Student podcasters share the dark realities of middle school in America
“Gun violence, social media and mental health are literally shaping middle school,” Erika says in their podcast.
They stroll listeners by means of their day-to-day lives – every part from school lockdowns to TikTookay dances in the lavatory – and the way life in middle school right now is totally different from when their English trainer, Jenny Chio, was a scholar.
“I went through it, and you guys are going through it,” says Chio, evaluating her youth with the expertise of right now’s college students. “I think it’s the same amount of pressure, but just amplified.”
One factor our judges cherished about this podcast is the approach the college students wove in nationwide developments with what’s occurring in their very own school and neighborhood. They interviewed their classmates and academics about heavy subjects which are, sadly, additionally an element of their each day lives.
Like lockdown drills.
A grim actuality for middle school college students and academics
Erika and Norah say they’ve had lockdown drills since early elementary school, however not too long ago, their middle school had one which wasn’t only a drill – prompted by an unknown occasion close by. Although everybody was high-quality, the expertise nonetheless made the girls assume in a different way about their relationship to school shootings.
“I can promise you that every child in our sixth- through eighth-grade school has imagined who they’d be in a shooting,” Norah says in the podcast. “Would they run? Would they hide?”
In interviews, their classmates share what they assume they’d do in a school capturing: “I would run home and call the police”; “Find somewhere to hide and then just stay there”; “I’d try to text my parents and tell them, if anything bad happened, I love them.”
Chio, on the different hand, can’t bear in mind ever having an energetic shooter drill when she was in middle or high school. The solely emergency drills again then revolved round pure disasters: earthquakes or hurricanes. But she’s all too acquainted with lockdowns as of late.
The scholar journalists asked her to point out them the emergency equipment in her classroom, which amongst different gadgets, has one shocking ingredient: cat litter. Chio says that if a lockdown lasted for a number of hours, she may use it, together with different toiletries, to create a DIY lavatory.
TikTookay as middle-school trend-setter
Luckily, there is extra to middle school than lockdowns. One power that dominates each their digital and in-person world? TikTookay.
“Nowadays, when walking to school, you’ll see girls literally surrounding the building who are dancing,” Norah says in the podcast. “The dances look kind of weird because they’ve likely come from TikTok.”
Erika provides, “You can’t hear the music. And so you just see kids, like, moving their arms over their heads and like just dancing around. They look like jellyfish, and it’s really funny.”
But TikTookay’s affect goes past their viral dances. “Trends like baggy pants, crop corset tops, curtain bangs, ripped jeans are all instigated from this app,” Erika says in their podcast.
These quickly shifting, and far-reaching developments are an inevitable half of the middle school expertise, particularly since the return to the classroom after the pandemic.
“I’ve been to different states, and people there dress exactly the same as they do here, kids my age and it’s really weird,” Erika says. “Because I thought different places had different things that were popular.”
Chio remembers nicely that feeling of attempting to maintain up with the newest developments, and failing. She and her college students bonded over that dropping battle to be “cool” in middle school.
“It’s like I’m going to be uncool no matter what,” Norah laughs, “so maybe I should just stick with what I’m doing right now.”
But fortunately, the buddies have one another to make it by means of. And what they’re doing proper now, making a podcast and amplifying their classmates’ voices, remains to be fairly cool.
To take heed to Erika and Norah’s podcast, click on here.
Visual design and growth by: LA Johnson
Audio story produced by: Janet Woojeong Lee & Lauren Migaki
Audio and digital story edited by: Steve Drummond
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