In May, I was invited into the studios of CBS Chicago to talk about LetMeFail, a program I co-founded that brings failure into the classrooms of elementary and middle schools. Here’s an inside peak into what goes into 3 minutes on television.
I left the house around 7:00am and picked up Library Specialist Alicia Wiechert at Romona Elementary then headed into the city. Why Alicia? Because she was one of the 50 educators we selected to beta test LetMeFail this past spring and would be able to speak firsthand at how kids engaged with this program. (Note: I visited Romona Elementary during their Failure Week and will go into that fun experience in another post.)
Back to CBS… Alicia and I pulled up to CBS building and into their inconspicuous parking garage where we were escorted up to the studio, mic’ed up and asked to watch the news for a few minutes from the sidelines.
During the commercial break, we met Emmy Award-winning anchors for CBS Chicago morning news. Audrina Sinclair and Dana Kozlov. They were welcoming, inquisitive, and professional from start to finish.
Dana gave me her anchor seat behind the desk and Alicia sat next to me. We were instructed that Audrina would be interviewing us and to relax and have fun. But all I could think about was which camera I should look at! There were so many.
What was perhaps most surprising to me about this particular interview was that there were no camera operators. Everything was being controlled by someone somewhere else. Red lights popped on and off and cameras moved around with authority, like ghosts were operating them.
While we waited for our interview, a crowd of young “fans” walked by the studio windows, which are on the corner of Washington St. and N. Dearborn in Chicago. They frantically waved at me and took photos, like I was Savannah Guthrie.
Finally, we got the countdown to our interview and off we went! You can see it here. What a fun morning on CBS Chicago. Thanks for having us!
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/let-me-fail-free-program-kids-parents-learn-failure
