Some of our favorite high school podcasts from the NPR Student Podcast Challenge : NPR

Juana Summers, host:

The school is a period of exploration when young people try to find and define their place in the world. And these explorations, well, they can make great opportunities for podcast. Our education team was able to listen to the entries of the Podcast Challenge of the NPR podcast, and the judges reduced them to the best of these podcasts. Here is Janet Woojeong Lee de NPR with two of our secondary finalists.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “Something beautiful”)

David Reyes: How do you show your love to someone?

Janet Woojeong Lee, Byline: David Reyes is a student musician and songwriter at J. Sterling Morton East high school in Cicero, Illinois.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “Something beautiful”)

David: Is it by buying them flowers? Make them at an appointment? Write a letter to them? Or maybe it’s by making them a song.

Woojeong Lee: David says he has always loved music, listening and playing his favorite songs on the acoustic guitar. But he says he never thought of writing his until he fell in love.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “Something beautiful”)

David: (song) will we always be friends?

Right now, with everything I know during my 16 years of life, I don’t think there is something more beautiful than falling in love.

Woojeong Lee: He therefore decided to do something beautiful, which has also become the title of his podcast that follows the stages he took to write his first love song.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “Something beautiful”)

David: I take my guitar and I start to play with the chords that I think correspond to the sound I am looking for.

(Play the guitar and vocalize).

I like what it sounds, so I’m going to work with it.

Woojeong Lee: Like many students of his age, David says he is not yet sure where his music will take him. But for the moment, he says he will take slowly and focus on pleasure.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “Something beautiful”)

David: I will continue to learn things as you go, try new sounds when they meet and explore as much as possible. And maybe one day, I can say that I did something beautiful.

(Soundbite of Song, “Grown Up”)

David: (singing) I promise that I will miss too.

Woojeong Lee: In another of the podcasts of our finalist, Owyn Aaberg discovered something beautiful in his own life.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “struggle with a palatine slit”)

Owyn AABERG: Having a slit is a fight. And even among children born with them, I am a special case.

Woojeong Lee: Owyn is senior in Delta High School in Richland, Washington, and he was born with a bilateral slit.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “struggle with a palatine slit”)

Owyn: or to be put into secular terms, you were born with a hole in your face.

Woojeong Lee: He says that his life was a trip from the start.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “struggle with a palatine slit”)

Owyn: to go from surgery, school, dentist’s trip, surgery again and more. It’s difficult for me and my mother.

Woojeong Lee: years later, he wanted to know – how was her mother really when she discovered her slit?

(Soundbite of Podcast, “struggle with a palatine slit”)

Unidentified person: I had to know as much as possible. I had to prepare for the best I could. I had to be ready to keep you alive.

Woojeong Lee: Keep him alive, making sure that his newborn could open his mouth and get enough nutrients. Fortunately, she was able to obtain the support of family and health professionals who were not too far away.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “struggle with a palatine slit”)

Not identified: but me being the person I am, I must always be there.

Woojeong Lee: Owyn says, growing up, he learned other children with his condition, including a 7 -year -old girl in his country of origin who was abandoned by his parents. And in his own life, he was treated differently because of surgery scars on his face. He says that all made him more grateful to his mother and his life.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “struggle with a palatine slit”)

Owyn: Having a slit has always been what made me different, but I never wanted it to be what defined me as a person. I am sure that all the other people with a slit agree. THANKS.

Woojeong Lee: These are 2 of our 10 high school finalists. Our judges will announce our winner of the Grand Prix later this month.

Janet Woojeong Lee, NPR News.

(Soundbite of Music)

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