The Sunday Story: The kids have something to say
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We talk a lot about was going on with Young people these days, but kids rarely have a chance to step in for other microphone themselves to tell their own stories and whatever way they want.

What zombie scares you the most?

How on earth could a hot dog qualifies the sandwich? I mean, look at the thing. Hang the one of farms.

So those sounds are my background music. Every year in P. S. Education, death gives kids the chance to be heard through the student podcast chAllenge.

Middle scholars and high scholars from around the country take part, and their stories can teach us a lot about what is like to be a kid to power. In August two thousand twenty one, and we had to leave our schools in the middle of the final exam. Am I shara? go.

And this is the sunday story. today. I'm joined by M. P, R, S. Janet janey SHE heads up the contest with help from producer lawn magi. They come through all the entries and are here to share the highlights.

What can bo? Hello.

hello, hello. Okay.

what you know. So jet start us off by telling us, what do these podcast tell us about what's going on in the lives of Young people?

Well, I show we got more than thirty three hundred broadcast this year, and so many of them focusing on identity. The kids are figuring out who they are on, mike, whether it's the struggles of being a student or an immigrant or little sister talking about body image, gun violence. And we heard from students from forty eight states in porter go.

oh my god. So how do you sit all of that? He feels like that be tough.

So everyone on my team, on the education desk, we had to listen to a couple hundred. I personally listen to more than like eight hundred and eighty of them. But when we were so deep in the judging process, there is one podcast that jumped out at me. And this one in particular stood out because IT starts with a student describing my dad's .

favorite food, sausage spam, a packets of instant noodles, all cooked in a spicy broth topped with american cheese and chopped scallions. That together is a popular south american dish created in the fifties in the midst of the war.

This is Grace co. She's a high school junior at merion high school in seattle. Um sometimes students entire kanus because they have to make a podcast for class. But Grace really just made this for herself. You can really hear IT and SHE dows a beautiful job of introducing herself with her favorite food, which then leads into conversations on bigger topics like body image and mental health.

Not hungry.

Many of us who grew up in an immigrant .

household know that our parents is especially value food. Food is their love language. But paradoxically, another aspect of our culture contradicts idea and prevents many asian americans .

from having a healthy relationship with food.

November.

I was diagnosed with eating disorder.

But that sounds really deep for a high school. Alright, like this is, you know, these are some deep concepts between our relationships to food and unhealthy food and all of that. This.

that's a lot I know. And every time listen to IT, i'm like, could I even say something like that now about how I feel like my body? Like probably not yeah and probably not I make. Um so as I listened to these entries, I especially this podcast from Grace shared with a couple of my friends saying, like, can you also imagine this during this as a high school there? And greece touches on this sort of universal sentiment in her podcast.

The same dish that initially provided me with comfort than a lot of discomfort is now a dish that I can enjoy as I share my story, my hope is that more resources will be provided to my community, and mental health will become less stigmatized, so that one day others who have experienced a similar journey to mind will be able to enjoy their discomfort and find comfort within that.

Every year, we got a lot of podcast lic crisis that touch on identity and mental health. And when I say this, we have range like one unit interview, their father, who was morman. There's an entry for missoury that we found really powerful with multiple interviews with trans high scholars.

And to be clear, when we say podcast on identity, we aren't just talking about the serious heavier conversations on race, gender or trauma. There's really more than that. Yes.

there was a lot more than that, right?

Because understand long that you have brought us a light hearted podcast about identity. I think here's a little clip.

I am the shortest person in my classes this year. That means I always have to sit in the front row right under the tears nose. And I am always the last chosen for basketball.

I just look cover later of this because I am the shortest person. Like, everywhere I go.

I hear you. Are you me too.

So this is a million hankinson.

And SHE just finished the fifth grade. ohio. SHE submitted the story about wishing to be taller after being cast as an .

elf in the school play. And else A I wish I could just .

grow taller. Sweet.

I know I just fall love with a mea. I was always going to love this one as a short person, but I should also point out this is a fictional story, or, if you will, a tall tale.

Yeah, I like that. See what you did. I see you did.

So a million story takes a turn into some sort of magical realism when her next door neighed gives her some which he things to do that will help her grow IT includes eating rock garlic midnight and doing a bunch of toe touches on the playground at races.

When I really do believe, I said to myself too, I really do believe. I say, i'm really feeling strange .

now she's a great actress.

SHE is incredible. I actually called her up and asked her her if she's done any acting. And he says that he was cast as a marshmallow in the school play ones.

Although I should know she's never been cast as the elf. I also spoke to her teacher, rodney west style. He says that millia really is the smallest in her class, but that her story was actually the result of something called the story starter.

And the prompt that he had was, imagine you, the shortest person in class. After that, mila let her imagination fill in the rest. I mean, to be a little spoiler alert here, this is where the story takes us.

I cannot believe my eyes. I go bigger than my friends. And my shirt became a craft top, and my pants became long, short and good thing I was wearing open to watch, because my tone's grew and my fingernails grew, and so did my hair. Then the school set me home because all the kids were scared of me.

