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Core Curriculum
Esther Wojcicki is the author of How to Raise Successful People. She is an internationally known journalism teacher and the founder of the largest media program in the U.S., the Palo Alto High School Media Arts Program, which focuses on teaching 21st-century skills through the use of media including newspaper, magazine, yearbooks, websites, videos, photography, radio, and TV. The program started in 1984 with an already established 6-8 page newspaper and 19 students. It has since grown to become one of the most distinguished and the largest scholastic media programs in the nation today with 600+ students, six additional journalism teachers, and 10 publications. Her students have won Gold and Silver Crowns from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and Pacemaker Awards from the National Scholastic Press Association. Her focus is empowering students through the use of digital resources and giving students more control.
Esther is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley where she holds an M.J. degree in journalism and has a lecture series named after her at UC, Berkeley. She has been a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at mediaX at Stanford since 2013; is a 2009 MacArthur Foundation research fellow; was named the 2002 California Teacher of the Year by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing; and was the 2011 Charles R. O’Malley Award recipient from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.