News Decoder gives young people the platform to tell the world what they see and hear around them. In the process, we all learn how much we have in common.
Three teens in a high school. (Illustration by News Decoder)
When I hear or see something I think is wrong I want to respond. But I’m the type of person who thinks of the right response 10 hours later — usually in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep.
That’s been my life story. As a teen, my failure to adequately respond in a timely manner to ignorant people and bullies left me frustrated. Those who can speak fast and with confidence end up having the last word and winning all the arguments.
That’s why what we do at News Decoder is so rewarding. We work with young people to help them think through the things that bother them and find a way to respond, through writing, podcasts and other storytelling methods. We’ve been doing this for 10 years.
In stories we call “personal reflections” students tell stories about the things they see and hear around them that they find troubling. We encourage them to research those problems and issues and find the experts who can help them put it all into context and find people working on solutions.
A recent article by a student at The Hewitt School in New York is an example. Mila Heron is a competitive soccer player who struggles to handle both the obligations of her sport and her schoolwork and realized that many student athletes also struggle in this way. The story Mila wrote explored how different students handle the stress and time pressures and the upsides and downsides of trying to succeed in both.
Problems connect us.
Cathal O’Luanaigh is the program and communications manager at News Decoder and helps high school students tell their stories through podcasts.
“Personal reflection stories help students to critically think about their lived experience and understand them in connection with local and global contexts,” O’Luanaigh said. “Why was my experience important? What does it say about me and the wider world? How did my cultural background, upbringing and education contribute to my reading and experience of the situation?”
They are important not only for the students writing these stories but for teens all over the world reading or listening to these stories. They see their own anxieties and concerns reflected.
As managing director at News Decoder, Maria Krasinski has seen how empowering personal reflection stories are when published.
“These stories build students’ self-awareness, confidence and empathy,” Krasinski said. “Seeing their stories published is an empowering act that validates their lived experiences and tells them that their voices are worth being heard.”
She said that what News Decoder does is ask students to pause, analyze and articulate what they learned from an experience. “That creative process strengthens not only their storytelling skills, but also their ability to make sense of the world and step into public conversation,” she said.
A decade of publishing student stories
News Decoder has been doing this for 10 years. Some of the first stories we published were personal reflections sent in by students.
Back in May 2016, a high school student studying for a year in France wrote a personal reflection article after having encountered a number of her peers from Turkey at a conference in Luxembourg. During the conference they learned that a suicide bomber had killed three people in Istanbul.
“I can’t even begin to imagine the heartbreak and panic they felt when they found out,” she wrote.
She then explored the concept of senseless violence:
“I’m afraid that I’m beginning to become desensitized to the tragedies that strike all around the world,” she wrote. “When I got home from the conference and brought up the topic of the Turkish bombings, my host mom asked me how that news was different from any other day’s news, and then asked me to pass the pepper.”
Students reach profound conclusions.
In the article, she worked through her complicated thoughts and feelings and came to this conclusion:
“If we allow ourselves to be desensitized to all the bad, the good will stop motivating us as well.”
Back in 2017, News Decoder’s founder Nelson Graves wrote that students make use of the News Decoder platform to make their voices heard.
“News-Decoder offers students a chance to put their best foot forward, to push the envelope, to confront different viewpoints and to work with professional correspondents,” he said.
For 10 years News Decoder has used storytelling to engage students in the process of learning. Through our educational programs, students are encouraged to ask big questions, identify problems they see around them and talk to people to get their questions answered — classmates, neighbours, family and experts.
All the while, we ask students to compare their lived experiences and the problems they see around them, with what is happening elsewhere in the world. If they see inequities in their communities, how does that manifest in other countries? In doing this, they find out how connected they are to all the people seeing and experiencing these same problems.
Seeing the world through a global lens
Amina McCauley is program manager for News Decoder’s EYES project — Empowering Youth Through Environmental Storytelling. She said that the global connection is important.
“I think that young people rarely get the chance to articulate their values in a global context,” McCauley said. “Writing a personal reflection allows them to understand themselves better through this different lens.”
The empowerment comes when they master the art of communicating what they learn to the wider world.
We want News Decoder students, and anyone we work with, to be able to respond when they hear or see something they think is wrong, but to be able to do so not just quickly but thoughtfully.
We’d like you to join our network and help us do that. If you are a teacher or school administrator, explore our school programs and consider bringing us into your schools. If you are a journalist consider donating articles and time to engage with students across the world. And if you have the means, consider donating funds to our nonprofit.
Why should ignorant people and bullies have the last word?
Marcy Burstiner is the educational news director for News Decoder. She is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School and professor emeritus of journalism and mass communication at the California Polytechnic University, Humboldt in California. She is the author of the book "Investigative Reporting: From premise to publication."