Journalism runs in my family.
My youngest brother, Don Bott, has been teaching high school journalism in our hometown of Stockton, California, for a long time. He’s a superb teacher, as evidenced by his receipt in 2002 of the National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year award (the award is co-sponsored by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition). Later this week, he’s taking a group of his students to Phoenix for the annual convention of the Journalism Education Association, where he’ll receive the 2009 Diversity Award.
But I think he’s most proud of a profile written by a former student who is now the online editor of his hometown paper; the profile was published in today’s Stockton Record. Here’s a sample:
"He wants us to reach out to people who we’d never thought to before," said Arianna Perez, 16. "He wants us to see what their story is, to bring out what’s under the surface."
Chelsea Collura, 15, said Bott pushes students to explore Stagg’s vast diversity, making their reporting more reflective of the campus.
"We have students from all over," Collura said. "We get better stories when we explore."
Take, for example, the cover story in the edition scheduled for release Friday. It’s about how the recession is impacting students on campus.
Bott said most of Stagg’s students don’t think about how their peers are being affected when parents have no money to put food on the table or make ends meet.
He encouraged his journalism students to reach out to that population of the campus.
This isn’t new. His students often tackle niche populations on the campus of 1,800, while reporting the big-picture stories.
"You can’t just do the same things all the time," said Samantha Espinoza, 17. "You have to change it up."
At Stagg, it’s not uncommon to have 10 or more nationalities and ethnic backgrounds in one room at any given time.
The students get it.
"We come from different backgrounds and we come from different cultures," said Lissette Rodriguez, 16. "We are able to see our school through different eyes."
And Bott helps them see potential in themselves they wouldn’t otherwise.
Nicely done, little brother. We’re all proud of you.
Ed Bott (@ wordpress.com) 
What a great story, Ed. You must be uber-proud of your younger brother. Congrats to both of you.
That’s cool, Ed. Congrats to him! But what I really want to know:
Is he a Mac or PC?
Don’s a Mac, although I think they have a bunch of PCs in the classroom and journalism lab at school. (I helped him get the machines with the right specs.)
Beautiful.
As a parent, I wonder at the passion and the resourcefulness of most in the teaching profession. As a journalist, that wonder is magnified by those who pass along their passion for the profession.
Wow, what smart and hard-working genes run in your family!
Makes me want to know more about your parents as well. Congrats to little brother.
Congrats to your bro. I also noticed that your articles on ZDNet are always 1 page long, I guess that’s what makes you guys good journalists, you don’t separate articles into uncecessarily long pages to get more ad revenue, shows you care more about the readers than your salary
Thanks, Albert. I actually do multi-page articles at ZDNet, but only when the piece is so long that it deserves it. I hate the sites that do three paragraphs per page as wel!
I love reading stuff like this. Kudos to you and yours.