(Re)Introducing the Youth Media Reporter

It is a pleasure to reintroduce the Youth Media Reporter – the professional, peer-reviewed multi-media journal serving practitioners, educators and scholars in the youth media field. Since the last issue of YMR was published online in February 2011, a few changes have occurred: the journal has a new editor and the website has a new design and format.  But YMR’s purpose remains unchanged: to build the youth media field by documenting, from multiple perspectives, the practices, pedagogies and impacts of engaging young people in media making across an array of modes and genres. YMR will continue to publish articles, reports, case studies, interviews and reviews that deepen our understandings of the ways that young people and adult allies create and use media to participate in and shape communities that are more inclusive, more democratic, more just and expressive.

In the last two years, significant shifts have occurred in and around the field of youth media that demand the inquiry and insight YMR has helped provide since 2005. Many stakeholders have worked to ensure the journal’s relaunch. Four leaders in the field were especially instrumental in facilitating YMR’s transition to its new institutional home in the Department of Media & Communication at Muhlenberg College.  I inherit my responsibilities as journal editor from the extraordinarily gifted and generous Ingrid Dahl, who shaped and shepherded the journal from 2006-2011. Ingrid continues to help drive the field as Director of Next Gen Programming at Bay Area Video Coalition. Among his many credits in the field, Steve Goodman, Founder / Director of the Educational Video Center, must also be recognized for ensuring YMR’s future.  Steve introduced me to Ingrid and the YMR advisory board, and planted the seeds for YMR at Muhlenberg when he spent a week on campus as the inaugural Media Artist in Residence in 2010. Our conversations during his residency inspired the conditions that brought YMR to Muhlenberg.

The process of transitioning and relaunching YMR has also benefitted from support and astute guidance from Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz, Program and Communications Director at the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture, and Kasandra VerBrugghen, Executive Director of Spy Hop Productions and a founding member of the burgeoning National Youth Media Network. Allies in the effort to advance youth media, they have helped YMR stay connected to the critical conversations, projects, and partners currently shaping the field.

Powering this effort is widespread commitment to strengthening the youth media field by sharing research, best practices, diverse experiences and approaches, reviews of scholarship, new pedagogies, and policies impacting the field. And the Department of Media & Communication at Muhlenberg College is a fitting and exciting space for YMR: it is an environment that values youth media, where students can take courses in youth media and conduct research with faculty in the field.  But more than that, the department is home to HYPE, an award-winning youth media program for high school students in Allentown. At HYPE, co-directed by Jenna Azar and myself, undergraduates learn and grow through collaborative documentary productions with local participating youth. HYPE teens offer powerful reminders of the vital work we must do to shape, secure and sustain spaces where young people can tell their stories and amplify their voices. This first issue is dedicated to HYPE—to the teens, college students, and collaborating adults—who demonstrate the value, promise, and urgency of youth media.

At YMR, our objective is to create a forum where youth media researchers, program directors, educators and leaders, community media and media arts activists, and youth media makers are in conversation with each other, the wider field and related endeavors.  Your contributions to the conversation are vital and we welcome your ideas about how to make YMR more inclusive, more inviting, and more open.

Lora Taub-Pervizpour, Editor

The Whole Student: How Educational Video Center Remains at the Forefront of the Gap Between Educational Demands and Active Citizenry

As an alumna of the Educational Video Center’s (EVC) Youth Documentary Workshop (1999), I recall with co-director Tanya, my youth producer cohort attending schools all over New York City where to get a i need a $1000 loan today, both traditional and alternative (now known as Transfer Schools). We spent mornings in our individual schools taking core subject classes: English, History, and Science, and were released early to attend EVC’s Youth Documentary Workshop (YDW) from one to four in the afternoon, four days a week for a full semester.  At EVC, we earned additional credits in these same areas while developing the necessary skills to be successful in life after high school.  At that time, taking and passing the New York State Regents Exam was not a requirement.  It was two years later, in 2002, that the Regents became mandatory as part of the No Child Left Behind Act for High School Students. Since then, this shift in testing requirements has made it increasingly difficult for under-credited high school students to attend EVC’s afternoon workshops. There is a growing reluctance among teachers to have students miss any afternoon test preparation classes, even though they would gain new experiences and skills and earn credit through EVC’s YDW Program.

Many youth media practitioners that have relied on relationships with the public schools, like EVC, increasingly find themselves competing with other after school test prep entities that prepare students for the Regents Exams. Additionally, for a growing number of students, the structure of their participation in EVC’s YDW is shifting.   Many now receive surplus credits or, as we will discuss, come to EVC through the Transfer School’s new Learning to Work Initiative and receive a stipend to participate. These shifts have not impacted students’ learning outcomes.  But they have significantly impacted EVC’s ability to recruit and provide essential credits to the most under-credited youth.

EVC’s Youth Powered Video Curriculum meets the Common Core State Standards and our educational model of problem solving, research and using multiple perspectives to build an argument through documentary filmmaking are the same skills that students will need in order to pass state tests.  In addition to helping students meet the standards for graduation, youth media also develops technical skills needed to be successful in the job market. At EVC, we work with the whole student to develop necessary skills to manage life, school, and work. We present two student case studies in this article.  One student attended our Youth Documentary Program and received academic credit, while the other received a stipend for  participation. Both show how EVC students have been successful in school and beyond while preparing for standardized tests.

