Many high schools require students to sit in their classes, read textbooks and take tests. Many students argue this will not be useful to them for their future after high school. Hence alternative schools like the Career Tech Center offering classes to help them prepare for a trade they desire. Senior Ty Whall is one of these students, and he appreciates the opportunity to learn about something he enjoys.
Whall started attending the Film and New Media program at the Career Tech Center this past fall, and he feels that it has prepared him for a job after high school.
“[Film and Media] offers some skills you can’t really learn in school, like you get to work with cameras and editing processes, so a lot of tech stuff,” Whall said.
Another senior who is taking Film and New Media at the Career Tech Center is Jud Davis, who has a passion for it and hopes to expand upon it through a job after high school.
“We learn pretty much everything about filmmaking. We start at pre-production, like storyboards and scripts, and all that. We move into filming. We learn a bunch of techniques there, audio, lighting, camera skills, and then we move to post-production, which is editing and color grading, stuff like that,” Davis said.
Juleen Jenkins-Whall is Ty’s mother and a teacher at West who appreciates how there are other people at West, like counselors, who want to help students like Whall in the right direction and choose classes that they would enjoy taking.
“We are so lucky that we have good counselors because Mrs. Lee looked at him, and she knows her kids so well; she’s like, ‘you would really like film and media at CTC. You should go check that out.’ And so he did a special visit and came back and went, ‘She’s absolutely right. I love it there.’ And I’m so, so grateful she pointed him in that direction,” Jenkins-Whall said.
Jenkins-Whall has noticed positive results from Whall’s learning since he joined the Career Tech Center in the previous fall.
“I think he’s learned a ton of valuable skills like project management, because they do stuff that takes place over weeks, and it’s real work that he finds interesting, as opposed to my kids in the classroom graphing. So I think that’s huge. They have to work as a team, and then they also learn the hands-on skills that are particular to whatever their field is,” Jenkins-Whall said.
When Jenkins-Whall comes to class, other students have noticed the positive vibe he brings to class every day.
“Ty [Whall] is a goofy guy. He’s always sitting in the corner just cackling with Ayden Johnson. He tries to be helpful, and he’s good at what he does,” Davis said.
Although Whall is currently undecided about what he’ll do after high school, he had the opportunity to get a feel of a work environment.
“In a regular high school, you get drained because you feel like you’re doing the same thing over and over and over. At CTC, you’re learning the skills that you can actually use when you graduate,” Whall said.
