High School

The few moments that stand out in my high school education:

• The aforementioned bird observation project in 9th grade.
• Mating drosophila flies in biology.
• Being handed Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States in 10th grade and reading about Christopher Columbus and Kent State.
• Finding and memorizing Carl Sandburg’s Kisses, Can You Come Back Like Ghosts? in 9th grade.
• Learning how to load film, take photos, develop film, and print negatives with Mr. Herndon throughout the years in photography class.

I was thinking about this while at the Mountain West Arts Conference in Salt Lake City last week. There were panels on how to connect youth to the arts, and testimonials from youth on how involvement with the arts has affected their lives. Real feel good stuff.

Then I started thinking about what I had been doing with teens on behalf of the Epicenter—an introduction to the world of blogging and a solarplate printmaking workshop. Epicenter has also provided internships/mentorships to certain teens with the visiting artists (like me!) What can you do but hope to expand their curiosity and lead them to explore their own way? 

You can give them the power to affect where they live. You can give them the tools to create change, at least for a day, a week, a month. You can instill pride in them about where they live, who they are, what they do.

Since last fall, when I started work with the Walker’s Teen Art Council, I’ve been really excited about working with teens. They’re in a very special age—completely honest and vulnerable, but they seem to be an age group that people forget about or write off. But I have a lot of hope for them, and they need to be talked to, and talked about.