Wyoming — In teacher Tom Cornell’s journalism class recently, students worked on articles about fellow students for the Wyoming Wolf Pack Press.
“Remember to have a quality lead for your person. We don’t want to get lazy on the leads,” Cornell said.
The students had just watched the morning’s top headlines on the news, catching up on the presidential race, Gaza ceasefire talks and the World Series. They are learning news writing, covering the events and issues in their school.
Cornell has a passion for writing and teaching. Along with introducing students to journalism, he teaches AP Seminar (formerly Honors English 10), Psychology and Creative Writing, all while remaining undaunted by preparing lessons for four different subjects.
Cornell began his career as a journalist. He graduated from Calvin College with an English major and journalism minor, and worked as a writer and editor for a music publication. He then started his own publication with a friend covering independent music in the Grand Rapids area. It lasted a year before he returned to college for a teaching degree. He’s spent his entire teaching career at Wyoming High School.
‘Having had a couple office gigs too, (I think) it’s way more fun to hang with teenagers who are still hilarious.’
— Wyoming High School teacher Tom Cornell
He has an affable way of relating to students, while challenging them academically, students said, whether that be for writing articles or completing rigorous AP Seminar work.
“Cornell connects with his students really well,” said Marielis Mejia, senior and managing editor for the school newspaper. “He interacts with us. He understands. That’s important as a teacher because students lose motivation, but we respect him so much we do the work and what’s expected of us. … Not only is he a teacher, I also see him as a role model.”
School News Network recently visited Cornell to talk about teaching high school students, why it’s meaningful to him and what keeps him motivated after 27 years.
Why do you teach? “The primary focus is the students, relationship with students and having an impact.”
What gets you up in the morning and excited about teaching? “It’s the students, primarily. I love the content I teach. I think that’s part of it, but the real fun of being a teacher is you have to really enjoy students. If you do, it’s pretty easy to go to work. It’s a fun job. Having had a couple office gigs too, (I think) it’s way more fun to hang with teenagers who are still hilarious. It’s also bringing them along.
”When you see progress and they realize they can do something they didn’t realize they could do, that is just incredibly satisfying.”
What are some of the biggest challenges in your role and how do you strive to meet them? “The biggest challenge for me is I have four (subjects to teach), because I like to do a lot of different things. Keeping on top of that can be kind of challenging — keeping it fresh.”
He said transitioning Honors English 10 to AP Seminar was a big change. The course challenges students to read academic journals and use a different approach in writing than they had in the past. They have to complete a 3,000-word essay and presentation to defend it, which is, as he called it, “wonderful.”
“It was taking a chance, and that was kind of fun. It keeps it interesting and super challenging at the same time.”
What’s the most amazing thing about high school students? “They are at such a cool age, because a lot of times they have their heart on their sleeve and they are not afraid. There is still that innocence in them, where they can have fun and can not be too guarded.
“At the same time, they are really sincere people. They are at a very sincere age where they feel things in a very real way, emotionally. I think it’s a very unique stage of life, and it’s a very honest stage in a lot of ways. I’ve always appreciated that.
What would you say to someone considering teaching as a profession? “The main thing is to make sure you enjoy students. If you don’t enjoy students, don’t do it. … You have to really want to make a difference, and there also has to be some real joy there. If you don’t have that joy, I don’t know If you’re going to last very long.”
Since this is journalism class, why do you think it’s important for students to learn journalism? “I started the program my first year here, because of my background. I got so much out of (journalism) and I became a much better writer once I started to write for Chimes (at Calvin) and have my stuff published. I found it to be a much more exciting type of writing than just doing essays and research.
“(In class) we start the day with the news — the headlines — so they are aware of the world around them. The most important thing they can come away with is how important it is to ask questions and to be curious about things, because it’s so beneficial as a journalist.
“Also, from a writing standpoint, just writing clear, concise sentences becomes incredibly valuable all across the board.”
Cornell shared a story about his first big experience in journalism, when he was writing for Calvin College’s student newspaper, Chimes. “A friend of mine (Ben VanHouten) and I were really into music and there was a band, I believe it was the Smithereens. They were in town and (on a local radio program) so we came up with this idea to pose as journalists and catch them when they came out of the radio station to try to set up an interview. Surprisingly, that worked. They were like, ‘Yeah, great, we can do that. Meet us at Club Eastbrook.’
“We had to very quickly find a tape recorder, come up with questions and do this thing. We did, and it was fun! As a music person and English major it was like, what a cool thing. We wrote up the article and we turned it into Chimes and they printed it. From there, we got a column about music and it turned out to be pretty popular. It was a really funny column (Ben and Tom’s Rock and Roll Report) We had a blast doing that.”
Read more from Wyoming:
• Fifth-grader demonstrates school pride in presentation
• Growing skills and knowledge by cultivating produce
