Buffalo Grove resident Brenda Field can quote whole sections of text from memory when asked to explain Illinois laws on high school students’ free-speech rights and student journalism.
Field, who works as an English teacher and journalism adviser at Glenbrook South High School overseeing the annual production of the school’s yearbook, The Etruscan, did help write a state law that expanded student journalists’ rights.
And on April 28, Field was one of the inductees to the Illinois Journalism Education Association’s Hall of Fame, along with Stan Zoller, a journalism instructor at Lake Forest College.
Both contributed to the “Speech Rights of Student Journalists Act,” which was signed into law last summer and strengthened the ability of teens to report controversial stories in school-run media.
The association last month also honored Field with its James A. Tidwell Award for Excellence in Scholastic Media Education.
Despite her penchant for memorization, when asked to explain what an Etruscan was, Field relied on a common tool used by journalists — the internet. With a few clicks, she learned about an ancient civilization that covered the area around Tuscany, Italy, called the Etruscans.
Q: Student journalism will always be a tough balance because the kids are using computers and newsprint purchased by the taxpayers. How do you show your students that, yeah, the administrators might hold the power?
A: That’s a complicated question, and it’s very situational. Our job as advisers really is to teach kids the foundational principles and help kids make ethical decisions on a case-by-case basis as they present themselves.
Q: The GBS mascot is a Greek deity. Was an Etruscan some kind of god?
A: I’m not really sure why they made that leap when they were naming the yearbook other than I found a piece of paper when we were doing the 50th anniversary book, and they had a school-wide vote. And this was a civilization that really cared about learning. It really has nothing to do with titans, other than, you know, it’s ancient.
Q: How does it feel to be in an actual, legitimate hall of fame?
A: There’s some pictures on a wall at the journalism department at Eastern Illinois University. To be honest, the thing that’s meant the most to me is the work we did on this law. A lot of legislators came out during our meetings and said, ‘I was on my student newspaper,’ and they talked about what student journalism has done for them.
Shout Out is a weekly feature in which we introduce our readers to their fellow community members and local visitors throughout suburban Chicago.
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