Boston University, I can tell you that you would be catching him on the upswing, at a point in his life when he is truly getting the idea of what he wants to do and is highly motivated to figure out how to go about doing it.   I thank you for considering helping him in the next stage of his growth. 

If I can be of any further assistance as you evaluate his candidacy, please don't hesitate to contact me. 

For Amisha Divadkar, March 24, 2011

To Whom It May Concern:

I first met Amisha Divadkar in the fall of 2009, in a class I co-teach at Swampscott High School entitled “Health and Media.”  In our first few class discussions, I could tell there was something unusual about her, something I couldn’t quite identify. It wasn’t merely her enthusiasm and her intelligence; although both were clearly considerable, there were plenty of other enthusiastic, intelligent students in this large, informal discussion-based class.  It was some other quality I hadn’t encountered before.  The closest I could come, at first, was the sense that she was more like a college student than a high school student.

Then, somewhere around the second week, I learned what it was.   She stayed after a class in which she had been one of the leaders of the discussion and we talked one on one for the first time.  We only had a few minutes, but it was long enough for me to learn something that really helped explain a lot: she had been home-schooled up through eighth grade.

It explained so much – even more than I would have expected.  I treat my students with a kind of informal, friendly respect and they treat me the same way.  We have fun and we talk with a certain kind of equality, albeit within a system in which I am an authority figure.   Still, I had noticed over the years that there was a certain difference in tone, manner and mood whenever former students, now in college, came back for a visit.  They were free people now, acting more like themselves, playing fewer games of trying to impress and/or adopting, consciously or unconsciously, a slightly supplicant attitude.   I had always thought it was kind of inevitable that high school students couldn’t quite break through the teacher-student barrier and talk with me just as one person on the planet to another.

But Amisha proved me wrong.  I sensed in our first conversation and in the ones that followed that she was completely devoid of any role-playing, any concern about grades or impressing me, that talking with her was simply the sharing of ideas and viewpoints, closer to the conversation between two adults than to the usual student-teacher relationship. 

I don’t mean to suggest that she called me by my first name, nor that she acted as if she were my equal in terms of intellectual development or life experience.  In fact, it was a given between us that she had a lot to learn from our conversations both during and after class, but not in the top-down lecture mode so common in schools.   It was real give and take, honest enjoyable conversation and respectful debate about ideas on all kinds of issues.

For me, getting to know Amisha was a dramatic reminder that even my best students have been affected by some of the negative aspects of a mixed blessing: the pressure and conditioning of years spent on the education treadmill.   Amisha, on the other hand, had been nurtured and educated in a much freer and individualized manner, one that clearly challenged her to constantly think for herself.

And ironically, she used this power of thinking for herself to make what I know was a tough decision to leave the security and support of home schooling after eighth grade and enroll Swampscott High School.   She has told me a fair amount about the lengthy period during which she pondered this option.  It took courage, I’d say, because Amisha knew she would be entering a whole new world with which she had little experience.

It seems to me that when Amisha first entered high school, she faced even greater obstacles than a student transferring from a private school or a public school in another district.   Those students are at least used to the regimentation, the socializing, and the unspoken rules of the classroom, the hallway, the locker room and the clubs.  Amisha had to learn it all.

But clearly, she did.  In part because she is so much her own person, such a kind, friendly, independent thinker, students and teachers respect her and enjoy talking with her.   She has gone from being the most outside of  outsiders to being a real leader in and out of her classrooms.

For example, I was so impressed by her avid, fair-minded participation in class debates during the courses in which I taught her last year that at the end of the year, I invited her to be my Teaching Assistant in Media Literacy II (Global Media).  The idea, which she enthusiastically accepted, was for her to take the course first, in the fall, then work with me to improve it and to be my assistant when I taught it again in the spring.

The role of teaching assistant in our high school sometimes ends up meaning just a glorified attendance taker, but on the rare occasions when I invite a student to be my T.A., I tell them I want a lot more than that.   I told Amisha that if she were to be my T.A. I would want her to keep a running journal all through the first semester she took the course, noting what films or other media we saw, key points of the subsequent discussions and her ideas for what worked well and what didn’t. I also requested that she meet with me once a week for a half-hour, so we could go over the journal.

I was a bit concerned that adding this to all her other work, in my class and all her other classes, would be too much, but she really came through.   In all kinds of thoughtful ways, she has provided a student’s point of view on what engaged her as well as her impression of what worked well for the rest of the class.  For example, she has advocated for full discussion days, in which, rather than showing part of a film each day and discussing it for the rest of the period, we set aside entire 94-minute class periods to discuss the most recent film and, of course, all the aspects of life, art, politics, philosophy or psychology that it brings up (thankfully, I don’t yet have a Media Literacy MCAS that requires me to teach to the test!).  

