The following post is part of a series springing from the Cooney Center’s joint initiative with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, By/With/For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen Public Media Audiences. This is a project aimed at exploring the role of public media in the lives of young people by taking stock of the current landscape and imagining a future that public media can build alongside teens and tweens. With that in mind, we are inviting public media practitioners who are already experimenting and exploring with young audiences to reflect on their experiences and share their perspectives. We hope these posts will spark conversation, provide direction and resources, and raise up examples of the innovative work that public media stations across the country are creating to engage the next generation. 

 

Each summer, PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs (SRL) invites 30 of the best youth storytellers from our network of 150 schools in 46 states to join us in Washington, DC for a week-long celebration of student journalism. These teens help us figure out the topics and projects that we’ll explore over the coming school year. They also give us invaluable insights into what Gen Z is going through, what they care about, and how to engage. A month later, educators gather for our Teacher Workshop to learn how to use our project-based video journalism curriculum, connect to their local PBS stations, build community buy-in, and amplify student voices in their communities.

This year, of course, these events went virtual. We had to rethink everything we do and how to do it. Our virtual Student Academy not only gave us first-hand experience with the challenges of remote learning–it also provided a real window into the disorientation, trauma, and grief that teens are feeling right now.

It’s clear that students will not be able to do their best work unless they feel seen and respected. In our new hybrid virtual world, the SRL team is rethinking everything we do and how we do it. My goal is to strengthen our program and nurture the diverse and compassionate media makers the world needs now. It’s going to be incredibly difficult; thank goodness you are here.

“What is our next step?”

Each week brings new lessons that we will use to be successful next school year. A summer PBS NewsHour broadcast, for example, was in many ways my SRL dream come true. First, teen voices offered thoughts on racial justice and policing in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. Then after an interview with Gen Z activists, the traditional Shields and Brooks political analysis (in which they listen and respond to the youth voices before them!) and finally, an artist on the power of the camera to shape and shift public perceptions.

Elevating Gen Z perspectives to the same visibility as older experts is critical in this moment when many Americans keep referencing the next generation as the hope and the change.

“A lot of times, you hear people say, oh, all lives matter, when they try to counter the Black Lives Matter movement. So, my question for the people who say this: When will there be equal opportunity in America for all races?” asked Corie McCowin, the SRL Gwen Ifill Fellow at NET/Nebraska PBS. These are the questions of our time: “What is our next step?” asks Yeonseo Seok of San Diego.

“We will be the generation that really revolutionizes this world and transforms the world for the better. But, at the same time, on the flip side, it is kind of a lot to say that the future of this entire world and this nation is resting on Gen Z’s shoulders, when we have barely even made it out of childhood yet,” said 16-year-old Thandiwe Abdullah. We also need to make sure “that older generations are doing their part in making sure that our future is bright as well.”

Columnists David Brooks and Mark Shields took notice. “I stand in awe of their intensity, of their passion, of their sense of urgency and their sense of justice,” said Shields. This was a full-circle moment for me, who as a desk assistant in the 1990s, used to walk Mark from the green room to the studio, looking forward to the huge bag of M&Ms he carried to celebrate the end of a long week.

Closing the program, photographer Mark Clennon described how the democratization of cameras and mobilization of young people using social media is a game-changer. Black Americans “can now educate our peers and educate ourselves as a community. And that is unique. That is the number one differentiator between now and the original civil rights movement, is our ability to tell our stories.”

Schools Re-open: 5 Ws and a big H

Student journalism with an emphasis on accuracy, fairness, and diverse perspectives is also a game-changer. Student journalists can shine a light on under-told stories, many of them in communities that have lost or are losing their local news sources. As schools roll out their reopening plans, student reporters will play a critical role in raising awareness of the local decision-making and the consequences of revised budget priorities, police in schools, schedules, instruction, lunch, recess, extracurriculars, buses, and so much more.

