Three years ago, I went to Duncan Christian School to watch our ACS Knights play at the provincial volleyball championship. They went into the tournament through the back door because a team dropped out and came into the tournament ranked 12th out of 12 teams. It was a fantastic tournament to watch because they slowly made their way through the ranks and ended up playing in the championship final. By the way, that’s three years in a row that our team has been in the BC championship final. But one of the interesting things I discovered at the Duncan tournament was the professional photographer who was making team composite pictures and selling them for what seemed like a pretty good profit.
The photographer took individual pictures and then used Photoshop to put them together into a very interesting team photo. I thought to myself, “We could teach students how to do that!” and I came back to ACS with a new goal. A few weeks ago, we accomplished that goal.
10,000 and counting
It took a lot of help from Mr. Boer and his Media Arts students, Katie Olson and Esther De Waal, but we did it. On November 25-28, we hosted our second year of the BC Provincial Championship and together with our student team, we took all the pictures, created all the composites and individual shots for 135 athletes. Mr. Stewart and his photography class took about 10,000 action pictures and our video production class put together a 12 minute video for the Friday night banquet. It was an incredible testimony of teamwork and hands-on learning. We often talk about real work, for a real need, to a real audience. That’s what this project accomplished.
NOT so easy
Katie, Esther, Mr. Boer and I spent some pretty long days and late nights at the school putting these images together. There was a pretty steep learning curve as we took pictures for weeks before the tournament, adjusted the lights, took more pictures and bought the right tools and equipment. But it was incredibly satisfying to accomplish a three year goal. Mr. Boer and I sat down during the photo shoot and just watched Katie and Esther as they managed each team that came through the studio. They were confident, in control, assertive and friendly as they took each picture. They were professional. And, it was an incredible experience to see them learn.
Real need, real audience
Like most things in life, we would be more successful if we did it again (and we likely will make more composites, for our own basketball teams). But even as we watched our amazing Knights work together to make it to the final again, we watched many other teams work behind the scenes to pull off an incredible tournament. The “parent team” supplied an incredible coach’s room and the score keepers and video streamers were both professional and diligent throughout the tournament. What an exhilarating experience it is to be part of a team of people who accomplish so much more than any one person could accomplish on their own. Thank you to everyone involved in making this year’s Provincial Championship an incredible success. Go Knights Go!
“It was good to talk to you at Provincials; I just wanted to thank you all very much for all the work you poured into making the Sr. Boys ‘A’ Provincials such a success. I was very impressed with how well run the entire event was. Having been to a few of these, I appreciated the attention to detail in such things as the banners that identified teams, a short but meaningful opening ceremonies and being courageous enough to open and close the event with prayer. Jack did a great job of announcing the opening game – making it that much more special. All in all, this was an extremely well run event. Thanks to you and all who put in so much time and effort – it paid off!” Principal, Prince George, BC
PROVINCIAL CHAMPS: Centennial Seahawks
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Thanks Gerry. This reminded me of the supervision vest story. We could it ourselves, or hire someone, but giving as much ownership to students as we can is always the best way to go. Of course, as you and Mr. Boer realized, they still need guidance and support. I admire the amount of extra time everyone puts into these kinds of projects. Congratulations to everyone involved on a successful tournament.
Thanks for sharing what was going on behind the scenes, Gerry….. and evidently behind the camera too! Great example of an entrepreneurial approach to learning and I’m sure your team of edupreneurs has benefited much from the experience. Moving down the path of distributed leadership – releasing more control to students where possible – is the right approach. They become empowered co-creators of the learning experience and it’s those very experiences (like this one) that they will remember for a lifetime. Very cool!