Deconstructing Labor Market Readiness

Prior to 2000, high school students were able to intern at youth media organizations throughout NewYork City where they both gained valuable workforce skills and simultaneously worked towards their high school diploma. Today, the pull between preparing students for Regents Exams and the labor market has resulted in independent endeavors.  Currently at EVC, we see a shift towards providing stipends to participants of these same internships through the Learning to Work Program (LTW).  As a result, students who are “under-credited” are required to stay in school in order to meet graduation requirements, while students close to graduation attend EVC’s Youth Documentary Workshop Program as a career enrichment program.

According to the New York City Department of Education website:

Learning to Work (LTW) is an in-depth job readiness and career exploration program designed to enhance the academic component of select  Young Adult Borough Centers (YABCs) and Transfer Schools.  The goal of LTW is to assist students in overcoming obstacles that impede their progress toward a high school diploma and lead them toward rewarding employment and educational experiences after graduation. LTW offers academic and student support, career and educational exploration, work preparation, skills development, and internships. 1

The Alliance for Excellent Education reports that “relationships that supplement the student-teacher interaction can give students a clearer understanding of labor market expectations and help achieve their aspirations.” 2 At EVC, we continue to align ourselves with NYC Transfer Schools and believe in the coherent integration of four areas that comprise EVC’s educational rubric: Documentary Arts, Social Emotional Development, Critical Literacies, and Civic Engagement. These areas are crucial to preparing students for the workforce, active and critical community engagement, while also meeting the requirements of graduation.

It is imperative that we are not only developing youth for the new knowledge and innovation centered workforce, but that we are looking at these young people in a holistic way in order to develop the social and political efficacy required in rapidly changing times. We expand traditional learning-time structures by developing not only curious learners and deep thinkers but also healthy and active community members. As schools rethink their structures, EVC aligns itself with them to prepare students for success not only to enter a shifting workforce, but also to support them to become active citizens as creative artists and critical intellectuals, empowered to advocate for themselves and their communities.  From this vantage point, our notion of work readiness is not merely technical or vocational, but also intellectual, political, and ethical. Whether students receive credit or a stipend for their participation in our programs holds no weight with our learning outcomes and the richness of their EVC experience.

EVC Students and Youth Documentary Workshops

Raelene’s Story

As many youth do, Raelene came to EVC’s YDW through her school’s internship program.  She was working towards her General Education Development (GED) Exam and therefore did not qualify to receive core subject academic credits through EVC. Instead, school administrators encouraged Raelene to join YDW to develop her social skills, gain technical experience, and help build her story development and revision skills as part of her GED preparation.

Raelene is a three-time participant at EVC.  Having completed a basic workshop in spring 2012, which focused on the New York City Police Department’s controversial Stop-and-Frisk policy, her goal for returning in the fall was to strengthen her confidence as an interviewer and public speaker. The fall semester experience challenged and strengthened Raelene above and beyond her expectations. During that time, EVC was partnered with the West Harlem environmental justice group, WE ACT, and focused on an environmental justice documentary, entitled Breathing Easy. Raelene’s return to EVC at the time of this partnership provides evidence of the program’s impact and success in focusing on the whole student. As a lifelong West Harlem resident of New York City public housing, the projects, Raelene had revealed that the apartment she grew up in was riddled with mold, pest, and chipping paint issues. She was, by all accounts, a perfect person to feature in the film. As the semester unfolded however, it became clear to everyone, especially Raelene, that researching the causes of her living conditions and documenting her story was emotionally overwhelming. As she faced her deep-rooted beliefs about how her living conditions negatively shaped her outlook on life and community, Raelene began resisting the documentary focus on her story.

Raelene’s emerging resistance to being profiled towards the end of production catalyzed other students in her group to demonstrate their social and emotional development as they tried to understand and care for Raelene’s feelings. Additionally, their problem solving skills and creativity in documentary arts were challenged as they sought alternative approaches to document her story in a way that honored her feelings. Her resistance also became a catalyst for WE ACT to not only help educate Raelene’s family on ways to stay healthy, but to advocate vigilantly on her behalf to authorities with the means to rectify the documented injustices within her public housing environment. Making this film became a transformative site for community building among the youth producers and with community organizers. It also became a site where, for the first time, Raelene began to feel hope.

By the end of production, Raelene took ownership of the process. As she allowed her peers to document her home and family, and as she documented her frustrations and revelations regarding her living conditions through her own confessional videos, she began to shift her perceptions.  Additionally, her leadership of interviews conducted in her community, the editing process, and her constant engagement with WE ACT, cultivated Raelene’s confidence in herself and in her sense of what is possible through civic engagement. In the end, Raelene indicated that EVC made the difference. The support, structure, and challenge of making that film impacted her outlook and approach to life.

When Raelene returned to EVC for her third semester, it was through her school’s Workforce Development Program. She met the requirements for our Advanced Youth Documentary Workshop (AYDW) and received a stipend for her time at EVC. During her final semester, her documentary team focused on the problem of bullying. By this time, Raelene not only had the technical skills to successfully create a documentary, entitled Beyond Bullying, but she was able to develop the story using points and counterpoints including the bully’s perspective, to speak publicly about the issue, and think civically and critically through community outreach.

