Arnetta Garcin, taught
journalism
Feb. 2, 2002
By Dennis Knight
San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News
During her 32-year career
as a teacher and adviser for the Epic, the Lynbrook High School newspaper, Arnetta
Garcin and her students took home many awards from journalism contests.
But Mrs. Garcin was more
than just a teacher, former and current students say. She was a friend and mentor
who challenged them to reach their potential inside and outside the classroom.
In the summer of 1995,
Mrs. Garcin took four of her students along to help teach an institute on journalism
at Estonia's department of education. For Boris Bershteyn, now a law student
at Yale, it was the experience of a lifetime.
``It was a great indicator
about the passion she had for her students,'' Bershteyn said. ``She chose to
bring more students along, rather than teachers. She gave us so much freedom
in contributing and developing the curriculum.
``It made us think a lot
about how we could make a difference. There we were as high school students
feeling that we can make an impact in a far corner of the world.''
Current students placed
flowers and lighted candles last week outside Mrs. Garcin's classroom door,
as news of her death on Jan. 20 apparently from a heart attack spread across
the San Jose campus. She was 55.
``Everyone at school has
been saddened by her unexpected death,'' said Sydney Marsh, a friend and colleague
of Mrs. Garcin's for more than 30 years. ``She was the type of person who volunteered
her time. When the University of California system was refusing to give English
credit for journalism courses, she was there to lead the fight against that
policy.''
Mrs. Garcin was a leader
in the Fremont Union High School District, serving as the chairwoman of the
mentor committee for many years and leading the way in the use of technology
in the classroom, Marsh said.
Perhaps Mrs. Garcin's biggest
impact was in teaching her students about the real world applications of their
studies. Journalism ethics were integral to her curriculum.
A director of the Journalism
Education Association representing Northern California, Mrs. Garcin detailed
some of her lesson plans on the www.highschooljournalism.org Web site. She posed
tough questions: Should a student paper publish a story about a senior class
president who was suspended for showing up at school under the influence of
drugs?
Well, the situation actually
happened at Lynbrook High, and the Epic ran with the story, naming the student
after debating the pros and cons. ``Students take particular interest in this
exercise and some wonderful discussions arise regarding the rights and responsibilities
of the journalist,'' Mrs. Garcin wrote of her lesson plan.
``She was always supportive
of doing controversial stories and encouraged us to take risks within ethical
bounds,'' Bershteyn said.
Mrs. Garcin graduated from
San Jose State University, where she earned her teaching credential. She was
also an English instructor at De Anza College, where she passed on her love
of authors such as John Steinbeck to many of her students.
Fluent in French, Mrs.
Garcin also taught the subject at Lincoln High.
She and her husband, Yvon,
lived in Campbell. In 1999, Mrs. Garcin was awarded the Medal of Merit from
the Journalism Education Association at its national convention in Atlanta.
Current members of the
Epic staff bonded after hearing about their teacher's death.
``We held a memorial the
night we found out,'' said Catherine Fan, the Epic's editor in chief. ``It started
out with tears, but ended with a lot of laughter as we remembered all the fun
times we had with her, she was like a mother for us.''
Editors note: Arnetta
reached out to the Mercury News and the California Society of Newspaper Editors
to enlist our support in a dispute with the University of California over giving
credit for journalism courses in UC applications. The Mercury News has offered
support to the newspaper staff at Lynbrook High School to get them during the
2001-02 school year.
Copyright 2002 San Jose
Mercury News. Reprinted with permission.
