Berkeley High Video Teacher Arms Students with Technology

By Meeta Malhi
Special to AsianWeek

After the final bell rings at the end of the school day, Berkeley High classroom G108B still bustles with activity. Posters for Shallow Hal, The Empire Strikes Back and When We Were Kings line the walls. Students around IMacs, editing screens, video cameras and TV monitors generate a buzz of creative activity. This eclectic mix of technology with scratched-up wooden tables, plastic orange chairs, NO WAR signs and a white board explaining “deep focus” reflects the teaching philosophy of video teacher Dharini Rashiah.

Dressed in an apple-red sweater and gray trousers with her hair pulled back in a low ponytail, Rashiah checks in with students in her class after school hours. Going through the video checklist for editing, Rashiah guides a student through questions with detailed instructions. She repeats the steps and then moves on to the next student. Rashiah’s quick glances at the editing screen help her assess the student’s work in a matter of seconds, arriving at a solution for the current production or editing problem.

Rashiah, a 34-year-old Sri Lankan American woman, has poured her passion for video and eight years of teaching assistance experience into her current job as a full-time teacher in Berkeley High School’s Communication Arts and Sciences program. This academic program combines media literacy and communication skills with historical and social concepts focusing on social justice. Through video training and production, Rashiah invites the real world into her classroom in order to jump-start cultural conversations on social issues.

The best part for Rashiah is teaching young people.

“Kids just have a fresh approach. More so than older people,” Rashiah said. “They are experimenting early on and do not hold back as much. They are just more interesting to work with. They are real.”

Averaging 300 video projects a semester, Rashiah teaches five classes of video production daily. Some of the final cuts from Rashiah’s students will be premiered at a Pacific Film Archive (PFA) film festival in Berkeley along with other local film festivals.

“My kids will curate the PFA event. They will choose a few films from Berkeley High and from other schools. At these festivals, they are recognized for their work, ” Rashiah said.

Rashiah also declares satisfaction in watching over half of her students pursue video work after they leave her classroom.

“These kids definitely feel more comfortable in front of a TV screen, unfortunately. But because of this, kids can take on video production easily. They are part of this video game generation.” Rashiah said.

Strict with theme guidelines, Rashiah will not accept videos with profanity or clips that disrespect any group of people. Her students explore themes like war, school violence and teen pregnancy. She points out that some young male students will use sexualized images of women to get their points across. Rashiah tells them to find another way. She makes it a point to give students individual attention.

She also draws from her UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies undergraduate experience when working with youth from specific ethnic groups. She currently has a group of Asian Pacific American students who want to examine media stereotypes about Asians.

“A lot of my activism comes from working through these kids. We have good equipment and they take their topics very seriously,” Rashiah said.

Rashiah likes the closeness of the video community, saying that it is an exciting place to be, especially for youth.

“I definitely encourage more Asian and South Asian Americans to pursue teaching as a career. It is a matter of finding out what you like. South Asians limit themselves to doing the professional degrees of engineering, medicine and law. We need more people working with youth. We are just perpetuating the status quo when we take on those professions,” Rashiah commented.

Rashiah wants to see people in their twenties “shake things up.”

An opportunity to help a student suddenly presents itself. Rashiah politely excuses herself and focuses her attention on the student. Running through the checklist of music and narration, Rashiah congratulates the student on a completed job and encourages the student to start thinking about his next project.

This story was done as part of the CalTeach campaign with New California Media to attract members of California’s ethnic communities to teaching.