Amisha has also encouraged me to take a bit more time, when I hand back student papers, to read some excerpts aloud that I find thought provoking and/or well-written.  I had been doing it a little, but she suggested I do it more.   She told me how encouraging it was for the student whose work is being read and how well it helps the class understand each other’s point of view, especially when the student whose work I’m reading from is one of the quieter ones during discussion.   It has really been a nice improvement.

She has also been very helpful, a kind of role model, to the other students as we watch these sometimes challenging foreign films by directors like Fellini, Kurosawa, Truffaut, Godard, Rivette and so on, in the judicious, respectful way she discusses film and art.  She won’t lie if she doesn’t like a film on first viewing, but she will always give it a chance and really think about what her own reactions to challenging films teach her.  Even more impressive – and very helpful as an example for other students – is her openness to changing her opinions.   She will often come to like a film even better the second time around, and will tell the class why.  She never has the attitude that they should agree with her, but she models a young person with an active, open, positive mind – delighted by some films and ideas, and intellectually interested in why others don’t reach her, at least initially.

Recently, I was complimenting Amisha on the diplomatic way she had respectfully disagreed with someone in class, and I asked her if she had ever considered teaching as a career.  I told her I knew she’d be good at it.  With her typical openness and enthusiasm, she said she thinks about it a lot, but she also thinks a lot about becoming a therapist.    Certainly these careers require some similar qualities, but I think she’ll be wonderful at whatever she does.  She has an excellent mind and a kind heart, and she will be a wise, helpful guide to others, no matter what profession she chooses.

One way, in fact, that I know she will be a mentor for others is that she looks for and appreciates mentors herself.   She has thanked me for the time I’ve taken to talk with her, for the feedback I provide on her writing and more.   I can tell these expressions are genuine – not mere flattery but part of our ongoing dialogue about who she is and how she is growing.  I’m not in the profession of teaching for the accolades, but when a young person like Amisha has enough self-awareness to analyze what she has learned from me and to express her thanks, it’s very rewarding – and speaks well not only of me but also of her.   

I hope I have helped you see what an unusual young woman Amisha is and what potential she has.  She has welcomed the challenge of leaving her parents’ safe, supportive, individualized educational program and joining the chaos of public school, and has succeeded, thanks to her energy, intelligence and openness, in finding all the ways that a public school education can be exciting, challenging and enriching.   I thank you for considering helping her.   If I can be of additional assistance, please don't hesitate to contact me. 

 For Brian Sullivan, Nov. 15, 2010

To Whom It May Concern:

Last year, Brian Sullivan was a student in Health and Media, a class that the two of us co-teach at Swampscott High School.   When he asked if one of us would consider writing him a supplementary college recommendation, we quickly decided that since we both think so highly of him, we would write the letter together.  We’re happy to give him an extremely high recommendation to your institution.

We will leave it to other teachers here to discuss how well he does in his required courses, but we are happy to tell you how thoughtful and engaged he was in our course.   It’s an experiment in team teaching, an elective that fulfills the health requirement, and the goal is to help students take more seriously the effects of the media environment in which they are immersed on their health and lifestyle choices.  Because there are two teachers, there are close to forty students in the room.   We do offer a lot of opportunity for written reflection and discussion of modern health-related issues, but in a class that size, students typically get out of it what they put into it.

Brian put a lot into it.  He was not the student who would speak out the most often or the most immediately, but he spoke more often than most, and when he did speak, it was always honest and thoughtful.    We saw that he has a kind of maturity that’s truly unusual for a high school student.   He never plays to the crowd or jumps on a bandwagon.  He thinks carefully and expresses his opinions so thoughtfully that he becomes a leader in class, even when he is expressing a minority opinion.    Students sense that he forms and acts upon his own values, independent of any kind of peer (or teacher) pressure, and respect him for this.

In the year since that class ended, we have both enjoyed talking or working with him outside of class as well.   He is a frequent visitor to Tom’s TV studio before school, after school or during lunch, because his girl friend is one of the star

TV Production students.   Tom observes that Brian is one of the few students who seems to talk to him primarily as a person, not as a teacher.   Perhaps because Brian grew up in a family who are among the political and cultural leaders of the town of Swampscott, he has developed a natural ease in talking to people of all ages and socioeconomic status, but whatever the reason, it feels as if Brian has the confidence and insight required to transcend boundaries and relate to anyone who speaks to simply as a fellow human being.

