By Cass Clarke, Teens in Print Specialist
Uplifting teen voices. Platforming young people. Empowering youth to rise up. These phrases (and more) are things I’ve heard non-profit employers proudly declare over the years. But few are willing to discuss the harmful implications within this marketing rhetoric.
For a moment, let’s pretend you’re a teenager. Imagine how tiring it must feel to be told – again and again, in brightly colored pamphlets – that you’re being helped by people who can’t quit pointing out how below them you are. Lowkey: So rude. As if you, a young person, haven’t already thought about all the ways adultism hovers over and controls your life.
What have adult educators forgotten?
Perhaps there’s a dusty shelf somewhere that still carries an old journal of yours, where you once dreamed. Sharpie scribbles. Duct taped holding. Etched names on the cover of faces long gone. Ink smudged. When was the last time you opened its binding? Or is the lined paper so untouched that each turn of the page crinkles in your fingers, asking to be ruined, to feel the start of something impossible?
Whatever was or wasn’t, I hope you once had a chance to share what’s scrawled there with someone who listens. Who nods in the knowing. Who gets you a fresh pen. Who says: Say more. Who sticks beside you to hear it. Who sees you as an equally powerful person. This is what collaborative writing spaces can feel like – no one above or below in these learning scenarios, and nevertheless voices supported with care.
How TiP amplifies young people’s stories…
While the weights and measures of what adults and teens handle differ, no one’s hands are empty. Here, at Teens in Print, we make space for each other to better understand what’s carried. We also make room to imagine the changes we want to shape in our words, ourselves, our impact, and chart anew together.
As TiP’s newsroom facilitator, I design our space so our young people feel comfortable and excited to share their stories beside me and with each other. As we work within different worldviews, conflicts, curiosities, and emotions, we establish trust and rapport and boost each other’s self-esteem. Revising ideas together and learning through our writing work becomes something amazing to behold in a world aching for marvels. I often wish other teachers and non-profit workers in the educational space could see it – if they don’t already. Flash forward to an idea: We help them. One way that we decided to accomplish this at TiP was to connect more people to hear the stories our young people have been telling. To do this, we teamed up with ZUMIX’s radio station on a collaborative project with our respective teen mavericks.
Hailing from East Boston, ZUMIX is a non-profit that fuses music and technology to craft a space for young people to develop self-identity, artistry, and community in a historically underserved neighborhood. Working alongside Radio Station Manager Rene Dongo, teens learn about radio production and audio design through practice and play. Streaming on the airwaves since 2016, ZUMIX’s 94.9 FM is a youth-powered station that broadcasts bilingual conversations, stories, and music, and has become an exciting partner for TiP reporters to discuss their articles, writing journey, and be in community.
Have you listened to a teen lately?
No, really.
When?
Teens are the hands of our future. Our past and their futures are inextricably linked. So the question we really need to ask is: How are we supporting what teens are already reckoning with in their lives? How are we showing up with them? Then, just when we think we’ve heard it all, let us listen some more.
I invite you, dear reader, to sit beside our young people and listen.
Cass Clarke
they/them
Cass is our Teens in Print Specialist at WordPowered.
Hailing from Lil’ Rhody, Clarke is a devout believer in the healing power of storytelling. Like the smallest state in the U.S., they’re made from pint-sized chaos, circuitous directions, and party pizza. They have a B.A. in English Literature from Suffolk University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. As someone who spent their young adult years hanging at slam poetry events in Boston, they’re overjoyed to be working with creative teens as a Newsroom Facilitator and can’t wait to share their work with you.
Prior to working at WordPowered, Cass worked as an entertainment journalist at outlets like Fangoria, Marvel, and Slash Film and is still a proud member of GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics. In their spare time, they teach Taekwondo to children and publish scary stories.