Wrapping It Up

Well, the sun has set on another semester. As you all head home and forget about classes, exams and assignments for a few weeks, I hope you won't forget all that you're learned. There's no question that you've worked hard, been deprived of sleep and had your mental and physical capacities stretched. So you've earned a break, but remember that as with anything in life, the challenges you face now, and the opportunities that are at your fingertips will not last forever.

Someday, you'll leave school behind (hopefully with a degree in hand), and you'll move on to the next phase of life. That too will present certain obstacles and open other doors to you. And it may not be until that day comes that you realize what this experience has been about and why it was valuable to go through some of the things that you've endured. But trust me, you're better people for it.

I know that I've asked a lot of you. Sometimes you may have questioned the workload or the assignments or just what the heck I was talking about half the time. Well, despite what you may have thought about me as a teacher, it's quite clear that each and every one of you learned something. We entered the semester with many of you having hardly even picked up a video camera, let alone use this medium to tell a story and edit it in a cohesive manner. And by the time it was all said and done, you had each made work that you should be quite proud of.

While I had my own struggles engaging you in the material and getting you to participate in discussions, in the end, you all showed me that you did in fact get something out of the class. The best part for me as a teacher is not to stand in front of you and pontificate about my own ideas of how to work in this medium or to weigh you down with assignments and busy work. I simply look to lay the foundation and then give you opportunity to use your own creativity to explore it. To see what you come up with when challenged, that is the best part for me. The work speaks for itself. It's through seeing this creativity on display in your projects that I know I have done my job.

Whatever you may have gotten out of the class, you can be proud of the effort that you put in, whether you end up continuing in the direction of making this kind of work or not. I certainly appreciate the end result and all that went into it. It was a pleasure to have each of you in the class this semester and I wish you a blessed Christmas season, a prosperous New Year, and all the best in your future endeavors.