Questions and Comments

No Interviews!

If you are a reporter, I'm happy to do an interview.

What I am declining are the attempts by public school teachers to have their students "interview" an "authority" on a particular subject. This is a pernicious practice that needs to be stopped and I certainly will not further it.

What's wrong with it, you ask?

First, and most importantly, the students are given insufficient instruction prior to being sent off on this assignment. They are typically middle school, sometimes high school, students who have absolutely no background in journalism. They need to know a great deal more about the process, but I have yet to see any indication this is being given. The teacher is merely shoving them out the door.

Second, and a corollary of the first, it's not an interview. The students are merely given a list of questions and sent on their way. They plug keywords into a search engine and jump on the first email address they find.

I don't blame them. Having had no instruction, no teaching from their teacher, they are simply trying to do the assignment however they can.

The questions are always badly phrased. They are too broad, too specific, or are obviously leading. They are not historical questions, by and large.

Third, there is no requirement for the students to do their own research. They aren't asked to do history but merely to ask someone else to do the history for them.

Fourth, by giving the students no guidance on professional courtesy, nor indeed any indication as to what might constitute a profession, they are not only not teaching the students history, they are teaching the students to be inadvertently rude.

Fifth and finally: in most cases the questions are so badly put that I couldn't answer them even if I wanted to, or at least not without writing extended essays.

In short: no.

Don't ask.

If you are student reading this, invite your teacher to read this. I don't blame the teacher either. Public education is as subject to fads as automobiles or shoes. But this particular fad needs to fade quickly away.