Here are some examples: in a moment when many communities are questioning the role of police, student reporters are looking at security in their schools, what is the budget, what are the stated and real outcomes for all students? Student journalists add a critical perspective to reopening plans. The CDC recommends students attend their local schools to limit time spent on buses and trains. What will this do to cities where students sometimes travel over an hour to attend a school that best matches their interests and strengths? How will districts reconcile the digital divide and address the fact that 28 percent of students at high-poverty high schools were “virtual dropouts” and did not participate in online learning this spring, compared to 11 percent of students at low poverty schools?

A week after my favorite Friday broadcast, the viewer mail included letters from 6th-grade students in Manhattan. Nora wrote, “I really enjoyed that you made a video interviewing people close to my age because I felt like I could really make a change if they could too.”

This is why we do the work, why we learn to listen, create paths for empathy, and why we rely on each other more than ever, even though we’re apart.

 

 

Leah Clapman created Student Reporting Labs in 2009 as an experiment to engage middle and high school students with current events and reimagine public media for tweens and teens. Under her leadership, Student Reporting Labs has grown from 6 pilot sites to 150 schools in 46 states with partnerships extending from major media and online platforms to international education and youth initiatives. Leah has developed education products such as NewsHour Extra for teachers, Teachers Lounge and “Making the Grade,” a weekly focus on education issues, policy and practice. A Princeton graduate, she serves on the Education Writers Association journalism advisory, Education Innovators and Library of Congress TPS council.

The following post is part of a series springing from the Cooney Center’s joint initiative with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, By/With/For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen Public Media Audiences. This is a project aimed at exploring the role of public media in the lives of young people by taking stock of the current landscape and imagining a future that public media can build alongside teens and tweens. With that in mind, we are inviting public media practitioners who are already experimenting and exploring with young audiences to reflect on their experiences and share their perspectives. We hope these posts will spark conversation, provide direction and resources, and raise up examples of the innovative work that public media stations across the country are creating to engage the next generation. 

 

At WNET, we are driven to address the needs of our community in ways that are innovative, flexible, nimble, and responsive. Following months of school closures and continuing COVID-19 restrictions, children nationwide are facing a summer without their usual activities, which for many includes summer camp. The research on summer learning is largely a confirmation of what we intuitively know—high-quality summer learning opportunities can support and improve a young person’s social, academic, physical, and emotional development. Research on summer learning indicates that youth who lack access to enriching summer experiences, particularly those from traditionally underserved communities, experience not just slowed development, but an actual decline in skills over the summer months.

That’s why we created Camp TV, a new public television series that brings some of the magic, learning, and fun of the day camp experience to elementary-age children sheltering at home. Camp TV is hosted by Zach, a head counselor played by the Broadway performer Zachary Noah Piser (from Dear Evan Hansen and Wicked) who guides campers, ages 5-10, as they learn through play. It was important for us to cast a funny and relatable “camp counselor” who leads “campers” through a variety of surprising activities.  Zach kicks off each episode with a welcome song and announces the day’s theme:  silly hat day, camping day, rhyme day, silly sock day, backwards day, and more. He then guides viewers through a variety of activities—exploring nature, math, science, the arts, movement, storytelling, writing, and more. For example, kids will learn about surface tension while making bouncing bubbles and discover shapes while creating a flying origami star. We also feature zookeepers introducing all kinds of animals—from a playful bearcat to chickens who like classical music. Children will learn how to do magic tricks, turn sneakers into tap shoes, create an oboe from a straw, and make guacamole.

The Camp TV activities are led by a diverse and talented group of performers, teaching artists, scientists, and educators who encourage kids to use simple items from around their homes to conduct the activities. Every episode also includes a book-of-the-day storytelling segment read by librarians and authors.

