Growing up, I was used to being the “only one.” I was the only Black girl in many of my elementary school classrooms, newspaper staff, debate team, and even in college lectures at the University of Virginia. That anxious feeling of being surrounded by faces that were not like my own was a familiar one.

As an aspiring journalist, I expect I will often be the “only one” in the workplace. While 38% of newsrooms have made diversity gains in the last 15 years, many publications are still lacking in overall diversity. According to this 2018 Pew Research Center study, “newsroom employees are more likely to be white and male than U.S. workers overall.” My worries about feeling underrepresented are not unfounded.

As I began my internship in the summer of 2019, I was excited and fully prepared to be the “only one.” I would be working with PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs, a national youth journalism initiative connecting students to public media. But I soon learned that this newsroom was empowering for all kinds of people.

I participated in meetings and interacted with influential journalists. I felt like my voice as an intern mattered. The vision of equality promoted by Student Reporting Labs was inspiring. Throughout the summer, the old feeling of being the “only one” started to disappear.

Our biggest project for the summer was the Student Reporting Labs Summer Academy, where 26 teen journalists from 15 states traveled to Washington, D.C. to create video stories. This, of course, was the year before the coronavirus pandemic.

The diversity of the Academy was remarkable. The majority of the Fellows were girls and the room was full of people of color. No one in the room bore the burden of being the “only one.”

Brittney Bucksell was one of the first Fellows I worked with during the Academy. She’s a curly-haired, energetic, Black girl from Maryland. As I sat down next to her, I could feel her nervousness. I was nervous too. We talked about our favorite T.V. shows and our excitement for the week ahead.

Brittney’s group was working on a story about a high school teacher who used yoga to bring mindfulness to his community. As I helped the group pack up their equipment after a long day of shooting, I noticed that Brittney was unusually quiet. After some prodding, she told her mentor and me about her feelings of inadequacy within her group.

“I just felt really bad about everything I did,” Brittney explained, “When [my group members] would have conversations, I would actually feel ignorant.”

I know those feelings well. Feeling like the “only one” makes me question my abilities, and wonder if I deserve my position. It makes me feel like an outsider. These feelings are what experts call impostor syndrome, a phenomenon where a person feels like they are unworthy, despite their achievements and success. A wave of empathy ran over me as I reassured her of her talent and capability. I wished she could see how exceptional she truly was. All she needed was a little encouragement. Throughout the rest of the Academy, I saw Brittney flourish as she allowed the rest of the world to see her true self.

“Once I put on the mindset that I’m doing the best that I can and that’s all that really matters, everything started gaining clarity,” Brittney later said. “I actually felt better about the stuff that I was doing. I actually opened myself up more to my group.”

But part of me wondered how this could have happened within such a diverse group of student journalists. Brittney was not the only Black girl at the Academy. And I had hoped that my presence as an older Black girl, mentor, and intern would be encouraging. If someone could feel this way even when they aren’t the “only one,” I wondered, where do feelings of imposter syndrome truly come from?

Part of the problem may be that teens aren’t often empowered to feel like the work they are doing is meaningful.

“I feel like as students, we’re often overlooked,” Brittney said. “Our voices are never heard.”

The Summer Academy was a life-changing experience for students. For many Fellows, the Academy was the place where they found their journalistic voice and tribe. The program is also helping young journalists in rural American towns that lack community support for journalism.

“I like shining a spotlight on people that usually don’t get the attention that they need or the attention that they deserve,” said Bailey Childress, a college freshman and 2019 Academy Fellow from a small town in Kentucky. “There really isn’t much local news. There really is a need for the spotlight to be around here.”

Student Reporting Labs is opening the door for the voices of young people and underrepresented groups to be heard.

“After going through the Academy,” said 2018 Fellow and high school senior Xavier Dominguez, “this really changed me and this is what I want to do for my career. My mom is a single parent. I’m not from a very privileged household so I have to put in double the work.”

Xavier’s voice as a Hispanic-American is needed in today’s industry. According to a survey conducted by ASNE, Hispanic-Americans make up only 5.62% of newsroom leaders.

I am starting to realize that the problem is deeper than being the “only one.” In truth, it is more than a feeling but rather the result of systemic structures that make it difficult for people of various identities to get a seat at the table and be heard. Finding places of empowerment can be challenging. But it is possible.

PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs is ahead of the curve in realizing the potential that young journalists have and encouraging underrepresented groups to pursue this career. They are pulling new voices into the conversation and changing the face of journalism. Looking at the teenagers making their voices heard through Student Reporting Labs, the future of journalism is bright.

 

 

Victoria Hodge is a journalist and fourth-year student at the University of Virginia graduating with a dual degree in Public Policy and Media Studies. She was a summer 2019 PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs intern, where she co-anchored a special highlighting youth journalism. Most recently she interned at Bloomberg News where she wrote for the D.C. Breaking News Team.  

For nine months, we have been living in the midst of a pandemic that has thrust us all into a “new normal.” Teachers and students across the country have been thrown into an abrupt experiment in remote learning since the spring. Stark equity issues have come into view, and education leaders are worried about the long-term impact of learning loss, particularly among children from lower-income families. And the stress of isolation from peers and the lack of social interaction has been taking a toll on children of all ages.

