Casting news at Webster Elementary

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Webster Elementary School students Sienna Dugan and Ally Sidley interview Guido Chef Eleano Camboni as part of their current events class last Friday. Photo by Nora Fleming / TMT

Webster Elementary School students get a chance to produce live newscasts, interviewing local talent and government officials.

By Nora Fleming / Special to The Malibu Times

Early on in her teaching career, Kris Stewart, faculty member at Webster Elementary School, searched for a method to make the standard news clip and summary current events part of class learning more exciting for her sixth-graders. Her solution was to divide students into groups to present various components of a television newscast, such as sports, business and weather, along with entertaining commercials and interviews with special guests.

The interactive method was so successful, Stewart said, that she incorporated the project to work with the younger students she teaches at Webster. Her second- through fourth-grade students present the newscasts every other month, and actively participate in the organizing, script writing and idea generation for commercials and interview guests.

On June 6, Stewart’s fourth-grade students ran their last newscast of the year and invited various well-known locals, such as Joey Escobar of Joey Escobar Karate and Eleano Camboni a chef at Guido’s restaurant in Cross Creek Plaza, in addition to NiCole Holland, who serves as the volunteer coordinator for the nonprofit Mending Kids, and Charissa Seaman, a dance instructor, to be interviewed. Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich was a guest at a previous newscast.

“I think it’s pretty special that there are community leaders and other adults in Malibu willing, and happy, to come in to be interviewed by their fourth-grade friends for no gain of their own,” Stewart said.

Hannah Gruendemann, one of Stewart’s students who took on several roles during the newscast, said she and her classmates think of people they would like to interview and personally approach them with invitations, and come up with their own questions.

At the newscast on June 6, these questions included a full range of topics, from asking Escobar about why he became a karate teacher to Seaman’s reflections on her experiences as a backup dancer for Britney Spears, where she once danced for a crowd of 300,000 people in Brazil.

Holland of Mending Kids brought to the interview one of the children receiving treatment through the aid of the program, an international nonprofit that helps find treatment for terminally ill children in South America, and told the class that even as students, “they can make a difference.”

Guests expressed surprise and amusement at some of the students’ questions, such as Camboni contemplating his favorite dish.

“That’s like asking a father to pick his favorite child,” Camboni, a Sardinian native, said laughing.

Two students took on roles as guests, dressing in costume to play Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cleopatra and being interviewed by fellow classmates.

Parents composed the primary audience and watched as students presented their scripts, which they wrote and practiced for homework, covering news topics, such as international recovery efforts post earthquake in China and the local city ban on plastic bags.

Hard news and weather reports, sports summaries and movie reviews presented by students were interspersed with lively commercials that brought many audience members to laughter and applause.

“We audition commercials that the kids work on at recess or after school and choose eight to 12 for the newscast,” Stewart said. “With a few rehearsals, they’re ready. It’s remarkable how professional they sound!”

Imaginary products, like a refillable water cup, Siamese jumping frogs and a daydream potion, were presented in the commercials.

“I like to perform in front of the parents and show off my reading skills,” said Gruendemann, who has tried roles at the science desk, cooking, interviewing and commercial presentation while a student of Stewart’s.

The newscast ended with a live cooking demonstration preparing Black Forest Muffin Cupcakes, which were handed out to audience members, and an interview with Stewart herself, where she reflected on her experiences as a teacher and her students’ path to higher education.

In summary of her choosing teaching as a career, Stewart said, “It was the best decision of my life.”