Our team was able to ramp up quickly to produce Camp TV because of the content partnerships we formed. In May 2020, our team began contacting organizations in the NYC area and beyond to assess interest in being part of this initiative. In order to make sure we were covering a wide range of topics, we reached out to a variety of educational organizations. Some were organizations with which WNET had partnered in the past, while others were new to WNET. When our team mentioned our goal of providing engaging, educational content to families who might not otherwise have access to quality summer programs, organizations were eager to participate. Some partners, such as the New Victory Theater had already created a robust suite of videos that were well-suited for the program, while others like the Liberty Science Center were able to create a series of videos specifically for the program. Most of the organizations were in the process of grappling with how to best provide their content to families over the summer months and Camp TV gave them a platform to help them achieve that goal, as well as to introduce their organization and content to new audiences. We are now working with more than 22 museums, zoos, nature centers, botanical gardens, arts organizations, and more who share our mission to provide children with an enriching—albeit different—summer learning experience. Since the launch of Camp TV, additional organizations have contacted us and expressed an interest in participating in future iterations of the program. 

 

Sandra Sheppard is Director & Executive Producer of Children’s and Educational Media at WNET. She is an Emmy award-winning producer and media executive with over 20 years of public television experience. She oversees content development and production of children’s broadcast and digital initiatives at WNET, New York Public Media. Sandra serves as the executive producer of Cyberchase, the Emmy Award-winning animated “math adventure” that airs daily on PBS KIDS. She oversees production, online and mobile content, educational outreach, and research. Sandra has developed several original properties including Oh Noah!, a whimsical PBS KIDS video and gaming series that introduces young children to Spanish, and Mission US, a role-playing game for tweens.

On July 29, 2020, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center hosted a virtual book release party for our friends Sonia Livingstone and Alicia Blum-Ross, authors of Parenting for a Digital Future. We invited Anya Kamenetz, an education reporter for NPR and the author of The Art of Screen Time, to join us in a conversation about the challenges and opportunities that parents navigate as they raise children in a digital landscape.

“The digital has become the terrain on which we negotiate who we are,” said Livingstone. “Through our talk about technology, we’re talking about our identities, our relationships, our values, and our children’s life chances. And with that in mind, I think you can see how easy it is that anxieties and family arguments about technology become so fraught.”

The authors discussed three main patterns that they have identified among parents’ strategies for raising children in a digital age:

• embracing, in which parents seek digital technologies for themselves and their children;
• balancing, in which parents encourage some digital practices but not others; and
• resisting, even if it means not allowing their child to engage with something their peers have.

Livingstone and Blum-Ross pointed out that parents are doing their best to ensure that their children are prepared for a future full of unknowns; but at the same time, they are struggling to make sense of the “tsunami” of constant change with very little expert guidance about the opportunities of digital media versus the perhaps more publicized risks of too much screen time.

Now that we are in a COVID-19 world, Kamenetz wondered if resistance as a strategy may have faded into the background. Blum-Ross pointed out that some parents still resist “because they have other values they want to live out.” But so much of our lives are mediated through screens for work, school, and play, that it is even more evident that parents need—and want—expert advice as they seek to ensure that their children’s engagement with digital technologies fits within their family values and goals.

We hope that you will enjoy the recording of our conversation here—and please stay tuned for a follow-up post in which the authors respond to some of the many questions that we received both before and during the presentation!

This article was originally published on PBS SoCal’s At-Home Learning, an early childhood education resource (for ages 2-8) providing families, educators and community partners with at-home learning activities, guides, and expert advice.

 

Each Thursday morning at 10 a.m., kids and grown-ups across Alaska’s Southern Kenai Peninsula join me for an hour-long storytime—on the radio. Yes, radio. For some, that means an actual AM radio and for others that means a mobile device with the local public radio station’s free app installed. Did I ever imagine I would be hosting a radio show? No, but it has turned out to be another surprising solution to an unanticipated pandemic-related problem.

While I am new to radio, I am a storytime veteran. Storytimes at the public library where I work as the children’s librarian used to bring in a herd of families year-round. I took another version of storytime on the road to share with kids at local preschools, elementary schools and childcare centers. The COVID-19 pandemic changed all that.

Back in March, I found myself in the same boat as many of you. My community in Homer, Alaska, including the public library where I am the children’s librarian, closed in response to the pandemic. My coworkers and I immediately got to work figuring out how we could support community members remotely, and I knew storytime was the first gap I needed to address.

