Chatsworth Media Teacher Helps Students Create Documentaries

Keenly aware of the impact television, movies and print ads have on teenagers, David Massey tries to get his Chatsworth High School students to look at media messages with a critical eye.

“They’re used to sitting in front of the TV and being bombarded with information,” said Massey, 42, who teaches photography, TV and film. “I want them to learn how to interpret news stories and commercials, so they can read between the lines.”

Massey, an Academy Award nominated filmmaker, has spent three years helping Chatsworth students select relevant stories to write, shoot and edit. This year, his students also will get the opportunity to produce short documentaries, Massey’s favorite story-telling medium.

Combining his twin passions of teaching and filmmaking, the North Hills resident said he loves to pass along his creative and technical expertise to the younger generation, while still having time every summer to produce his own work.

Eager to teach his students about modern Africa, for example, he jumped at the opportunity last year to co-write and produce a documentary about the positive financial and social impact of the 14-year-old women’s movement in Ghana.

Massey traveled more than 8,000 miles around the West African nation with a small African American and Ghanaian film crew for a month last summer. They chronicled the efforts of Ghana’s first lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings and her 31st December Women’s Movement to empower African women.

The result is the 60-minute documentary, “Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win,” which Massey presented to the Chatsworth High student body last winter during Black History Month.

“We wanted to show another face of Africa,” said Massey, whose 1992 short film “Last Breeze of Summer” was nominated for an Academy Award. “Most young people hear only the negatives about Africa. We wanted to show the positive things going on there, to hold [the feminists’] work up to other grass-roots movements around the world.”

Massey, who was named an honorary chief of the Asante people, also has agreed to establish a cultural exchange between the Africans and his Chatsworth High students. The American teenagers plan to send books, clothes and other supplies to the Ghanaians.

“What I love most about teaching is interacting with the students,” Massey said. “The kids are so talented; they have a grasp of the medium that my generation didn’t have. I want to see them get involved.”

END NOTES

Chatsworth Hills Academy will hold an open house for prospective students’ families today from 6-8 p.m. at the West Valley campus. The preschool-through-eighth-grade staff will be on hand to discuss the curriculum. Refreshments will be served and pony rides will be available for children . . . The Academic Mentor Program established in 1995 at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills is seeking volunteers to tutor 300 West Valley elementary, middle and high school students in need of academic help. Interested adults may call the program office at (818) 932-0305 . . . The Music Center Education Division is seeking nominations of schools and teachers for the 18th annual Bravo Awards, which recognizes outstanding arts education. For information about the awards and summer seminars to help with the application process, call (213) 202-2287.

Class Notes appears every Wednesday. Send news about schools to the Valley Edition, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Or fax it to (818) 772-3338. Or e-mail them to diane.wedner@latimes.com.