So here's the thing I love the most when I talk to a ilia, SHE says that the key to her creative success was talking to other people, and he said he talked to her friends, her mom and her teacher for the story, and they all gave her different suggestions. I think the clothes suggestion was from her mom. And I think what I love about this is we think of schools is like really academic place.

We're learning math. We're learning multiplication tables. Um but this assignment is so important because there's this value in collaboration and in teamwork, in creativity and play. Um it's something that we grow up would do well to remember, I think. And in these sorts of writing exercises, IT lets kids explore their own identity and also put themselves into the dig or small shoes of others.

I absolutely love that um and yet the big or small shoes I caught that too.

The wages will .

be back with more stories from the student pocket chAllenge in a moment.

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We're back with a sunday story we're talking about in P. R. Student podcast chAllenge with Janet jung lee and producer law magi. So jane, understand one of your finalists did a packers all about embarrassment.

Yes, we receive a good amount of entries. Each chair that are just silly fun that make a smile. And those are honestly, some of our favourite entries in one fifth greater from chicago talks about an experience that still so reliable to many of us.

Why was I embarrassed? What made this so embarrassing? Why do I still think about this today? Do other people feel this way too?

I don't know exactly what is going on, but I have been there where you feel embrace, and you are thinking about a long after IT happened. So jet.

what is going? You, so IT begins one day at mazing Marshals after school program. May as a favorite stick, yes, a stick. Its name is flint. And as one dozen middle school, her friends natchally flint and smashes in front of mazy eyes, here's what happened next.

I was stunned. Shot flb gasp. I screamed out my friends so loud that my counselor came into the room. He tried to call me down and figure out what was going on. Instead of listening, I stormed out the room as he was talking to me, only to find that my dad had witnessed the whole thing.

No, see that. See when emotions are running high. And it's like if you you had time to take a breath, you might reacted differently. Black in the moments. It's rough.

I know. And to make things worse, the next day, mazes dod made her apologize to her councillor in front of everyone in this mixed bag of feelings, embarrassment, confusion, frustration. We've all been there, but mi doesn't stop here. SHE goes on to interview other friends and her teacher about their own embarrassing experiences to learn what he could have done differently in the situation.

I am miss A A A at our school to hear her most embarrassing story too.

My dad will hug me in front of my friends and bless me in front of my friends. And I was like, all, please, please don't do this right now. yeah. Now, looking back, that just meant that he loves me, you know, he wishes, blessing me and telling me, have a great day.

wow. mr. see. The story shows that with time and looking at a different perspective, you can learn how to move on from an embarrassing situation like that.

So they learn from the situation because that's the key, but everyone gets embarrass. I think that helped me too as I got older. If you acknowledge the embarrassed, then it's it's Better as someone who was very socially awkward as a it's still pretty socially awkward now. So so we've heard students talking about their experiences as immigrants, scraping with body image, with embarrassment. Can you talk about some of the other experiences these middle school and high school students are dealing with?

This next podcast is another one i've been looking forward to sharing with you.

Hi, my name is gee ong, and I am four people.

G, S, A student at the stanford online high school. And our podcasting is all bout a relationship with family, and specifically her older sister.

As the Youngest of my entire family, I am accumulation of the personalities and experiences of the people closest to me, but above all, I reflect my sister's hardships and learned from her perseverance.

So so tell me you like what really um stood out about this podcast in particular what is G S story?

So ga in her family moved from south korea to the united states when G O is so really little. And one person in her life that SHE really looked up to was her older sister. You know, family's a really personal topic.

And when he comes to sibling relationships in an immigrant family, it's like your older siblings figuring out school language differences, cultural differences, any new racial dynamics all before you do, right? N. G, S, podcast focuses on one day and one experience that changes their relationship in a way that brings them closer together.

We pick up the story after G, S. Sister has what was supposed to be a big night, her first prom with her first boyfriend. And just the heads up for listeners.

G. S. Story deals with the aftermath of sexual assault.

I heard to come home past midnight when my parents were sleeping, and when I went out to greet her, I was shocked to see her crying. On the fall of her room, I kept asking what was wrong to no response, but sobbing. I SAT down next to her and hugged her until he finally told me the earth shatter news that he has actually assaulted her.

I have a hard time writing that word out and saying IT out loud even now. So imagine the horr and anger I felt when that word was turned into reality from my own sister. All I could do was hold her hand in the rare moment of weakness and vulnerability SHE was showing me.

And for the moment, I was proud to be the representative of her support system. As the night went on, SHE started to come find me about how he had caught herself away from me and our parents when we first moved, because he had been ashamed of her lack of adapting to america. Prom night was the angry st. Inhabited i've ever been, both due to my sister.

And i'll just pop in here and just say, like everyone that we played at this podcast, four ended up in tears at the end. It's so powerful and not just because there there's like a tragedy in IT, but you know sometimes we're all things that like we're hiding whole words from our family um that other people don't know about. And I just as a big sister, this hurt me and like I just my heart went out to both ga and her sister.