Yet while there have been more challenges than many of us could have ever imagined just a year ago, there have also been some bright spots. The FOSI 2020 Annual Conference that took place online on November 18 highlighted the resilience of children and families who have adapted to the massive disruptions of the past nine months.

Over the past few months, the Cooney Center has been conducting focus groups with 10-17 year olds across the country as part of our Next Gen Public Media project. These sessions, conducted over Zoom, are providing our research team a glimpse into the lives of young people across the country. Cooney Center Senior Fellow Mary Madden joined Facebook’s Director of Global Safety Antigone Davis for a fireside chat about some of the silver linings of the pandemic. Here are some of the highlights from their conversation:

Many kids are struggling. But some are thriving with remote learning
Despite some of the challenges that so many students are facing with remote learning -such as lack of broadband access or devices that are capable of handling schoolwork, or even patchy wi-fi for those who are sharing broadband connections with entire households of family members who are online at the same time—Mary pointed out that some kids are actually enjoying their remote learning experience more than they had enjoyed school.

“We are seeing that some kids who maybe have a more difficult time with auditory learning cues are thriving with more visual cues,” she pointed out. “We’re seeing that some of the social pressures that kids face in the in-person environment are lessened in the online environment. They might prefer to be able to express their opinions and engage over chats; they say that they don’t have the same pressures… to participate in class in a way that makes them nervous or uncomfortable.”

Definitions of screen time are becoming more nuanced
Throughout the pandemic, we’ve heard that parents have had to loosen their screen time restrictions. Not only are students online all day for school, many have had to entertain themselves while their parents work: they have been watching more YouTube videos and playing more video games than before the pandemic. For many kids, digital activities have also allowed them to connect with friends through messaging apps and games. But now that they’ve been on screens for so long, Mary pointed out that many of the youths she has spoken to have said that they prefer in-person interactions when they can, and even appreciate structure around screen time. “We’ve actually been hearing kids saying things like, ‘I look forward to knowing that the weekend is when I get more time, and during the week it’s more limited.’”

Grown-ups are learning too
But it’s not just children who have had to exercise resilience throughout the pandemic. Mary and Antigone spoke about the ways that parents and educators have had to adapt.

“It’s important to elevate those positives, because it’s so easy to get weighed down with all of the immense challenges that we’re facing,” Mary said, highlighting some of the many ways that teachers have had to learn new strategies to accommodate their students. Parents have been faced with guiding their children as they navigate different communications platforms while building the social and emotional skills they need to focus within chaotic environments.

For the many families that have been spending so much more time together, Mary noted there have been more opportunities for “just-in-time” conversations around topics like the ways kids are interacting in a game, or larger concerns related to media use and what’s happening in the world including “a discussion about bullying, or digital citizenship, or something like encountering misinformation on a YouTube video, or in relation to topics like the election, or the pandemic.”

Antigone pointed out that tech companies have been stepping up to help inform families about their tools. Originally designed for educators, Facebook’s new Get Digital platform features parent-facing content during the pandemic to help families engage in conversations about using digital media safely. The site offers tips and conversation starters around digital safety, well-being, and media literacy designed to spark family discussions around these issues.

 

Watch the full video from the FOSI conference here.

“MOLLY OF DENALI celebrates life in a rural community—a unique one, but rural all the same. Having that commitment to rural representation carry over into the educational resources is tremendously gratifying. And, the fact that families from rural communities across the US had a hand in their creation added both value and authenticity.”—Stephanie McFadden, Alaska Public Media

More than 9.3 million, or nearly one in five students in the United States, attend a rural school (Why Rural Matters 2018-19: The Time is Now), yet the majority of educational initiatives and materials have not been specifically designed to reflect and meet the unique needs of this sizable audience. With this population in mind, GBH, the producers of the MOLLY OF DENALI series, assembled a development team that included five partner public media stations that serve large rural audiences, Alaska Native collaborators, literacy experts, and parents. Together, this team used a human-centered design approach to create the MOLLY OF DENALI Family Game Club, a new educational resource developed with and for families in rural communities that celebrates at-home learning, family history, and spending time together. The Center for Program Evaluation at the University of Reno, NV conducted an evaluation of the Family Game Club.  

Project Background

Funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Family Game Club was created as part of the MOLLY OF DENALI Rural Education Initiative. The goal of the project was to develop educational materials that amplify the voices of rural communities and are inspired by MOLLY OF DENALI, the Peabody Award-winning animated action-adventure comedy aimed at 4–8-year-olds. Set in Alaska, the series follows the adventures of curious and resourceful 10-year-old Molly Mabray, an Alaska Native girl. With an emphasis on family as well as intergenerational and community relationships, MOLLY OF DENALI models Alaska Native values, such as respecting others, sharing what you have, and honoring your elders, values shared by many other cultures. It also showcases contemporary aspects of rural life including strong female role models, interdependence with nature, and using technology to research, learn, and communicate. 

