Student podcasters share the dark realities of middle school in America
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Norah Weiner (L) and Erika Young (R), the grand-prize winners in grades 5-8 of NPR's Student Podcast Challenge, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco.Talia Herman for NPR -
Norah WeinerTalia Herman for NPR -
Erika YoungTalia Herman for NPR -
Winners of NPR's Student Podcast Challenge, Norah Weiner and Erika Young, with their teacher Jenny Chio, at Presidio Middle School in San Francisco.Talia Herman for NPR
School shootings, social media, beauty standards and fast-changing fashion trends – say that five times fast.
Adolescence has always been tough, but the acceleration of modern forces makes it more stressful than ever. In the words of two San Francisco best friends – the middle school winners of this year's NPR Student Podcast Challenge – welcome to Middle School Now.
In a classroom at Presidio Middle School, not far from the Golden Gate Bridge, 13-year-olds Erika Young and Norah Weiner sat down to tell us about their podcast. It is one of two Grand Prize winners chosen by our judges from more than 3,300 submissions from 48 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
The two friends just finished the seventh grade, but haven't been separated yet — they have seen each other every day since school let out. Norah shows up to our interview wearing boots that she borrowed from Erika for the special occasion. Their giddy laughter fills the empty school, their energy fueled by the knowledge that, in just a few days, they're off to summer camp together.
While our high school winner this year tackled a big local news story, with reporting from students and educators, Erika and Norah took on a more universal experience – the ups and downs of being a middle-schooler today.
"Gun violence, social media and mental health are literally shaping middle school," Norah says in their podcast.
They walk listeners through their day-to-day lives – everything from school lockdowns to TikTok dances in the bathroom – and how life in middle school today is different from when their English teacher, Jenny Chio, was a student.
"I went through it, and you guys are going through it," says Chio (pronounced CHEW), comparing her youth with the experience of today's students. "I think it's the same amount of pressure, but just amplified."
One thing our judges loved about this podcast is the way the students wove in national trends with what's happening in their own school and community. They interviewed their classmates and teachers about heavy topics that are, unfortunately, also a part of their daily lives.
Like lockdown drills.
A grim reality for middle school students and teachers
Erika and Norah say they've had lockdown drills since early elementary school, but recently, their middle school had one that wasn't just a drill – prompted by an unknown event nearby. Although everyone was fine, the experience still made the girls think differently about their relationship to school shootings.
"I can promise you that every child in our sixth- through eighth-grade school has imagined who they'd be in a shooting," Norah says in the podcast.
Erika asks, "Would they run? Would they hide?"
In interviews, their classmates share what they think they'd do in a school shooting: "I would run home and call the police"; "Find somewhere to hide and then just stay there"; "I'd try to text my parents and tell them, if anything bad happened, I love them."
Chio, on the other hand, can't remember ever having an active shooter drill when she was in middle or high school. The only emergency drills back then revolved around natural disasters: earthquakes or hurricanes. But she's all too familiar with lockdowns these days.
The student journalists asked her to show them the emergency kit in her classroom, which among other items, has one surprising ingredient: cat litter. Chio says that if a lockdown lasted for several hours, she could use it, along with other toiletries, to create a DIY bathroom.
TikTok as middle-school trend-setter
Luckily, there is more to middle school than lockdowns. One force that dominates both their virtual and in-person world? TikTok.
"Nowadays, when walking to school, you'll see girls literally surrounding the building who are dancing," Norah says in the podcast. "The dances look kind of weird because they've likely come from TikTok."
Erika adds, "You can't hear the music. And so you just see kids, like, moving their arms over their heads and like just dancing around. They look like jellyfish, and it's really funny."
But TikTok's influence goes beyond their viral dances. "Trends like baggy pants, crop corset tops, curtain bangs, ripped jeans are all instigated from this app," Erika says in their podcast.
These rapidly shifting, and far-reaching trends are an inevitable part of the middle school experience, especially since the return to the classroom after the pandemic.
"I've been to different states, and people there dress exactly the same as they do here, kids my age and it's really weird," Erika says. "Because I thought different places had different things that were popular."
Chio remembers well that feeling of trying to keep up with the latest trends, and failing. She and her students bonded over that losing battle to be "cool" in middle school.
"It's like I'm going to be uncool no matter what," Norah laughs, "so maybe I should just stick with what I'm doing right now."
But luckily, the friends have each other to make it through. And what they are doing right now, making a podcast and amplifying their classmates' voices, is still pretty cool.
To listen to Erika and Norah's podcast, click here.
Visual design and development by: LA Johnson
Audio story produced by: Janet Woojeong Lee & Lauren Migaki
Audio and digital story edited by: Steve Drummond
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Transcript
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Today we hear from the grand-prize winners of NPR's Student Podcast Challenge for middle school students. Sometimes kids enter our nationwide contest as an assignment for class or maybe at the request of a teacher. But this year's winners made a podcast because they're best friends. Thirteen-year-old Erika Young and Norah Weiner couldn't believe it when their teacher, Jenny Chio, told them they'd won.
(LAUGHTER)
ERIKA YOUNG: I did not expect that.
JENNY CHIO: You worked so hard. Panic editing at the end. You were in here like, oh.
ERIKA: It was fine.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Sequoia Carillo visited the winners at their middle school in San Francisco.
SEQUOIA CARRILLO, BYLINE: We met Erika, Norah and Ms. Chio four blocks away from Golden Gate Park at Presidio Middle School.
CHIO: Hi. Are you with NPR?
CARRILLO: Hi. Yes.
CHIO: Hi. I'm Jenny Chio. Come on in. Come on in.
