December 18, 2023
By MEALAND RAGLAND-HUDGINS
Rutherford County Schools
When Luna Silva gets in front of the camera to deliver the morning announcements at Blackman High, she relies on a simple phrase from teacher Jonathan Sutton to help her focus.
“He tells us to get the giggles out, so that’s what I do,” the Blackman High sophomore said. “And I make sure I can read what’s on the teleprompter.”
Students from Sutton’s Audio Visual Production II class can be found on every part of campus documenting daily happenings, such as filming presentations for students in the Blackman Collegiate Academy, athletic events, dance and music programs.
This year, they’ve put focus on helping newcomers get acclimated to the school by filming announcements in Arabic and Spanish.
Senior Luz Carrasco said she’d often get questions from native Spanish speakers new to BHS about ways to get involved.
“So many questions. So I had the idea to start doing announcements in Spanish,” Carrasco said. “It’s been a good thing. The response has been good and the students like it.”
Classmates Tarek Aldairi and Haneen Alsigar followed up with a plan to film announcements in Arabic but ran into a challenge along the way.
“It wasn’t very easy to do because Arabic isn’t easy to read and the dialects are different,” said Aldairi, a senior. “The Egyptian dialect is different from Syrian, which is what I speak, so we’ve had to find a dialect that was more neutral. Even then, there are still words some people may not understand, but it’s closer to what they know, so they’re able to get the general message.”
“I like translating into different languages,” said Alsigar, a sophomore.
Within Rutherford County and likewise the school district, Spanish and Arabic are the next most common languages spoken outside of English.
After winter break, the Arabic announcements are expected to evolve into a mini program, Sutton said.
As the student population grows, so does the AV Production program. Students aren’t easily deterred by when things go wrong.
“I always tell them you have to be willing to get a little messy to turn out a good product,” Sutton said.
This semester has been a busy one for Sutton and his students. Of all the projects they’ve worked on, the biggest was filming presenters at the Tennessee Science Teachers Association’s fall conference at Embassy Suites last month. Ten students participated in the filming, which was done with single and multi-camera shots.
It was one of Racha Ladsavong’s favorite assignments so far this year.
“It was fun to bond with my classmates and work on the same project. And the presenters were good, too. I enjoyed it, even as a student,” he said.
Ladsavong was one of the students from AV programs at Blackman, Riverdale and Stewarts Creek to attend a touring career workshop in downtown Nashville. Speakers included tour managers for artists such as Miranda Lambert, Morgan Wallen and Green Day. Students also interacted with companies that provide lighting and sound services for large events.
“That really brought in perspective just how big AV is in the music industry,” said Ladsavong, a junior whose main role in class is that of a project manager and leader.
“There’s so much you can get out of this class. I’ve learned so much. If you work hard, you get the opportunities we get to create and document these experiences,” Aldairi said.