And another small thing that I just love about our sooner podcast is that sometimes kids will tell you exactly what they're thinking and process things out loud on the way. And this one really felt like we were invited to follow geo's personal experience of sort of what he was reflecting on and learned from making this. And in terms of her and her sister.

all of that, you know, just from what you guys have played for me here, there's such A A um range of emotions and from like the funny to the very serious h to the heart warming um you know the past few things that we've been hearing have been like really strong personal narratives but we also heard like that students explored the history and like current events in their own communities like tell me about that yeah yeah we had a lot of .

student journalists and take on some really big topics. The winner of our high school contest reported on how Jackson, mississippi water crisis affected students. Um everything from like what lunch was being served that day to like the weight for the bathroom in north CarOlina.

Leade hoji also exposed her own backyard in a different way. SHE explored a place that he lives just two blocks from. I didn't know .

anything about. This is the story of oil in village, the longest surviving and most intact reconstruction era freedmen's colony in north CarOlina. This is a story about the rise of remarkable committee of free black people. It's about their fall because of anxiety, fiction and racist state laws. And now it's about the rise again, about a community that rediscovered the old history, rejected IT, and really from the rise of bit again and again.

So our homely a children then tells us a story and weaves in these interview clips from former and current residence of oberland village. He talks to historians. It's fascinating. And the thing I really love in these sort of depressing times is that SHE ends the story on a hopeful note and and focuses really on the story of the committee resilience.

And I I mean, that's what we can can really use that right now. Um so a community and identity seem to be like the big topics. This year we got another entry from chicago where students focused on immigration.

Yeah, it's called undocumented. And it's actually a series of podcasts. It's done by three middle scholars from the south side of chicago.

Other names are careless Morales, Gabriel mendis and onion andro. I, uh, they're all from mexican immigrant families. And they said they decided to interview students who are undocumented. So here's a clip from their podcast when you're talking to a high schooler named dwan, and he's reflecting on his first impressions of chicago.

As soon chicago, we thought now, and I nerve sce, not in my life. When I first guy here, I cannot really go outside. I I I my parents were just not let me um and over their we were outside all the time.

Now that was my fun time. I was outside. So that goes .

on to talk about the chAllenges of being on document as a student, how hard school during the pandemic due to lack of resources and lack of financial aid for college and and lack of financial and a work opportunities. And the students really addressed this with a lot of empathy and and um they're really respectful of history. Um and you know I guess the thing that I think about is we hear about these issues in the news a lot, but IT really has a different meaning when we hear student talking to their peers about IT and and really putting a voice to you know folks don't often .

get to be on the microphone. We've gone on this journey now, and I think we i'm gonna ask you, maybe as the D. J. S. He is sorted to just play us one more thing, to just bring a own out .

of already. A this last podcast is one of many we've gotten this year from trans youths. It's a topic that's been the news a lot lately.

And the stories varies, especially due to the different state laws restricting gender affirming care where the students are coming from. I wanted to end with the podcast. That's a great example of Young people taking a stand for what they believe in, something we see repeatedly in this year's entries.

Dillon mcDonald is a student at marble head high school in massachusets, a state that does provide resources for transfers. He shares a personal story of a lengthy and a time is tough journey that is transitioning. As someone who's gone through IT himself, he says there are lots of misconceptions. The transition process for minors.

politicians and influencers paint a picture of frequently in as clinics for gender of hair free test around walk in breast documentation and extraction for two year olds. Well, in reality, it's way more complicated and difficult than that.

And like many other student super contest, still an interview, his family, his mom, who introduced us, someone who was right by, aside through this entire process, to really open an honest chat that covers step of Dylan experience with him and his mom, reaching up to clinics, getting on the seventy eighth month long weight list all together, first appointment, and at the end of his podcast, still ling shift scars, he insists on action and protection for transgender. You .

transitioning the kid. I live in one of the most progressive states for tran's youth, and yet even here, he's taken me a lot of time ever to get this point. Kids like me and why we need to fight these entire trans bills, nobody should be stripped of their health care and bodily autonomy.

Well, thanks so much to the both of you for bringing us these beautiful stories and voices.

Thank you. Thank you, 医生。

If you want to listen to the student pot cash you heard on today's episodes as well as this year is winning entries, visit M P R dot or four lash podcast chAllenge twenty three. Thanks again to the team behind M P R steam podcast chAllenge, Janet uggla, lorn magi and Steve. This episode de of the sundays story was produced by Justin yan and Henry hai IT was edited by june h.

hmt. James willets was our engineered. The sunday story team includes Andrew mambo and Emily silver. Our supervising producer is levana and our executive producer is iran, the guti. We love to hear from you, so please send us an email at the sundays story and in pr, that and I shara go first will be back tomorrow with all the moves needs start a week. Until then, have a great rest of your week.

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