Why Storytime?

For families with children under the age of 6, a no-cost program like storytime offers a diverse group of families an opportunity to:

• grow their children’s early literacy skills in a play-based experience,
• access high-quality books and media of all kinds, and
• connect with other families and library staff; building positive relationships which, in many cases, last for years to come.

Because of the physical barriers Alaska’s geography offers and the social or emotional isolation many families feel at some point, building positive relationships has always been a critical part of family learning programs like preschool or toddler storytime. This became even more important in the midst of a pandemic. I knew all three goals—to grow little ones’ early literacy skills, provide widespread access to great media and help our community’s diverse families connect with each other and the library — were still important, but how could I do that while we hunkered down? It was time to get creative!

Why Radio?

Just weeks before the official closure, a producer at KBBI AM890 with whom I have collaborated many times, mentioned the possibility of taking storytime or another type of program to the airwaves if needed. Some librarians at the time were taking storytimes to Facebook, Instagram, or Zoom, but several aspects of radio made it the perfect fit for storytime in our community.

Storytime is for everyone. Despite being a youth services staff of one, my goal is the same as a department of many: to support as many little ones and their families as possible, including those who can’t get to the library or don’t yet see themselves as library users. Over the past 10 years, storytime has evolved with an eye toward more equitable access for families, the inclusion of more diverse authors and illustrators, and more community collaboration.

Homer—and Alaska in general—is home to many early adopters of new media, but also to those who can’t afford, can’t connect to (because of geography or lack of infrastructure), or don’t want to rely on the newest technologies. As a result, radio, an older technology, is still a vital part of communities big and small. In fact, in rural Homer, public radio successfully reaches more than half of the local community plus listeners living in more than 20 other remote communities, in part because of the “old school” AM technology it still uses.

Local programming is arguably also part of KBBI’s success. The station’s staff know how to create rich, locally produced content and are comfortable supporting volunteers or those new to radio like myself. Kathleen Gustafson, Radio Storytime’s producer, tackles the program’s technical needs and provides the music licenses, while I select the books and music, provide the literacy and learning expertise, and act as host.

What Radio Storytime Looks Like

During the hour-long, live program, which I host at the station, I mimic some of what happened during the in-library storytime with little modifications. I welcome families with a bend-and-stretch activity and then invite families to grab any props they may want for a movement break in the program, such as shaker-type props like a set of keys or a water bottle filled with ice or some sort of fabric to dance with. I then share three stories (with the permission of the books’ publishers) interspersed with multiple guided dance or movement breaks with recorded music between reading, and end with a call-in segment for kids. The program follows the same basic format every week and book titles are shared on both the library’s and radio station’s social media platforms before storytime. Families can predict what will happen or grab their own copies of the books if they have them.

Like in my in-person storytimes, I focus on many of the same early literacy skills (print motivation, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and narrative skills) and add short grown-up tips related to literacy and learning. Little ones hone their listening skills and rely on their imagination to paint the images as I read longer picture books with detailed narratives that rely on text to tell the story. To engage the audience, I ask open-ended questions about what might happen next in the story, what they think a character might look like, or if they have had any of the experiences from the story and pause momentarily to give families a chance to think about their answers. The call-in at the end of the program gives kids practice with rewarding back-and-forth conversation about the books or whatever is on their minds.

Of the original goals, supporting family engagement and fostering community connection seemed the trickiest to achieve but it has been the most surprising aspect of the program. I took style cues from children’s programming icons like Ella Jenkins and Fred Rogers and have tried to create a feeling of familiarity and closeness through pacing, program design, and speaking style that bridges the divide of social distancing and the airwaves. As a result, families with kids, and even grown-ups on their own, tune in together from home or while they are out and about.

What Does Success Look Like?

Radio Storytime is part of a broader library effort to support the literacy and learning of youth in my community this summer. The effort includes free Activity to Go! kits, virtual programs, curbside pick-up for books and other media, device check out, an outdoor StoryWalk, free passes to the local nature center, access to more digital books and audiobooks, remote library card set up, and suspended late fees for overdue library materials. Radio Storytime, however, continues to be the talk of the town. So how do I gauge its success when I can’t see parent’s reactions or hear the questions kids ask while I’m reading? How do I know the program is effective?