For example, Tom and Brian were recently having a discussion of the colleges to which Brian was applying.   Tom was impressed at the high quality of these schools and complimented Brian on his ambition.   Brian thanked him, then initiated the following exchange: 

Brian: “Where did you go, Mr. Reid?”

Tom: “I went to Hamilton.”

Brian: “Oh, that’s a really good school, too.”

This brief exchange suggests a few things.  Brian was treating Tom as an actual person, asking about his past (surprisingly few students ever ask us where we went to school).    Brian was socially gracious, making sure to praise Tom’s college and compare it to his own choices.    Lastly, Brian is knowledgeable in ways many students aren’t, because as we (particularly Tom) hope you will generously admit, Hamilton’s virtues are indeed similar to those of your school, although few students would have the confidence in their own knowledge to assert this so casually. 

A few weeks ago, Tom asked Brian about this capability he has, the ability to speak from a position of good-willed equality, wondering if Brian himself was aware of it.  He was, to a degree, but confessed quite honestly that as an upper-class young white kid from Swampscott, he had experienced a rare moment of social insecurity a while back when he found himself joining a basketball league consisting mainly of young black men who were bigger and older than him, and were from Lynn, a much more urban and, in places, dangerous town than ours.  We think it’s to Brian’s credit that he was honest about feeling anxious, and that he didn’t back out, but just kept playing without saying much, and came to the realization that in the end these were just some more guys with whom he could enjoy playing basketball and making friends with. 

Mr. Harris has also been impressed by things Brian has said and done in and outside of class.   Brian has taken two of Buck’s classes, Contemporary Adolescent Issues and Health and Media.   In these classes students discuss adolescent issues and write weekly reflections.  These discussions and papers provide unique insights into the student’s lives and their adolescent journeys. Buck has been impressed by Brian’s maturity and compassion.  He alway seems to be looking out for others and to consider their needs before his.  He is a natural leader and yet rarely seeks out public recognition; instead he chooses to do the behind the scenes work and to let others take the stage.  Substance use and abuse is an issue for many of our students, but not Brian.  Instead, he quietly chooses instead to “live above the influence,” a lifestyle we sincerely wish more of our students would choose.

As you can see, we find Brian a bright, likeable, serious young man.   We have the sense that he has to put a certain amount of energy into not pulling rank or seeming to take any advantage of the leadership status his parents hold in this town.   Perhaps this helps explain why Brian, as smart as he is, goes about his life in an understated way, never blowing his own horn, but he is nonetheless a leader at our school, and we suspect he will become even more of one when he finds himself in a situation in which people judge him simply for who he is.  In other words, once he no longer has to make sure people don’t think he’s looking down on them, he’ll probably soar even higher.

We hope you’ll decide to let him do this at your institution.   We know you would find him fully involved and engaged in student life on your campus as well as in his own learning, and we thank you for considering helping him in the next stage of his growth.   If we can be of any further assistance as you evaluate his candidacy, please don't hesitate to contact us. 

Written for Alex Billias, Dec. 30, 2010

To Whom It May Concern:

For the past year and a half, I have been Alex Billias’s teacher in TV Production class.   He is one of the brightest students I have ever taught and I would give him the highest possible recommendation to you.

Even before Alex took his first TV Production class with me, I heard his name mentioned frequently, in such tones of awe that it almost became comic.  It seemed like whenever one of my best TV Production students would run up against a problem in using our Final Cut Pro editing software, trying to do something really ambitious that no one could figure out how to do, the student would say “Well, I’ll have to ask Alex Billias.”   They talked about him almost as if he were an omniscient deity.   Eventually, I did meet him, when one of my students brought him into the studio after school one day and asked my permission for Alex to work with him on one of our computers and help him solve a problem he was having in trying to create a particular editing effect.

At first, to be honest, I wasn’t sure this was a good thing.  I tend to encourage my students to figure things out for themselves, and, anyway, how did I know this kid whom I had never trained wouldn’t make whatever the problem was worse?  He seemed intelligent and polite, but he didn’t seem to have the usual sense of deference that, even though I don’t demand it, I’ve come to expect when a student I don’t know comes into our studio environment for the first time.  Was he a little cocky?  Was he pretending to know more than he did?  Was I a bit defensive because, as a teacher, I like to be the expert (or at least be the one who decides which young student, immersed in the modern digital environment, would be a helpful, respectful co-teacher with the veteran of the analog video era)?   

I soon figured out that the answers to those questions were no, no and yes.

