Now that you’ve finished the 2021 book, there is still so much you can do before school is out. I just got my first printed yearbooks in the mail this week! We all thought it might be impossible to create a book during a full year of living through a pandemic, but you and your staff stepped up to the …
As I have been interacting with all my teacher and adviser friends around the country, it’s become crystal clear to me – this year is an unbelievable challenge for everyone. It’s all new. No two days are the same. And no one can really understand what teaching is like now unless you are doing it every day. It’s exhausting and …
Darren Thomas has been teaching for years, but never advised a yearbook until the 2019 school year. As a new teacher at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, he was looking for a way to feel more connected to his new school. He leaned on his editors that first year, and the staff created an award-winning book. In his …
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re a go-getter, an ambitious busy bee and a passionate leader. Your yearbook experience is what makes you a prized catch in the sea of college applicants. Some believe yearbookers are future scrapbook moms, but your job as a college prospect is to stand out. You know that the hours you spent measuring the …
Two years ago on the last day of school here in Anchorage, Alaska, my principal called me to the office to ask if I would be willing to take on the yearbook class. The adviser was moving to Colorado, and the newly hired adviser’s contract was not renewed. After a few seconds of millions of conflicting thoughts racing through my …
Julia Satterthwaite, MJE, recently made some big changes in her life. She and her family moved from Michigan to California. She took a job at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, California. This year, for the first time, Satterthwaite added “yearbook adviser” to her list of roles. Yearbook Chat with Jim host Jim Jordan chatted with Satterthwaite about how she …
Participation in scholastic journalism may have saved Neelam Bohra’s life. At 19 years old, the freshman University of Texas student started experiencing severe health issues and was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that attacked her kidneys. She needed a transplant and found a donor in Leah Waters. Bohra and Waters shared their story with host Jim Jordan on Yearbook Chat …
It’s hard to believe we’re now on season three of Yearbook Chat with Jim! Way back in season one, host Jim Jordan did two new-adviser focused episodes. In “That First Year: New Advisers Reflect,” Jordan interviewed yearbook advisers who had just wrapped up their first year. In his sixth episode, “Taking over an established yearbook program,” Jordan interviewed first-year advisers …
A note from the producer: This episode of Ask Mike was recorded during the recent yearbook workshop held in El Paso, Texas. While editing the episode, I fell in love with the border community, despite never having visited. The love Mike Taylor has for El Paso is also evident. The young people interviewed in this episode are amazing human beings. …
The benefits of art and writing as a means to process trauma are widely acknowledged, and the survivors of the February 14, 2018, school shooting in Parkland, Florida, have turned that means of therapy into a book. “Parkland Speaks: Survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas Share Their Stories” was published by Crown Books, a division of Random House, in February of …