CARRILLO: Chio's classroom has big windows opening up to the perpetually gray sky. The school is empty. Students are already on summer break, and things have already changed.
ERIKA: Ms. Chio, are you keeping this for next year?
CHIO: The janitor moves stuff around.
ERIKA: Oh, OK.
CARRILLO: Erika and Norah just finished the seventh grade, but they've actually seen each other every day since school let out.
ERIKA: This is my desk. This is mine.
CARRILLO: Oh, perfect.
NORAH WEINER: We sit next to...
ERIKA: We can sit here.
CARRILLO: Norah was even wearing Erika's boots that she borrowed.
ERIKA: Yes. I'm wearing overalls, and...
CARRILLO: The girls are bubbly and giddy, only days away from heading to sleepaway camp together.
Could you, Norah, introduce Erika and, Erika, could you introduce Norah?
NORAH: So this is Erika. She's my best friend. She's, out of all of our friends, the least pressured to, like, be cool because she knows that she's cool no matter what, which is a confidence I wish I had.
ERIKA: Thank you, Norah. This is Norah. She's really good whenever she does anything, and I wish that I could do things as well as Norah can. You're a very cool person, too, Norah.
NORAH: Thanks, Erika.
CARRILLO: Our interview is full of laughs, but their podcast is anything but. They address one of the most grim realities facing students today. Here's a clip of their winning submission.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "MIDDLE SCHOOL NOW")
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: This is a lockdown - locks, lights, out of sight.
CARRILLO: The pair wanted to make a podcast about the realities of middle school right now, and one big part of that is the added danger and fear from the steady increase of school shootings.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "MIDDLE SCHOOL NOW")
NORAH: Gun violence, social media and mental health are literally shaping middle school now.
CARRILLO: It's one of the things that our judges felt made this podcast so compelling, how they wove in larger national stories with what's happening in their school and in their community. They really talked to their classmates and teachers about heavy things that are also normal.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "MIDDLE SCHOOL NOW")
NORAH: I can promise you that every child in our sixth to eighth grade school has imagined who they'd be in a shooting.
ERIKA: Would they run? Would they hide?
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #1: I would run home and call the police.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #2: Find somewhere to hide, and then just, like, stay there. Also, I'd try to text my parents and tell them that, like, if anything bad happened, I love them and stuff.
CARRILLO: One part that jumped out at me in their podcast - cat litter in the classroom. Here's their teacher to explain.
CHIO: Over here is our emergency lockdown kit. It's a bucket and there's a bunch of supplies here, like first aid stuff. And there's also cat litter.
ERIKA: Cat litter?
CHIO: Yeah, cat litter because if there's a lockdown, people have to use the bathroom.
CARRILLO: At Presidio, Chio showed us how each class is stocked with the necessities for being stuck inside, including a DIY bathroom.
CHIO: There's, like, toilet paper, cleansing towelettes, that - like, a tarp. I have an emergency, like, first aid kit up here.
CARRILLO: With all the precautions, Chio told us she's run through the scenario of a shooter many times in her head.
CHIO: I've thought about this a lot, and the best spot is this front section here.
ERIKA: You're right.
CHIO: Right? 'Cause you can't see it from the door. This cabinet blocks it. And so hopefully we can just squish right up to the front.
CARRILLO: Even though the anxiety over a possible school shooting hums under their day-to-day life, it's still middle school. And their podcast also addresses the one force that dominates their virtual and in-person world.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "MIDDLE SCHOOL NOW")
ERIKA: Nowadays, when walking to school, you'll see girls literally surrounding the building who are dancing. The dances look kind of weird because they've likely come from TikTok.
CARRILLO: Erika explains more in person.
ERIKA: You can't hear the music, and so you just see kids, like, moving their arms, like, over their heads and, like, just dancing around. They look like jellyfish, and it's really funny.
CARRILLO: But it's not only dances from TikTok that have created this kind of collective knowledge. Here's more from their podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "MIDDLE SCHOOL NOW")
NORAH: Trends like baggy pants, cropped corset tops, curtain bangs and ripped jeans are all instigated from this app.
ERIKA: While nothing about these are inherently bad, these fashion trends change rapidly, and things that are considered cool one day are considered ugly the next. It's hard for anyone to keep up with.
CARRILLO: Norah says the trends just keep coming.
NORAH: At the beginning of the year, I would look at those lacy tops and be like, oh, that's so ugly. But now it's so normal. I'm like, oh, she looks really good in that. It's, like, influencing how I view it, too.
CARRILLO: Of course, even though the technology is new, many of the feelings aren't. Chio says, that's just middle school.
CHIO: I went through it, and you guys are going through it - just, like, the influences of other people. And so I, like, wanted to do the things that they were doing. But I didn't because I felt I wasn't cool enough to, like, do all these trends.
NORAH: 'Cause then you're like, wait, but if I do this, then I feel like people are going to make fun of me for doing this, even though they're doing it, because I'm not cool enough to do this.
ERIKA: I'm going to be uncool no matter what, so maybe I should just stick with what I'm doing right now.
CARRILLO: I think everyone who's been to middle school remembers this feeling. It's a lot.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "MIDDLE SCHOOL NOW")
NORAH: Stress, shootings, social media, beauty standards and fast-changing fashion trends are piling up on middle school students around the country. Good and bad, these changes have affected us in countless ways.
CARRILLO: But together, the friends say they're making it through.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "MIDDLE SCHOOL NOW")
NORAH: This is "Middle School Now."
ERIKA: Thanks for listening.
ERIKA YOUNG AND NORAH WEINER: Bye.
CARRILLO: Sequoia Carrillo, NPR News, San Francisco. Bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF TEEN DAZE'S "ONE FOR PARADISE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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