By and For

Rather than going abroad my Junior year I enrolled in an urban education program in New York City. I was placed in a middle school Social Studies classroom three days a week in Jackson Heights, Queens and was given the opportunity, at the end of the semester, to plan and teach a unit for the school’s eighth graders. I chose to develop a unit around editorial cartoons in which students would first study their uses, then produce their own pieces, display them, and finally publish them in a book. We first generated some ideas about what subjects they might like to explore, but I also wanted to introduce them to themes that were not as safe or easy to talk about as those they came up with on their own. In my search for these topics, I found a website for a magazine written by high school teens for high school teens whose essays and reports ranged in content from drugs to consumerism to race, to questions surrounding adulthood, dating, immigration, money, etc. These essays were a great starting point for my students as they realized they could form opinions about issues they frequently encountered but did not deeply explore.

The magazine, New Youth Connections, is published by Youth Communication, an organization whose primary focus is to “[help] teenagers develop their reading and writing skills so they can acquire the information they need to make thoughtful choices about their lives.” The organization also publishes a magazine by and for teens in foster care and one by and for parents with children in foster care. The magazines are a way for populations with similar goals and struggles to share information and reach out to one another, which is particularly important when their struggles take place in what are often some of the most alienating bureaucratic systems. The magazines also empower youth and families in both the process of writing and reading to give advice and discuss themes which only authorities are otherwise expected to address (D.A.R.E., social workers, Heath Ed teachers, courts). The experiences shared in the magazines can then become collectively owned and confronted by individuals, school classes, youth and family programs, and non-profits as discussions circulate. For me at least, watching my students relate and speak out in response to some of the articles was pretty remarkable.

The stories are thoughtful, complicated, and powerful, whether you’re facing similar struggles or not. Definitely check them out.