Katie Merritt, Upper School media arts teacher, has earned the Master Journalism Educator certification from the Journalism Education Association. This certification recognizes teachers who meet national standards of preparation to teach high school journalism classes and advise student media.
“Journalism certification recognizes those teachers who have achieved national standards of preparation to teach journalism classes and advise student publications,” said Kim Green, MJE, JEA Certification director. “By receiving this Master Journalism Educator endorsement, Katie has achieved national recognition and joins an elite group of 127 Master Journalism Educator teachers nationwide who regard journalism as an academic subject and recognize the importance of having a highly qualified instructor in the journalism classroom.”
The MJE certification process is comprised of a written exam and the completion of an approved MJE project. The project is required to address a need that the candidate wishes to fill in their role as a journalism educator, as a student media adviser, as a leader and mentor for other journalism educators or as a volunteer for a local, state or other national journalism organization.
Merritt’s MJE project was to create an in-house, student-run photography studio for Darlington School.
“The development of this new photography studio has allowed students the opportunity to learn the skills needed to become confident contributors to our school community as portrait photographers and photojournalists,” said Merritt. “For the most part this project has been successful! All of the students in my photography class came together to make it work, each bringing different skills. They had to get out of their comfort zone and this project really gave them an opportunity to find out what they were best at.”
Merritt developed curriculum and purchased equipment for a new Upper School photography class and these students were tasked with taking yearbook photos for the entire school.
“This project is about more than just clicking a camera,” Merritt continued. “Everyone had to learn lighting, equipment setup, editing with Adobe Lightroom, marketing, and working with students in a personal way.”
Merritt’s project has been deemed an “outstanding example” by the certification committee and she is one of four MJE recipients who will be recognized at the spring JEA/NSPA national convention, April 26, 2019 in Anaheim, California.