Since this summer’s library programming as a whole has been one grand experiment, I knew success wouldn’t be calculated in the same way as past summers. But all experiments need some criteria to guide next steps, so I think about information, both statistical and anecdotal, that will help me better the program and create additional experiences going forward that meet families’ literacy and learning needs. For example, I track the number of households that listen via the radio station’s online platform (radio listeners cannot be counted but are estimated based on the number of web listeners as per national ratings), how many kids call in, if different kids call in, what types of questions or comments they share, and the estimated age of the caller, among others. I also take note of the comments people email me or tell me when I’m out around town.

I imagined Radio Storytime would be a temporary move, but because of the pandemic, there is no end date for now.

What surprising new role are you playing for kids and their families? How are you engaging young children and families remotely?

And no matter where you are, join me for Radio Storytime on kbbi.org!

 

Claudia Haines is a youth services librarian at the Homer Public Library. She supports the diverse literacy and learning needs of kids, teens, and families with dynamic programs and access to great media of all kinds. She advises and trains other librarians and educators on the topics of media literacy, STEM, and family learning and serves on both local and national committees that support families and literacy. She also writes for multiple sources about learning in a connected world.

It’s interesting how much coronavirus has both distanced and gathered people. While we’re distanced physically, many have been connecting in online gathering places. Since April, I have joined video hangouts with five of my siblings and started sharing frequent updates in our new “family group chat”—although the last time we saw each other collectively in person was a few years ago. A group of friends who were inseparable in college, 20+ years ago, haven’t been together in more than a decade, but we’ve all crowded around our respective screens to marvel at how we all “look just the same” and to renew long-lost bonds. Meanwhile, my local book club and neighborhood Bunco group connected online to keep things as normal as possible after a brief hiatus.

These online connections are real. I felt joy at seeing my friends and sorrow at missing a few who were ill. Similarly, my teenage children have found support and friendship and a sense of normalcy as their online connections helped them maintain a sense of wellbeing despite the scary environment of a global pandemic. What my family and children experienced anecdotally has been examined by the Connected Learning Lab for the past year.

The group, led by Mizuko Ito, Candice Odgers, and Stephen Schueller, recently published their findings and recommendations in the position paper, Social Media and Youth Wellbeing: What We Know and Where We Could Go.

The team notes that the work underlying the paper was completed before the COVID-19 global pandemic; the results are even more compelling given the increased reliance on technology that we are experiencing right now. Like all of us, the researchers did not anticipate the seismic shift that would take place in expanding technology’s critical role in enabling work, learning, aid, play, and social connection.

Their review focuses on how teens support each other’s wellbeing through digital media during moments of stress and isolation. It summarizes current knowledge and suggests productive ways to continue the conversation about adolescent social media use and wellbeing.

 

Shifting Perspectives on Adolescent Social Media Use

Most people are aware that adolescents have been early and enthusiastic participants in online spaces, with teens in the United States spending nearly seven-and-one-half hours each day with digital entertainment media.

These high levels of engagement have sparked concerns about the relationship between digital device use and adolescent wellbeing, with heightened concerns around mental health. Some researchers have posited that adolescents’ high levels of adoption of social media are driving increases in mental health problems. These claims and related concerns have received widespread public attention. However, not only do systematic reviews of evidence in the health sciences not support these claims, they suggest that the accompanying fears are largely misplaced.

Ito, Odgers, and Schueller suggest three ways to shift the way that we look at adolescent social media use and wellbeing. These are particularly relevant in light of recent developments due to COVID-19.

1. Refocus the debate over the relationship between youth social media use and wellbeing to reflect evidence rather than hearsay, and emphasize differences based on varied youth perspectives and backgrounds. The authors point out that the simple question of whether more time spent using social media causes mental health problems in adolescents is unlikely to provide helpful insights. Instead, we can identify actionable knowledge by studying specific forms of social media engagement and whether they amplify or mitigate mental health risks for different adolescents.

