Teacher Feature April 2024: Tami Linane-Booey and Nate Seaburg
At The Community School (TCS) in Spokane, Washington, core content subjects are taught in integrated, team-taught projects. All 11th and 12th graders are together, and their learning is facilitated by a team of teachers with different content specialties. Last quarter, Tami (CTE Lead) worked in collaboration with Nate (English Lead Teacher) to facilitate a six-week project centered around our 2023-2024 prompts.
Tami comes to teaching as a second career. Once a businessperson, then a sales manager for the local news weekly, The Inlander, Tami is now in her ninth year of teaching at The Community School. She loves to create new projects with her team and involve the local community in students’ learning.
Nate is in his 10th year of teaching, with an interest in literature, history, video production, and digital education content. Nate specializes in creating community-connected project-based educational experiences for students and is the founder of OneDayAhead.com, a video production company that specializes in communicating complex ideas in an effective, efficient, and entertaining way.
Discover Tami and Nate’s favorite StoryMaker lesson, go-to media-making tool, and what they are currently listening to in our Q&A below.
How long have you been using StoryMaker or SRL resources in your classroom? This is our first quarter, and we will be back.
What’s your favorite StoryMaker lesson? The Level Up on getting good b-roll! We have yet to meet a student editor who wished they had LESS options.
What’s a media-making tool or resource you can’t live without?
Tami: I am not the gadget person, that is Nate. I love stories and how they connect to our community.
Nate: I love me a gimbal!
You both just dove into StoryMaker for a six week project. What was the most rewarding part?
At TCS we always have a community partner for our projects, and we work to make projects as authentic as possible. To do that and really take it up a notch, we partnered with KSPS (our local PBS Station) and KREM 2. That partnership really helped the students understand how to produce their stories, and making a full news show also made a news segment better. Having the StoryMaker resources really helped us teach students the skills they needed to make good stories.
What’s your advice for teachers just getting started on StoryMaker?
Nate: Two engines drive everything: the story students honestly want to tell, and a deadline that will not move. Get both of those in place, then get out of the way.
Tami: Use the wealth of knowledge from the SRL staff; having support from Youth Media Producer Chris Schwalm for us was great.
Links to your students’ work: Students at The Community School Team up with KREM 2 to Broadcast the TCS News Hour
What’s a dream story you’d like to report on or a person you’d like to interview?
Tami: I am going to go with the first person that popped into my head; I would say President Obama. That would be a fun interview. And the story I want to tell is about education change. I want more people to know that there are new and more exciting ways to help students learn.
Nate: Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. Every time I hear that guy I’m impressed, intrigued, and maybe scared.
What are you currently listening to?
Tami: I am a big podcast listener. I am loving Wiser than Me and What Now? With Travor Noah
Nate: Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
You can contact Tami and Nate directly to learn more about how they swiftly adapted StoryMaker to their classroom here: TamiL@spokaneschools.org and nathanse@spokaneschools.org