Jasmin’s Story

Jasmin has twice participated in EVC’s YDW. At the start, she explained that she was new to her Transfer School. She was attending a traditional high school and scheduled to graduate, but found out on graduation day that she did she did not pass her Algebra Regents Exam and therefore did not qualify for graduation. After transferring, Jasmin was placed in an advanced English class and Algebra Regents Preparation class. She spent the rest of her time in school and after school interning at EVC through her Transfer School’s LTW Program.

Jasmin’s first documentary focused on the saturation of alcohol in New York City communities. Through that experience, as with most of the youth participants, Jasmin began looking at her community through a new lens, with a new awareness of the impact of outside influences. She told this story through visual images, interviews as well as a mapping of the neighborhood. Jasmin and her peers counted every alcohol ad in select neighborhoods and developed original statistics for the film. In addition, Jasmin spoke on the issue of alcohol live on a WHCR community radio program. This experience provided Jasmin not only with valuable work skills, but also supplemented her Regents preparation through the real-life use of algebra. The next semester, Jasmin joined AYDW with Raelene and eleven others. She arrived one day with a big smile–she had just passed her Regents Exam and qualified for high school graduation.

Many public high schools in the United States are under-resourced or overwhelmed in general, and incorporating media education into their practices often creates additional tension or resistance, whether due to a lack of know-how, time, or resources. Some schools support having equipment in the hands of young people, yet devalue the need to apprentice students to its uses and applications in the learning process. In the face of this, EVC’s model remains at the forefront of what is possible for students’ critical thinking, artistry, social/emotional development, and civic engagement when you put cameras in their hands.

Each semester, EVC offers its YDW for twenty-five students. Two basic skills workshops are offered in the fall semester, and both a basic and an advanced skills workshop run in the spring. Structured this way, we are better able to develop cohesion amongst the youth production teams, produce four quality films each year, and remain within the capacity of EVC’s resources.

The Basic Documentary Workshop (BDW) recruits students with little to no prior experience in video/film or audio production. Utilizing our Youth Powered Video Curriculum as the foundational teaching tool, we set out to work with students in four core areas: Critical Literacy, Documentary Arts, Social/Emotional Development, and Civic Engagement. These core areas are woven throughout the semester’s lessons and activities and are assessed by rubrics with learning objectives that focus on servicing the whole student. There are many ways we incorporate these rubric areas, from team building activities, rigorous research of topic ideas, critically analyzing forms of media, effective and creative use of production and post production equipment, journal reflections, as well as frequent group discussions. Throughout, students are coached to take ownership of the process and the film they are learning to produce.

Youth voice is an important concept to EVC’s mission. For students to take ownership of the process and outcome of the films produced, it is important that the choices regarding film topics and direction are in their hands. Some semesters, students have the autonomy to choose the theme and focus. At other times, partnerships with community organizations require students to choose topics within the scope of the partner’s work. In both scenarios, the powerful aspect to note is that because EVC films focus on social issues, students are asked to reflect on the community issues they directly face. Subsequently, the framing questions and the personal stories profiled in EVC films arise from the personal experiences of the student producers.

As Raelene’s story shows, the work of EVC and community partners can at times become a critical component in transforming the despair felt and lived by EVC youth producers. Additionally, as highlighted in Jasmin’s story, our work with students can shift the lens through which they view the choices available to young people and the external forces that impact the behavior and culture of the communities in which they live.

Student Success and Career Readiness

Jasmin went on to receive the Judy Doctoroff Fund for the Next Generation of Documentary Journalists (named after the president of Public Affairs Television, PBS journalist Bill Moyers’ production company). She secured a fully paid summer internship at Jigsaw Productions with Oscar, Emmy, and Grammy Award-winning producer, Alex Gibney. And this fall, she began her college career and moved into student housing.

Raelene passed her GED exam. With resume guidance and support from EVC, she was selected for a highly competitive summer internship at DeeDee Halleck’s Deep Dish Waves of Change. At the internship, she developed applications, websites and edited social issue documentary films that serve as activist tools to improve her community.

Both Raelene and Jasmin came to EVC through alternative high school programs. Raelene’s experience helped her further develop the academic skills necessary to pass her GED exam and the social and life skills essential to advocate on her own and others’ behalf.  It also provided her with a stipend helpful to her economic situation. In contrast, Jasmin received no academic incentive, but developed academic skills that were crucial to finishing high school but was paid through her school’s internship program.

In this article, we focused on these two young women intentionally, but their story is not unique. With only one in four students deemed college ready upon graduation, in spring 2013, one hundred percent of EVC’s graduating high school seniors participating in our AYDW transitioned into a media internship and are attending college this fall.

Moving Forward

Sites such as EVC need to be available to “under-credited” students, in a way that values their wholeness and does not merely focus on their deficient credits. The small contingent of Learning to Work and International High Schools that EVC works with agree. With educational assessment shifting towards standardized testing, these schools are reframing what youth media can provide to Transfer School students. While we agree with a new emphasis and value being placed on youth media as a career development opportunity, we also want to shift the narrow perception that media arts is supplemental to learning requirements.

EVC plays an active role in addressing and reframing workforce readiness in a holistic way. We believe that the kind of work schools are preparing “under-credited” students for, and the kind of workers schools are preparing them to be, requires some deconstruction. As such, the internship placements we strive to secure for EVC graduates are in line with the value we place on the whole student. Both Raelene and Jasmin continued working at nonprofit media companies committed to human rights, social justice, and community empowerment. The continued development of their active citizenship through their work experiences helps to ensure the kind of work they will do and the kind of worker they will grow to be.

