Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Younger (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Pupil Podcast Problem, at Presidio Center Faculty in San Francisco.
Talia Herman for NPR
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Talia Herman for NPR
Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Younger (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR’s Pupil Podcast Problem, at Presidio Center Faculty in San Francisco.
Talia Herman for NPR
Faculty shootings, social media, magnificence requirements and fast-changing style tendencies – say that 5 instances quick.
Adolescence has at all times been powerful, however the acceleration of recent forces makes it extra annoying than ever. Within the phrases of two San Francisco finest buddies – the center college winners of this 12 months’s NPR Pupil Podcast Problem – welcome to Center Faculty Now.
In a classroom at Presidio Center Faculty, not removed from the Golden Gate Bridge, 13-year-olds Erika Younger and Norah Weiner sat down to inform us about their podcast. It’s one in every of two Grand Prize winners chosen by our judges from greater than 3,300 submissions from 48 states, in addition to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
The 2 buddies simply completed the seventh grade, however have not been separated but — they’ve seen one another on daily basis since college let loose. Norah exhibits as much as our interview sporting boots that she borrowed from Erika for the special day. Their giddy laughter fills the empty college, their vitality fueled by the information that, in only a few days, they’re off to summer time camp collectively.
Whereas our highschool winner this 12 months tackled a large native information story, with reporting from college students and educators, Erika and Norah took on a extra common expertise – the ups and downs of being a middle-schooler as we speak.
“Gun violence, social media and psychological well being are actually shaping center college,” Erika says of their podcast.
They stroll listeners via their day-to-day lives – all the pieces from college lockdowns to TikTok dances within the lavatory – and the way life in center college as we speak is completely different from when their English instructor, Jenny Chio, was a pupil.
“I went via it, and also you guys are going via it,” says Chio (pronounced CHEW), evaluating her youth with the expertise of as we speak’s college students. “I believe it is the identical quantity of stress, however simply amplified.”
One factor our judges beloved about this podcast is the way in which the scholars wove in nationwide tendencies with what’s occurring in their very own college and neighborhood. They interviewed their classmates and academics about heavy subjects which are, sadly, additionally part of their each day lives.
Like lockdown drills.
A grim actuality for center college college students and academics
Norah Weiner
Talia Herman for NPR
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Talia Herman for NPR
Erika and Norah say they’ve had lockdown drills since early elementary college, however just lately, their center college had one which wasn’t only a drill – prompted by an unknown occasion close by. Though everybody was advantageous, the expertise nonetheless made the women assume in another way about their relationship to highschool shootings.
“I can promise you that each little one in our sixth- via eighth-grade college has imagined who they’d be in a taking pictures,” Norah says within the podcast. “Would they run? Would they cover?”
In interviews, their classmates share what they assume they’d do in a college taking pictures: “I might run house and name the police”; “Discover someplace to cover after which simply keep there”; “I would attempt to textual content my mother and father and inform them, if something dangerous occurred, I really like them.”
Erika Younger
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Talia Herman for NPR
Erika Younger
Talia Herman for NPR
Chio, then again, cannot bear in mind ever having an energetic shooter drill when she was in center or highschool. The one emergency drills again then revolved round pure disasters: earthquakes or hurricanes. However she’s all too aware of lockdowns as of late.
The scholar journalists requested her to indicate them the emergency package in her classroom, which amongst different gadgets, has one stunning ingredient: cat litter. Chio says that if a lockdown lasted for a number of hours, she might use it, together with different toiletries, to create a DIY lavatory.
TikTok as middle-school trend-setter
Fortunately, there is extra to center college than lockdowns. One pressure that dominates each their digital and in-person world? TikTok.
“These days, when strolling to highschool, you may see women actually surrounding the constructing who’re dancing,” Norah says within the podcast. “The dances look type of bizarre as a result of they’ve possible come from TikTok.”
Erika provides, “You’ll be able to’t hear the music. And so that you simply see youngsters, like, transferring their arms over their heads and like simply dancing round. They appear like jellyfish, and it is actually humorous.”
Winners of NPR’s Pupil Podcast Problem, Norah Weiner and Erika Younger, with their instructor Jenny Chio, at Presidio Center Faculty in San Francisco.
Talia Herman for NPR
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Talia Herman for NPR
Winners of NPR’s Pupil Podcast Problem, Norah Weiner and Erika Younger, with their instructor Jenny Chio, at Presidio Center Faculty in San Francisco.
Talia Herman for NPR
However TikTok’s affect goes past their viral dances. “Developments like saggy pants, crop corset tops, curtain bangs, ripped denims are all instigated from this app,” Erika says of their podcast.
These quickly shifting, and far-reaching tendencies are an inevitable a part of the center college expertise, particularly because the return to the classroom after the pandemic.
“I have been to completely different states, and other people there gown precisely the identical as they do right here, youngsters my age and it is actually bizarre,” Erika says. “As a result of I assumed completely different locations had various things that had been common.”
Chio remembers nicely that feeling of making an attempt to maintain up with the newest tendencies, and failing. She and her college students bonded over that dropping battle to be “cool” in center college.
“It is like I will be uncool it doesn’t matter what,” Norah laughs, “so possibly I ought to simply follow what I am doing proper now.”
However fortunately, the buddies have one another to make it via. And what they’re doing proper now, making a podcast and amplifying their classmates’ voices, continues to be fairly cool.
To take heed to Erika and Norah’s podcast, click on right here.
Visible design and improvement by: LA Johnson
Audio story produced by: Janet Woojeong Lee & Lauren Migaki
Audio and digital story edited by: Steve Drummond