Alex was quietly self-assured, but not cocky.  He really did know an amazing amount about technology of all kinds.  And yes, perhaps I was a little defensive, but once I saw how much he knew, what an excellent problem-solver he was, how much he enjoyed helping people and, not incidentally, what a positive, thoughtful guy he was, I happily invited him not only to drop by any time to help my students but also to consider taking TV Production himself.

So last year, he did take TV Production I, with the implicit understanding between us that we each had things to teach each other.   I taught him a little more than he had known before about camera techniques and aesthetics, field production and live TV.  In turn, he helped me (and everyone else in the class) learn more about digital editing.

By the end of TV Production I class (actually, even before the end), I happily offered him Independent Study status (also known as TV III), meaning he became one of the students entrusted with the privilege and responsibility of being able to come and go in the TV studio whenever they had free periods or before or after school.   Soon, he emerged as the most knowledgeable Final Cut Pro editor in our Mac-based studio, largely through his prior knowledge and his continuing investigations and explorations. 

In his second semester of TV Production, when I assigned him to be the mentor/advisor for a group of new students working on their first music video project, he really shined.  Under his patient and inspiring leadership, his group became the first one to really use the green screen capabilities of our relatively new studio.  The resultant video, a tongue-in-cheek tribute to Pokemon, was a witty, fast-paced piece of pop art, with colorful flashing designs chroma keyed in behind the young actors.  For example, at a certain point, they were all standing on a rotating earth as it soared through outer space!

Over the past two years, Alex has not only served as a mentor for less experienced students, but also has become one of my primary go-to guys when I needed help diagnosing a piece of equipment that needed repair or maintenance.  He also has performed whatever complex editing tasks I’ve needed done, jobs that I would only assign to my best students.  For example, Alex edited the video yearbook for last year’s graduating class, which meant organizing and choosing highlights from twelve years worth of footage showing the students growing up from kindergarten through their senior year.  His organizational skills and speed helped him get the job done, but he also impressed me with his sense of responsibility when he chose to stay after school several days in a row to meet the deadline I had given him (which allowed me to broadcast the video yearbook on our local cable channel in time for the graduates and their families to enjoy seeing it while the graduates were home).

Alex is not only a leader in the TV studio, but, from what I can tell, throughout the school. Teachers and students alike seem to like and admire him.   I believe that he is ranked number one or two in his class, and his resume will tell you of his participation and leadership roles in many student organizations.   I would also like to add that he isn’t just a studious young man, but also a person of real intellectual curiosity and, despite his mild demeanor, passion.  I hear it in the music he composes and plays, and in the informal discussions he has with me and with students in the TV studio.   He listens well, is very diplomatic and has a real willingness to hear other points of view, but when he is convinced that something is right, whether aesthetically or ethically, he defends his beliefs regardless of whether he is in the majority or a minority of one.

His enthusiasm for the exchange of ideas became even clearer to me recently when he overheard me discussing my other class, Media Literacy, with a student who took it last year.  This class involves a lot of discussion, at times heated, about issues and value statements presented by modern media.  The student was saying that he had enjoyed the class except for one student presentation by two young men who showed Bill Maher’s film “Religulous” and argued for the atheistic point of view.  The student said he felt that discussion had become overly argumentative.  I suggested that so much of education seems to go the other way, towards students being told by adults what the truth is, and asked him, “After all these years, don’t you appreciate the chance to stand up and say ‘Here’s what I think and here’s why!’ and have a good knock-down drag out debate once in a while?”

I forget what the other student said, but Alex, who had been smiling through my whole somewhat animated performance, said something like “I live for that!” and later told me he had signed up for my Media Literacy course because of that conversation.  I look forward very much to seeing even more of the philosophical, intellectual side of him, of being involved in some small way in helping challenge him as he explores and expands his aesthetical, ethical and political values.

Let this recommendation letter seem all strengths and no weaknesses, let me add that Alex is fallible, of course, but even there I must point out that to his credit he readily admits this.  In fact, when I asked him if he had any particular guidelines for me to keep in mind in writing this letter, he said something like “Feel free to say whatever you like.  I want to come across as human.”   Happily, I don’t think he expects to enter college already knowing all the answers – he is confident in what he has already achieved but he seems eager to do and learn more outside of Swampscott, to be in a place where he isn’t seen as some kind of omniscient deity.

I know your university would be that kind of place and I believe he would be a wonderful addition to your student body.

If I can be of any further help as you evaluate his candidacy, please feel free to contact me. 

Tom Reid

TV Production and Media Literacy Teacher

Swampscott High School

reid@swampscott.k12.ma.us