We exist in the creative economy and media arts education is vital.

Bibliography

Alliance for Excellent Education, “Expanded Learning Opportunities: A More Comprehensive Approach to Preparing High School Students for College and a Career.” Issue Brief (August 2011): 1-9. http://all4ed.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ExpandedLearningOpps.pdf.

Notes

  1. “Learning to Work,” New York City Department of Education, accessed August 20, 2013, http://schools.nyc.gov/ChoicesEnrollment/SpecialPrograms/AlternativesHS/LearningtoWork/default.htm.
  2. “Expanded Learning Opportunities: A More Comprehensive Approach to Preparing High School Students for College and a Career,” Alliance for Excellent Education, August 2011, 5, http://all4ed.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ExpandedLearningOpps.pdf.

“Take it and Make it Big”: Growing Partnerships with Libraries and Community Based Organizations

Introduction

The planning of new educational institutions ought not to begin with the administrative goals of a principal or president, or with the teaching goals of a professional educator, or with the learning goals of any hypothetical class of people. It must not start with the question, ‘What should someone learn?’ but with the question, ‘What kinds of things and people might learners want to be in contact with in order to learn?’ 1

The Rondo Library is located at a busy intersection of a bustling diverse urban neighborhood in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The main floor of the library is frequently busy, crowded with people sitting quietly at tables, silently perusing aisles of books, or sitting stationary at one of thirty four computer stations. If patrons need to speak, they are encouraged by library staff to use hushed tones. However, tucked away in the back of the main floor of the Rondo Library, toward the Children’s Literature section, there is a side meeting room, and if you are lucky enough to walk by this room on a Tuesday night, you will witness adult staff and youth participating in activities that disrupt many of the typical norms of public libraries.

On this night, there are fifteen teens moving around the space, building structures with large blue and white plastic baskets, tied together with zip ties. A small group of the teens has built a cave with the baskets. One teen is crouched down, snapping photos with an iPad from inside the cave. Another is taking pictures with his cellphone and posting them on Facebook. Many of the youth laugh loudly as they scoot around the space with blue plastic baskets on their feet, as if the baskets are big shoes. At the far back table sit three teens, headphones on, playing Minecraft, an application for building digital 3D worlds on iPads. All of these teens are participating in Createch. The purpose of this Tuesday’s workshop is for teens to mess around with digital applications and participate in a group activity that involves working on building “giant” objects. They are laughing, playing, and building, immersed in creating together, while concurrently using digital technology to document and enhance their building.

Scenes like this are changing the ways that traditional public library spaces are being utilized and how learning is conceptualized. 2 Moreover, in the city of Saint Paul, Minnesota, scenes like this are changing the ways in which community organizations collaborate and the ways adult team members of these organizations participate in the creation, partnerships, and facilitation of the Createch workshops.

The Createch program began in January 2012, as a collaboration between Saint Paul Public Libraries (SPPL), the Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center (KAYSC) at the Science Museum of Minnesota, and Saint Paul Parks and Recreation (SPPR). Createch started as the Teen Tech Crew (TTC), a group of nine high school youth hired and trained by the KAYSC team and paid through the Youth Job Corps (YJC) program, a SPPR employment program for low income St. Paul youth. The TTC members worked in teams of three to create hands-on creative technology workshops at three Saint Paul Public Library sites: Rondo Library, Rice Street Teen Zone/Library, and the Arlington Library. The TTC members range in age from fifteen to nineteen, are diverse in many ways, and are from the urban neighborhoods that the Createch sites are located in. Initially, the work of the TTC began as an extension of a previous collaboration between leadership at KAYSC and SPPL, each organization bringing its own set of skills. The libraries, embedded in the community, had a deep knowledge of the community and neighborhood setting as well as relationships with community members. The KAYSC brought knowledge of informal creative technology workshops and teaching as well as a model of teens working with near-peers in workshop and outreach settings. Together, these skillsets created the opportunity for innovation and exploration and brought creative technology tools into a drop-in library context.

In the fall of 2012, SPPL and SPPR came together to implement what they were learning through the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Learning Labs grant into their teen programming. They learned, through research of the digital inclusion movement, 3 that consistent spaces and strong mentorships were the keys to robust teen participation in digital media literacy programs. Thus, renamed as Createch, the program began providing teens from urban communities reliable access to technology and the opportunity to utilize digital media tools and learn the skills needed for full participation in digital media literacy settings.

The purposes of Createch are to provide (1) public spaces in the city for teens to access the technology needed to pursue their interests, (2) opportunities to use emerging technology to spark new passions, and (3) mentors to support teens’ individual work and growth. Currently, there are Createch spaces in three SPPL branches and one SPPR building throughout the city, and the adult team has grown to include members of the Saint Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN), a community media center, to teach video production. The learning that takes place at Createch sites is based on the experiential learning theory HOMAGO, developed by Mizuko Ito and her team. In their paper, Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project (2008), they describe three states of successful youth participation in digital learning spaces, hanging out, messing around, and geeking out (HOMAGO). Their work suggests that interaction with new media literacies is shifting the ways youth participate in literacy learning and that out-of-school contexts can encourage and support this participation.

