The enthusiasm of youth
So far I’m enjoying education reporting. But by far the hardest part is not dealing with picky parents or paranoid officials. No. The hardest part is the kids.
Of course, children are notoriously hard to interview. Younger children tend to clam up or just answer “yes,” “no” or shrug their shoulders to questions. But the hard part, for me, is who I don’t interview. Whenever I go on assignment many of the kids are excited that a reporter is in their midst. Some of them are shy (which is the hard to interview part) but a few come up to me and ask to be interviewed. Or, worse yet, I have a teacher or official who asks me to interview 10 students individually.
And that’s when the hammer comes down. I have to explain how a newspaper works, and even if I got to interview them all, I wouldn’t be able to fit it all in the paper. They seem to understand, but I can tell they’re disappointed. When their face goes from a big, bright smile to a downcast, sad look, you can tell.
I’m sure it doesn’t scar them for life. Children and teens live in the moment and I’m sure the next day they’ll have forgotten all about it. Ah, the resiliency of youth.