What does it take to get really good at something? Are people experts because they are born with talent—or do they get to be expert by practice?
“You need a hater, and you need a motivator. A hater, that’s the person that puts you down, assuming you can’t do it, and you try to prove them wrong. And your motivator, that’s who supports you, and so you do your best to try to make them proud.”—Sharese, 16.
See what three classes of Chicago public high school students found when they explored the question, “What does it take to get really good at something?,” as part of WKCD’s new “Practice Project.”
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The Latino Vote |
| Pollsters and analysts love to identify voting blocs, using them to explain voting trends and to make projections. The Latino voting bloc has been repeatedly analyzed, often getting credit for swaying elections, such as the 2004 presidential contest in which incumbent George W. Bush defeated U.S. Sen. John Kerry. In this article, Y-Press youth journalists explore the Latino vote in this year’s presidential campaign. |  |
Girls Helping Girls |
| At age 15, Sejal Hathi of Fremont, California founded an international nonprofit called Girls Helping Girls. Hathi, now 16 and finishing her junior in high school, just launched Sisters for Peace Network. “I had always been really interested in social change initiatives, in service, and in helping other people. It was my work with another nonprofit organization, Girls for a Change, that really catapulted me to this level of social action.” | |
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We Are the Titans: A Profile of Diversity at One American High School |
| T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia is best known as the setting for the 2000 film Remember the Titans (with Denzel Washington) about a tough coach who unites a football team—and a community—divided along racial lines. In 2007, a group of T.C. Williams seniors in teacher Taki Sidley’s Photography and Documentary Studies class set out to illustrate that same diversity in a 112-page, duotone book of photography. The result is stunning. | |
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Lights, Camera . . . Leadership! Vermont Youth Document Their Communities |
| Vermont farmer Charles Russell remembers when he told his dad he wanted to be a farmer. His father quipped, “What you gonna grow, rocks?” Russell is one several scrappy organic farmers featured in “Farmers Have a Say,” a film produced by students at Cabot Middle School. For the past several years, students in various towns across Vermont have used video to tell community stories that make neighbors sit up and applaud. | |
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Immigrant Students in the Bronx Debate Early Marriage and Pregnancy |
| “It’s heartbreaking to see my friends give up their future for early marriage,” says college freshman Aminata Seck, a young female from Senegal starting life anew in the U.S. Two years ago, Amina and Mariam Dagnoko, then Bronx high school seniors, decided to create a documentary video about the struggle they and other immigrant teens face with family traditions that push young motherhood. |
