During my first visit to BJM elementary school, I was assigned to the Media Room.

I thought I would be just helping kids with different types of medias of art. However, when I walked into the room, I met 3 students from Ithaca college and 5 pairs of eager eyes. The whiteboard read “Media Club: Podcasts.” I didn’t know what I was walking into, so I introduced myself to the 3 students. They were from Ithaca college and they were the heads of Media Club.

I waited and chatted with them and the couple of kids in the room. A few more kids came in to see what was going on, and they decided to start the club meeting. The topic was Podcasts and the goal of the club was to have the students make a couple podcasts by the end of the program. At first, I thought the topic was too complex for them, but I was really surprised when they were able to list examples and describe podcasts in detail. They thought podcasts were just about news, so they were pleasantly surprised with the idea that podcasts could be about anything.

We then gave the pencils and paper to write down their ideas. They were all very creative and some of them were really amusing. I remember one paper was just about Fortnite and Roblox, another one was about gossip and had “lol” “omg” “more omgs” written on it, and another one had rap battles as the topic and one example was Marie Curie vs Donald Trump rap battle. They then started to talk about politics, showing me just how much they are aware about the world outside of school and their friend groups.

This visit to BJM made me realize just how much these kids know about the world around them and their thought processes because of the conversations they had, the topics they came up with, and the enthusiasm they had with the podcast project. I am not sure if I am going back to the Media Room, but I look forward to listening to their final products.