What we have learned is that new media literacies and Createch spaces like the one described above are not only shifting the ways the youth participate in literacy learning but are also shifting the ways adult team leaders participate, lead, and learn. There are interesting parallels between the collaboration process of adult mentors and organizers of Createch and the HOMAGO theory of learning. 4 HOMAGO attempts to break down hierarchies of traditional learning contexts and values creativity and adaptability in learning spaces. As the youth enact HOMAGO at Createch sites to engage in new media literacies, the organizations are adapting a type of HOMAGO model in the process of their collaboration as well. Librarians are beginning to hang out with the idea of being youth workers, and youth workers are hanging out with the idea of being librarians. Administrators are messing around with the transformation of public spaces so that teens in the city can participate and learn with new media literacies–they are opening up libraries after hours and holding library programs in a teen parks and recreation department space. Adults are geeking out with these new partnerships to create positive social change. They are trusting this messy, non-linear process of learning not only for the teens, but for themselves, and because of this, HOMAGO is also changing the leadership landscape and positively impacting the success of Createch.

Below, we describe the context of each of the four Createch sites, talk about how our collaboration model “take it and make it big” came to be, and then share excerpts from a dialogue-based interview in which adult team members from each of the organizations respond to questions about their collaboration work in the program.  The focus of this dialogue is on the ways in which partnering organizations are reframing how they work together and with youth. Our goal is to share some of our valuable experiences–highlights and challenges–with the rest of the youth media field so that others might learn from this evolving and adaptable HOMAGO model.

The Createch Spaces

Createch takes on a different shape, feel, and pulse in every space because each location is constructed differently by teens, mentors, neighborhood residents, and community partners. All four of the sites are vastly different because of the contextual factors that influence them. First, the Hayden Heights Createch takes place in a large meeting room with soothing colors and bamboo motifs painted on the walls.  In this Createch space, though teens are still hanging out and messing around, they have the opportunity to participate in creative projects that build on each other week by week, giving them more opportunities for “geeking out.” For instance, one youth was immersed in a multi-week video poetry project. He spent a couple of weeks working hard on editing his poem, then used the program Garage Band to create a beat to accompany it. The community television organization SPNN brings in professional media and editing technologies that youth would normally not have access to in a traditional public library space.

As described in the opening vignette, The Rondo Createch site is a small meeting room located off the Children’s Literature area of the library. It is the smallest Createch space; however, the intimacy of the space has resulted in more interaction between youth and staff. In contrast, The Rice Street Teen Zone is a busy, multi-room complex. It is an institutional public city space with cinderblock walls, virtually no windows, an angular floorplan, and is leavened with comfy furniture and teen-made art. There is a robust sense of community here–many teens spend a lot of their free time at the Teen Zone. During the Createch workshops there are always other activities happening, including video game playing, teens playing pool, cooking lessons, and art activities. This presents variety but can also distract from Createch programming. The Teen Zone Createch space evolved out of a partnership between the libraries and parks and recreation department. Rather than creating a competing teen space in the neighborhood, the library chose to partner with this neighboring teens-only recreation center.

Lastly, the Arlington Hills Createch takes place in a large, multipurpose room with ten desktop computers and a very comfortable sitting area with sofas and lamps.  It is a self-contained space with a great variety of resources. When librarians were hard-pressed to find space and time for teens to “hang out” in this small Carnegie library during regular hours without bothering other users (Createch was originally held concurrently with a homework center and job search assistance workshop), they started offering Createch during “Library After Dark” times. As one librarian put it, “Createch time moved after hours to give teens a place to be themselves (i.e., boisterous).”  Indeed, this space houses the most “boisterous” Createch site with the youngest participants.

Take it, make it big.

The Createch name was created by the Teen Tech Crew members. When adult staff from SPPL and SPNN asked if they could use the term Createch for similar programming that did not involve the Teen Tech Crew, the response by the TTC members was, “Take it, make it big.”  This attitude of collaboration has been instrumental in the success of this program. Createch is still a work in progress.  It always will be.  As the Youth Services Coordinator at SPPL stated, “We don’t know what it will grow into, or who will be involved in the future. We do know as staff that we need to be flexible, to adapt, and to evolve.” Just as the experiential learning theory, HOMAGO values creativity and adaptability in youth learning spaces, the HOMAGO influenced collaboration model taken up by the Createch adult team members continues to value creativity and adaptability as well.

Q & A

The excerpts below are taken from a dialogue-based interview in which adult team members from each of the organizations responded to questions about the collaboration work thus far. The participating members were: Maggie Struck (Interviewer, Createch Volunteer and Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota), Janos MaGhie (SPPL, Librarian), Peter Kirschmann (KAYSC, Crew Manager), and Kao Choua Vue (SPNN, Youth Media Coordinator). This dialogue focused on the ways in which partnering organizations are reframing how they work together and with youth. Our goal is to share some of our valuable highlights and challenges with the rest of the youth media field in hopes that others can learn from this evolving adaptable model.

1. What were some of the challenges and surprises of adaptation of Createch?

Janos: As Createch got underway, each site identified totally different factors that were posing challenges. For example, at Arlington the space was wonderful but it was in conflict with the homework help being offered simultaneously. Rice Street library was struggling to attract teens due to the presence of an established teen rec center nearby. In resolving each site’s unique challenges, I was surprised to see how all four diverged from each other. Rice Street partnered with the recreation center to just hold Createch there, and Parks and Recreation staff came up with the idea for Arlington library to program after hours. Thus, each site developed a distinct environment and vibe, despite hosting the same initial programming.

