{"id":2848,"date":"2014-04-04T05:00:01","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T12:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nwp.org\/educatorinnovator\/?p=2848"},"modified":"2014-12-12T14:23:17","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T22:23:17","slug":"youmedia-teens-make-their-creative-mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/youmedia-teens-make-their-creative-mark\/","title":{"rendered":"YOUmedia Teens Make Their Creative Mark"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Chancellor Bennett was suspended during his senior year at Jones College Prep in 2011, few would have guessed that just two years later he would be featured<\/a> in\u00a0major<\/a> news publications<\/a> and headlining Lollapalooza. During the ten-day suspension, Bennett, who is now more commonly known as \u201cChance the Rapper<\/a>,\u201d took to Chicago\u2019s YOUmedia<\/a> space to cut his first mixtape, aptly titled \u201c10 Day.\u201d The tape was an underground hit, which has since been downloaded over 100,000 times. In 2012 Complex Magazine<\/a> named him one of \u201c10 New Chicago Rappers to Watch Out For.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it’s a surprise that Chance the Rapper has ended up on this path, even more remarkable is that he’s not alone. Chance is one of many YOUmedia youth who are making their creative mark on the world, and taking the skills they honed with YOUmedia\u2019s mentors to college and beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I found out about YOUmedia, I started going there every day,\u201d said Dominique James, who is now pursuing a double major in English and French at Howard University in Washington, D.C. \u201cIt was a very interesting mix of people hanging out and being productive.\u201d<\/p>\n

YOUmedia started in Chicago as an out-of-school digital space for teens at the public library. It has since spread nationwide. The dedicated spaces in libraries, museums, and other community venues all focus on using digital tools to spark creativity and learning and to connect teens\u2019 interests, peers, and academics in a meaningful way. The key is that YOUmedia is a space for teens, and the programs on offer there are interest-driven and peer-led.<\/p>\n

Amy Eshelman<\/a> led the Chicago Public Library team that created Chicago\u2019s first YOUmedia space, and has been integral to their expansion as the program leader for education at the Urban Libraries Council<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone walks to a Learning Lab space, they\u2019ll see kids having fun and playing video games, or maybe taking part in a workshop,\u201d she said. \u201cBut there\u2019s so much more to it than that. As you peel back the layers of the onion, you start to understand that the teens have created the learning pathways for themselves and how engaging that is, and how it can be a bridge between in and out-of-school.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of kids who are 16 and 17 don\u2019t have anything like YOUmedia,\u201d said Katie Klema, a YOUmedia participant who\u2019s now pursuing a photography degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. \u201cIt\u2019s an age where you\u2019re old enough to want to be with your friends, but you\u2019re too young to go to parties. Having a place to teach you how to make art and express yourself can really help kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dominique, who recently self-published her first book \u201cSaffronia<\/a>,\u201d spent a lot of time hanging out in the music studio, which houses technology a digital audio workstation, which allows users to record and edit their own audio for spoken word and other projects. \u201cYou were able to create something, and hang out with your friends at the same time. We had never experienced anything like that before,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Miona Grae Short had similar feelings about the space. \u201cFor me, it was a place to learn. I so admired the artists who would take to the stage during the open mics, and I would just listen to how they built their poems and created sly metaphors and rhetoric,\u201d she said. \u201cI loved how human the whole experience was, watching these imperfect people share their stories and frustrations in a safe place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWatching people sometimes succeed, and other times go back to the drawing board made me a little more daring and able to take risks with my poetry,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Katie said that the space helped her break out of her shell. \u201cI used to hate writing,\u201d she said, \u201cbut one of the mentors pushed us to write. It was the first time I wrote anything I was ever proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Participants regularly cite YOUmedia\u2019s mentoring\u2014by professional artists, filmmakers, and musicians\u2014as one of the most influential pieces of the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the mentors who challenged me,\u201d said Miona. \u201cThey nurtured my writing, and allowed it to grow in exactly the way I need.\u00a0To be honest, I know that I would not have gotten into the First Wave<\/a> Hip Hop and Urban Arts scholarship at University of Wisconsin-Madison without the help of my team and mentors. Without them, poetry and performance would not be as large a part of my life as it is today. I am beyond grateful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dominique agrees. \u201cYOUmedia has definitely played a role in my major choices in life,\u201d she said. \u201cI had super-specific interests that I learned did not have to be isolated from one another. The space gave me the option to collaborate with peers, but also allowed me to realize that I could pursue my very specific dreams on my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re there, you\u2019re either making friends, learning that you can do things, building community, or growing personally,\u201d said Dominique. \u201cMy biggest impact from YOUmedia was learning that I could do anything I wanted, and that I shouldn\u2019t limit myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Kelsey Herron<\/em>
\nScreenshot\/ YOUmedia @ Chicago Public Library<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Chancellor Bennett was suspended during his senior year at Jones College Prep in 2011, few would have guessed that just two years later he would be featured in\u00a0major news publications and headlining Lollapalooza. During the ten-day suspension, Bennett, who is now more commonly known as \u201cChance the Rapper,\u201d took to Chicago\u2019s YOUmedia space to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":3770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[48,70,78,140,175],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2848"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2848"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7206,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2848\/revisions\/7206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}