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Gorsuch named high school journalism teacher of the year

BY: Gerry Appel, J-Ideas

Brenda Gorsuch says she isn't doing anything different. She says she is just like any other journalism teacher. However, there is something unique about this journalism adviser-she is the Dow Jones Newspaper 2004 National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year.

Dow Jones looks for teachers, such as Gorsuch, who work to recruit diverse staffs, have already won awards, and whose publications are of high quality, according to Richard Holden, executive director of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund. Gorsuch, the publications adviser at West Hendersonville, (N.C.) High School for the past 21 years and chair of the English department since 2001, became fascinated in journalism because her father was politically active and ran several campaigns for local and state politicians in North Carolina. However, Gorsuch chose to go into journalism instead of politics.

"Because of his political interest, I became interested in the news and keeping up with what is going on in government," Gorsuch explained. "This was in the early '70s with Watergate and the Richard Nixon thing, and I became very intrigued with Woodward and Bernstein. I liked the idea that the media was the watchdog for Government."

Gorsuch always desired to teach as well. "When I was a young child, I was sure I wanted to be a teacher," Gorsuch said, "I was the oldest of four children and after I'd been to first grade I set up a classroom in my room at home and I taught my younger siblings to read because I love the idea of schooling."

Upon entering Western Carolina University , Gorsuch wanted to be a journalist instead but she earned her teaching certificate to have something to "fall back on." Gorsuch said teaching journalism put her two loves together and helps her as a teacher/adviser. As journalism teacher of the year, Gorsuch obviously employs a variety of teaching strategies and covers a variety of journalism topics. One issue of importance is First Amendment awareness. In addition to teaching historic court cases during classes, any current news on the First Amendment is discussed during publications' staff meetings.

When her school gets a new principal, Gorsuch always explains to the principal the First Amendment rights of a newspaper, which has led to her publications never being censored. Gorsuch encourages advisers to be open and honest with their principals, and to warn them of upcoming controversial stories. Gorsuch believes high school journalism programs are suffering from the No Child Left Behind act.

"We haven't sold ourselves well enough for people to understand that we are teaching reading, writing in a more authentic way than anyone else in the school," Gorsuch said. "We are allowing programs to die because of academic testing.what we need to do is be out there showing and demonstrating how we can help test scores. When students write an essay in English class, they don't understand why they are writing it.

"When they write a story for the newspaper, they do understand, they care."

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