Kao Choua: SPNN’s challenges and surprises of adapting to Createch include the process of learning about how each site and its participants are unique in their own ways. I have found that sometimes the HOMAGO style creates a more relaxed atmosphere–and that can be challenging for implementing the media production workshops. In the past, the SPNN workshops typically have taken place in a more structured environment. However, what works with Createch and SPNN is that the youth and adult facilitators have learned collectively to adapt to the environment of the particular youth space and because of this adaptability, have been able to make deep connections with youth who are interested in media production and technology skill development.

Peter: Expanding Createch to new sites and adding new partnering organizations to Createch gave the TTC youth a larger community of teen facilitators in which to share ideas. In much the same way that the adult staff from the organizations were already collaborating on creating the programming, youth from across different organizations, including youth from Minneapolis doing similar work, have been able to share skills, successes, and struggles with each other.

2. How do the entities share leadership and expertise?

Janos: Monthly meetings and staying in touch as needed through email.  It’s been wonderful to have Parks & Recreation provide a trained youth developer to help staff Arlington’s site.

Kao Choua: SPNN brings a media technology production expertise which supports the purpose of Createch. SPPL and SPPR have the community spaces and connections to their patrons. We learn from each other and share our resources in order to bring the best practices in providing quality programming using the HOMAGO style workshop.

Peter: Partner organizations have regular meetings with shared facilitation to check in and reflect on the overall Createch process. Not only do these meetings give library and partner staff a chance to collaborate and share best practices, but it also provides an opportunity for library staff from across different branches to connect. Meetings often have shared facilitation between adult team members and open with a general check-in and update from all of the partners. Sometimes this is a quick overview of attendance, activities in the sites, and updates. Often times, this becomes the bulk of the meeting, sharing knowledge and information and adapting best practices which are working at one library location to work in another setting.

3. What were some of the challenges and surprises of creating intentional spaces for youth to make media? 

Janos: The main challenge at my site, the Teen Zone, is that while there are lots of teens around, they have their usual activities and are hard to entice to participate in our drop-in workshops.

Kao Choua: Some challenges in creating spaces for youth to make media include the inconsistent level of involvement from partners. Libraries and recreation centers are not equipped with the latest technologies nor have the capacity of a needed media lab to support the number of youth who use the space. Also, libraries and recreation centers do not have a permanent staff with a media production background to support youth. To make Createch work, we have to have the right tools and equipment to support the youth. Furthermore, we have had to have an experienced youth media instructor on site to help facilitate student involvement and completed production. I have been surprised at how willing and flexible the other organizations have been to help us face these challenges head on–we the help of the collaboration, we are now running three Createch media production workshops at three different sites.

Peter: As Janos said, competing with other programming at sites is a continual challenge. Maintaining a consistent, regular schedule was key to helping us build an audience. As for surprises, some of the best moments at workshops were when “hanging out” with iPads were mixed with the other activities. When youth used the iPads to document their projects during a design activity, seamlessly moving from hanging out to messing around and back again.

4. How has Createch affected/supported other programming at both organizations? Are the libraries seeing better/more relationships between teens and staff? Have any Createch participants gone on to join the Set It Up crew at SPNN?

Janos: The partnership with Saint Paul Parks & Recreation has been extremely productive.  It started in the Rice Street neighborhood by programming at an SPPR facility. They provided the suggestion and an extra staff member to hold Createch after hours at Arlington. We’ve also been hosting the Teen Zone youth and staff at the library for a non-Createch program once a week.  Meanwhile, SPNN started as a partner exclusively for Hayden Heights library but started working with the Teen Zone and Arlington as well.

Kao Choua: Createch has bridged community outreach for SPNN in St. Paul. SPPL has completed videos and photography that show valuable connections between the community and the library. There are definitely better relationships between teens and staffers because of a dedicated teen space. There has not been any Createch participants who have joined the Set It Up crew but a few have shown an interest to join. Accessibility to the downtown space is an issue for the teens but participants have been invited to join the SPNN Open Lab on Mondays from 3-6PM where transportation is provided to Createch participants. SPNN has only been a Createch partner since March 2013, so I assume that there will continue to be an interest amongst Createch youth members to get more involved with other SPNN programs.

Peter: This has given the TTC an opportunity to share their ideas regularly in the community, and provide opportunities to try out new ideas with a set audience. Additionally, as TTC members begin to graduate from high school and move on to college and other opportunities I hope to see them working within the rec centers and libraries, to continue to support the work they began on the crew.

5.  In what ways will your partnership change in the future?

Janos: Nearly all change in Createch has been in response to a specific need, a way to resolve some factor that was limiting our full potential. Thus specific changes are hard to predict until the motivating factor becomes apparent. What gives me confidence is how all of our partners have been committed to the program and will continue to work together for its total good.

Kao Choua: I believe that SPNN and SPPL’s partnership will strengthen. With SPNN’s current location at the Arlington Hills Library and developed youth relationships, we hope to be part of the new space in 2014 and bring our expertise in video production and support youth in music, journalism, and photography.

Peter: When Createch began, it consisted of TTC in the libraries every other week for a summer, quickly learning and exploring new content to bring to future workshops. Its amazing to see all of the support it is getting from library staff and through bringing in new partners, and has been great to see the scope shift. This increased support has meant that the crew has been able to spend more time contextualizing their work, exploring social and digital justice issues. This change will hopefully transform future workshops the crew leads.