2. Identify teen vulnerabilities and assets that may influence both healthy and problematic social media engagement. The team found that youth online interactions can promote wellbeing. Youth engage in a wide range of supportive behaviors online, including circulating supportive media content, promoting the visibility of oneself and others online, offering guidance to one another around difficult topics, and promoting a sense of community around marginalized interests and identities.

Evidence also indicates that young people are actively seeking support for mental health information online, and that they are using online tools to elicit social and emotional support.

On the other hand, online and offline vulnerabilities are interrelated. Negative online experiences such as negative comparisons or harassment are stratified by gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and race, and are tied to experiences of poverty, instability, and marginalization. This mirrors the experience of youth in the physical world.

3. Suggest opportunities through which youth social engagement might mitigate vulnerabilities and leverage assets. While there has been tremendous growth in efforts to leverage digital and networked technologies to support mental health, few are tailored to youth, and very few adolescents have adopted them.

Ito, Odgers, and Schueller suggest that digital mental health developers and providers be more responsive to youth needs by incorporating cognitive behavioral approaches, meeting youth in their spaces in digital communities, and working with online organizers and influencers to develop tools and training.

Additionally, it is important to focus extra efforts on youth who experience vulnerability because of social marginalization as described above; they potentially have the most to gain from digital connections with supportive peers and professionals.

Providing Mental Health Support for Teens

The report notes that we are still in the early stages of understanding how specific forms of social media use intersect with the activities of diverse youth and how these patterns of activities influence development and wellbeing.

However, it is clear that youth’s growing reliance on online support for mental health represents an opportunity for providers of mental health services, apps, and other supports. The team uncovered a significant gap between youth desire for mental health support, and what is being offered by digital mental health professionals.

Further Research Needed

When evaluating studies of risks, the team found an overwhelming focus on the volume of social media use rather than the nature and quality of use, as well as a lack of focus on specific types of online experiences or youth who are vulnerable to mental health problems.

The team calls on the community to collectively address these gaps and priorities with these actions:

• Perform and apply research focused on marginalized or underrepresented populations, such as Latinx and undocumented youth, Black youth, rural youth, and high-school age girls
• Integrate research on youth online communication with research on youth mental health
• Complete quantitative and qualitative evaluations differentiating between type of use or use of different platforms
• Move beyond the question of what is the relationship between social media and mental health to ask questions such as what types of social media use benefit or harm what types of people? When? and How?
• Design online mental interventions tailored to youth, addressing the gap between youth desire for mental health support, and what is being offered by digital mental health professionals

Next Steps Toward Youth Wellbeing

Social media is here to stay. Youth will benefit from an adult population that works to understand its current impacts and helps shape future uses. To that end, Ito, Odgers, and Schueller have looked across a range of relevant research and development efforts to identify gaps and opportunities in how to support adolescent wellbeing in the digitally networked world.

They see an urgent need to focus research, investment, and public attention on what actually drives and mitigates mental health problems for youth. They worry about the common but unsubstantiated assumption that social media is a negative influence, which has deflected attention from the real stressors that young people experience, including social marginalization, instability, and conflict. They also note that despite the rapid growth of digital mental health apps, the products do not address the unique needs and interests of youth.

The team suggests that mental health professionals, and society as a whole, work together to reach and support young people where they are—in social media platforms and online affinity groups.

Many youth and adults have turned to online and social media connections for interaction and support during the current pandemic, just as my family has. As we move ahead, it is crucial that the adult community of families, friends, researchers, developers, mental health professionals, and others, work together to understand and improve the options, so that youth are truly able to leverage social media for their wellbeing.

For deeper understanding, read about the Youth Connections for Wellbeing project.

 

 

Claire LaBeaux oversees communications for several STEM and education-focused organizations. She works with the Connected Learning Lab to expand awareness of its research findings and to help people find applicable principles in the details. She earned a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications at San Jose State University.