The development team was committed to practicing human-centered design, an inclusive process “that starts with the people you’re designing for and ends with new solutions that are tailor-made to suit their needs” (IDEO Design Kit). In this vein, public media station staff conducted interviews with parents in rural communities across the United States to better understand some of the challenges they face and preferences they have when it comes to educational materials and family time at home and in the community. The development team learned that factors such as limited access to strong and reliable broadband and geographic isolation affect families’ ability to access digital tools and content and attend events requiring long car trips, making non-digital, at-home or in-community activities a high priority. The team used this information to inform the ideation, iteration, and production of prototype games that were shared with families through two rounds. The development team then took the game prototypes with the greatest promise and appeal and developed the Family Game Club. 

MOLLY OF DENALI Family Game Club

The MOLLY OF DENALI Family Game Club consists of 16 indoor and outdoor games, including competitive and cooperative games, storytelling, movement, card, and board games. The games are geared toward families with children in grades K-2, and they promote engagement around informational text (text whose primary purpose is to convey information) and social studies. The games reinforce literacy; strengthen social studies content knowledge; give families the opportunity to practice and hone problem-solving and critical thinking skills; and provide ways that kids, friends, and families can have fun together. As families learn about Molly, her community, and Alaska Native values, they are encouraged to reflect on their own family history and culture. In addition to the games, the Club includes a colorful family guide that provides information about the games, as well as background about the MOLLY OF DENALI television series, geography and wildlife of Alaska, and Alaska Native values and culture. 

Distribution and Implementation of Materials
The five partner public media stations serving rural communities worked with local organizations such as schools and libraries to distribute the Family Game Club boxes to families. Each station collaborated with a specific rural community in this effort. Some partnerships were built on existing relationships; others used the project as an opportunity to connect with a new organization or town in their viewing area. Families played the games at home and then were invited to attend a culminating event which celebrated their community, spending time together, and MOLLY OF DENALI. 

Evaluation Study
In addition to the formative evaluations that occurred during prototype development, the team worked with an external evaluator to gather summative feedback. The Center for Program Evaluation at the University of Nevada-Reno conducted an evaluation with over 200 families to measure (1) the reach of the project in the five partner communities, (2) changes in parents knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to using media-focused resources, (3) changes in children’s use of informational text and knowledge of targeted social studies concepts, and (4) successes and challenges of implementing the Family Game Club. Parents and children used the Family Game Club materials for four weeks and tracked their usage and enjoyment using checklists, as well as filled out pre- and post-surveys. Additionally, a subset of families participated in parent and child focus groups. 

Results from the evaluation study include:

• The Family Game Club increased children’s knowledge of informational text and targeted social studies concepts. Comparing pre- and post-test responses, there was a statistically significant difference in children’s informational text and social studies knowledge scores, including recognizing informational text, using a map, and recognizing activities popular in Alaska Native communities. 
• Families enjoyed playing games together. Parents and children both reported that they enjoyed playing the games quite a bit or a lot and would play them again after the study concluded. Some 93% of parents would recommend the Family Game Club to other families, and 80% of children said they would play the games again. 
• Families increased the amount of time they played together. On the post-survey, 58% of parents reported playing games with their children more than once a week. One parent shared, “I learned that I do have time. It doesn’t take that much time to sit down and get through a game and have that family time.”
• Families had very positive feedback about the games. Many parents felt the games were fun, educational, and high-quality. All of the games received at least an 83% positive rating, indicating overall high satisfaction with the games. A parent shared: “[The Family Game Club] exceeded my expectations. Every week there was excitement of what the games would be…. I liked that you had to use your imagination more instead of the regular games we play at home.”

In Summary 

The MOLLY OF DENALI Family Game Club is an example of educational materials that have been designed with and for families living in rural communities to address their unique challenges. By using human-centered design, and directly interviewing and involving parents from rural communities, the team was able to effectively address some of the barriers they face and the preferences they have for the types of resources they want to use during family time. Not only is the Family Game Club engaging, educational, and celebrates the values of many rural communities, but it also helps to increase children’s knowledge of informational text, social studies, Alaska geography and wildlife, and Alaska Native culture. Families spoke, and Team Molly listened–while families in rural communities are rarely part of the development process, this team made sure that the opinions and perspectives of families in rural communities were incorporated into the resources. With additional funding, GBH is excited to revise the Family Game Club materials and partner with additional public media stations to distribute the materials to families across the United States. 

 

Acknowledgments

GBH would like to thank the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for its generous funding. GBH would also like to thank the following organizations and individuals:  Alaska Public Media, Blue Ridge PBS, Mountain Lake PBS, PBS Reno, Prairie Public Broadcasting, Center for Program Evaluation at the University of Nevada-Reno, Alaska Native collaborators, and families who participated in the prototype testing and summative evaluation study.

 

Mollie Levin is a Senior Project Manager, Early Childhood at WGBH Educational Foundation. Her current projects include overseeing the development of educational materials using an inclusive, participatory approach, and launching an early childhood initiative that focuses on supporting new immigrant children and their families.  Her previous experience includes producing STEM apps for preschoolers at GBH, as well as researching and developing new coding technologies for early childhood settings at the DevTech Research Group at Tufts University. Mollie received both her Master’s Degree and Bachelor’s Degree from the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University.