Next Steps

Createch future goals include expanding the mobile lab content and including new technology such as Vinyl cutters, Makey Makey, Sphero, and 3D printing. All of the organizations are committed to continuing to train their staff and operating under the assumption that 21st century digital media skills include wearing the hat of youth worker. This fall, the library hired more youth and adult staff to support Createch workshops on the days when the TTC or SPNN staff isn’t around. They also have moved to adapting more “youth friendly” practices in these spaces such as providing snacks and offering field trips to expose youth to Createch related projects. The collaborators of Createch continue to look to the work of Ito and other library digital media programs to inform their work. They continue to strive to leverage social media practices in public settings and create intentional spaces where youth can succeed and are encouraged to not only use media but create it as well.

Bibliography

Illich, Ivan. Deschooling society. New York: Marion Boyars, 2008.

Ito, Mizuko, Heather A. Horst, Matteo Bittanti, danah boyd, Becky Herr-Stephenson, Patricia G. Lange, C.J. Pascoe, and Laura Robinson. Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project. Chicago: The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning, 2008. http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/files/report/digitalyouth-WhitePaper.pdf. 

Ito, Mizuko. Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. Boston: MIT Press, 2010.

Ito, Mizuko, Kris Gutierrez, Sonia Livingston, Bill Penuel, Jean Rhodes, Katie Salen, Juliet Schor, Julian Sefton-Green, and S. Craig Watkins. Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design. Irvine, CA: Digital Media and Learning Research Hub, 2013. http://dmlhub.net/publications/connected-learning-agenda-research-and-design.

Jenkins, Henry. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Boston: MIT Press, 2009.Pinkard, Nichole, Brigid Barron, and Caitlin Martin. Digital Youth Network: Fusing School and After-school Contexts to Develop Youth’s New Media Literacies. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on the Learning Sciences 3 (2008): 113-114.

Notes

  1. Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, (New York: Marion Boyars, 2000), 75-76.
  2. See Mimi Ito et al., Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project (Chicago: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning, 2008); Mimi Ito, Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media (Boston: MIT Press, 2010); Mimi Ito et al., Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design (Irvine, CA: Digital Media and Learning Research Hub, 2013); Henry Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century (Boston: MIT Press, 2013); Nichole Pinkard et al., “Digital Youth Network: Fusing School and After-school Contexts to Develop Youth’s New Media Literacies,” in Proceedings of the 8th International Conference for the Learning Sciences, 3 (International Society of the Learning Sciences, 2008) 113-114.
  3. See Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges; Ito, Hanging Out, 2010.
  4.  Ito, Hanging Out.

Youth Media Strengthens Common Core Practice

The Common Core State Standards Initiative has gained momentum since its introduction, and is now adopted in almost every state. bad credit loans. There has been a rapid response among schools, after-school programs, and teacher educators to process, adapt, and integrate these new standards in practice, and as teachers’ associations, districts, and other professional groups find ways to connect their own best practices to new standards. Currently, there is no unified set of standards that easily match skills and competencies valued in youth media, media literacy, education, and other media education environments to Common Core standards.

In my conversations with youth media practitioners as a representative of the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), such a document, shared among youth media practitioners, would be helpful to the field and a reminder that media production and new literacies are at the center of some of the most innovative aspects of Common Core.

William Kist, Frank W. Baker, Richard Beach, and other media and new literacies scholars have already produced work making the media and Common Core connection. Kist notes that extensive focus on nonprint texts distinguish Common Core from many other curriculum standards—Common Core encourages students to become “text detectives” by examining how visual, audio, and interactive media are constructed, whether children are clapping along to shot changes in videos (an exercise that my own K-6 media literacy group, Powerful Voices for Kids, calls “Spot the Shot”) 1 or detecting themes in popular culture texts. 2 Beach and Baker note the emphasis on “comprehending and communicating information” but call on policymakers to more specifically address the need for students to understand digital tools, media production, and professional development opportunities for teachers to collaborate with media and technology teacher educators. 3

Youth media organizations and media literacy scholars have begun to do the intricate work of justifying their own practices with specific state standards, often poring line by line through the Common Core State Standards Initiative documents. This is important work, and many youth media and media literacy organizations are in the process of creating useful templates for other youth media organizations. The LAMP in New York City announces that its programs align with 61 Common Core standards. At the biennial NAMLE conference in 2013, Faith Rogow and Vanessa Domine revealed work finding intersections between Common Core goals and media literacy competencies in dozens of Common Core standards. They provide an excellent collection of resources making Common Core and media literacy education connections for teachers and practitioners at their companion website. 4

The field would benefit widely from a more accessible template that makes general connections between Common Core and youth media practices at a more foundational level, so that youth media practitioners feel comfortable aligning with some Common Core standards without needing to memorize the document at a point-by-point level. The professional development committee of NAMLE has been working to create just such a document, which would broadly outline why youth media and media literacy are connected to Common Core at a foundational level, and (subsequently), which groups of standards align with which types of best practices. That document, currently in production, would benefit from and welcomes input from a variety of youth media stakeholders who have a vested interest in collaborating with K-12 teachers and institutions.

There are several ideas and frameworks in the Common Core document that align with strong youth media and media literacy work in the field. In naming and supporting these key approaches, youth media practitioners can ensure that the standards are conforming to their best practices instead of patching together standards to “fit in” to their work. Good youth media practices strengthen Common Core because its biggest claim to 21st century skills and learning is its recognition that students cannot be narrowly focused on 19th century notions of literacy and communication. Youth media organizations provide the critical voice and media literacy skills that are apparent in the way that Common Core envisions understanding and communicating in a digital era. The following list points to key areas of alignment between youth media and the Common Core:

(1) Thoughtful media production is synonymous with thoughtful communication. Students regularly reflect that youth media programs have changed their lives and provided them new ways to think about media all around them. By creating in a variety of modes and mediums, students amplify voice in ways that may be more difficult when denied access to the connected world. Practices that strengthen students’ ability to create media to reflect their knowledge, opinions, beliefs, and feelings are central to a number of standards in Common Core that integrate media and technology across subjects, rather than simply categorizing them as a separate discipline.

(2) Literacy—and all practices of understanding, communicating, and making media texts—happens off the page, too. By recognizing what are called “nonprint” texts throughout their documentation, Common Core opens the door to a particular strength of youth media and media literacy programs to foster critical thinking, media analysis skills, and inquiry about the wider world. Students who understand how all media are constructed exemplify Common Core’s emphasis on students being “familiar with the strengths and limitations of various technological tools and mediums” and able to synthesize and use a variety of fiction and informational texts in multiple mediums and formats. 5

(3) Good students should be good citizens. Common Core explicitly focuses on students’ abilities to “actively seek to understand other perspectives and cultures.” 6 Youth media has a unique claim to building students’ ability to take new perspectives and to connect with other cultures via both media representation and cross-cultural collaboration. 7

These are only a few starting points. As Common Core continues to shape up in K-12 education, it will be important for youth media practitioners to better understand the vital role they can play in after-school enrichment, in-school mentoring, and teacher professional development. This is especially so as more K-12 institutions continue to deepen their engagement with the kinds of multimedia production and media literacy skills that are not just “attached to,” but in fact deeply ingrained in, the new standards.

Meanwhile, Common Core State Standards will likely continue to change and grow. The National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC) recently hosted media educator Dain Olsen in a professional development Online Connector Session to discuss emerging standards in media arts. 8 The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards is an independent group of teachers, practitioners, and scholars who are developing standards in visual arts, theater, dance, and media arts to “guide the delivery of arts education in the classroom with new ways of thinking, learning, and creating” and inform policy as new standards are further developed and implemented. 9  This is yet another opportunity for youth media practitioners to help shape and improve the scope of new standards, to ensure that the practices developed over decades of experience in offering youth media enrichment can help educators in all contexts contribute to our understanding of the promise of youth media to give voice to the next generation of students.

Bibliography

Beach, R. and F. Baker. “Why Core Standards Must Embrace Media Literacy.” Education Week Blog, June 21, 2011. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/06/22/36baker.h30.html (accessed June 23, 2013).Domine, V. and F. Rogow. A Media Literacy Tour Thru the Common Core.  http://commonmle.blogspot.com/ (accessed July 13, 2013).Hague, C. “Teaching Youth Media Through International Exchange.” International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 3 (3) (2011): 113-134.Hobbs, R. and D. C. Moore. Discovering Media Literacy: Teaching Digital Media and Popular Culture in Elementary School. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin SAGE, 2013.Kist, W. “New Literacies and the Common Core.” Educational Leadership 70 (6) (2013): 38-43.National Coalition for Core Arts Standards. “National Core Arts Standards: A Conceptual Framework for Arts Learning. http://nccas.wikispaces.com/file/view/Framework%207-10-13%20FINAL.pdf/441178942/Framework%207-10-13%20FINAL.pdf (accessed July 1, 2013).National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School. Common Core State Standards. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/introduction/key-design-consideration (accessed June 23, 2013).

VerBrugghen, K. (March 26, 2013). “The Hub Discipline: A Look into the Making of National Core Media Arts Standards with Dain Olsen.”   http://namac.org/idea-exchange/national-core-media-arts-standards-dain-olsen-youth-media-video (accessed July 1, 2013).

Notes

  1. Renee Hobbs and David Cooper Moore, Discovering Media Literacy: Teaching Digital Media and Popular Culture in Elementary School (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin SAGE, 2013)
  2. William Kist, “New Literacies and the Common Core,” Educational Leadership 70 (6) (2013): 38-49.
  3. Richard Beach and Frank W. Baker, “Why Core Standards Must Embrace Media Literacy,” Education Week, June 21, 2011 http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/06/22/36baker.h30.html (accessed June 23, 2013).
  4.  A Media Literacy Tour through the Common Core, http://commonmle.blogspot.com/.
  5. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, The Common Core State Standards (Washington DC: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010), 7  http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf (accessed June 23, 2013).
  6. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, Common Core State Standards, 4.
  7. Chelsey Haugue, “Teaching Youth Media Through International Exchange,” International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 3 (3) (2011).
  8. Kasandra VerBrugghen, “The Hub Discipline: A Look Into the Making of National Core Media Arts Standards with Dain Olsen,” March 26, 2013, http://www.namac.org/idea-exchange/national-core-media-arts-standards-dain-olsen-youth-media-video (accessed July 1, 2013).
  9. National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, “National Core Arts Standards: A Conceptual Framework for Arts Learning, http://nccas.wikispaces.com/file/view/Framework%207-10-13%20FINAL.pdf/441178942/Framework%207-10-13%20FINAL.pdf (accessed July 1, 2013).