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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. On this week we're honoring the anniversary of the start of remote learning. With me now are two teenagers who've been actively engaged in the process of self-reflection trying to figure out how the pandemic era has changed them and along with a handful of other students are documenting the process with radio. Here's a snippet from the new series of the podcast, Miseducation from an episode called Students Remembering Where They Were When They Heard Public School Was Closed.

Speaker 2: I was in chemistry class with my three friends.

Speaker 3: I was in my dining room.

Speaker 4: We were like, "Public schools are never going to close. That's never going to happen."

Speaker 5: My teacher, my chemistry teacher specifically, she was like, "No, they're definitely not going to close." They're literally not going to close. It's not that bad.

Speaker 6: [unintelligible 00:01:04] was telling us, "Guys, you know corona is getting really bad." I looked at her and I said, "What are you talking about? What is corona?"

Speaker 7: I went home everything was normal and I took a nap and woke up and schools are closed. I was like, "Oh, my gosh. You can't be serious."

Speaker 8: I was like, "No way. That's not true." I was like, "Fake news."

Speaker 9: I was mad lit. You don't even understand. I was jumping up and down.

Speaker 10: They closed school the Friday, and I was going to wear the outfit the Monday. The shoes came the Friday and I was so quick because I saved my money and I bought those shoes, and I haven't yet to wear them.

Brian Lehrer: With me now are 10th grader, Lauryn Matin, she lives and goes to school in Brooklyn and has chosen to make a podcast episode about how losing afterschool sports has affected her and her classmates and 11th grader, Kevin Agyemang. Kevin lives in the Bronx and goes to school in Manhattan and his episode looks at what schools are doing to help him and others who have struggled with their mental health this year. Also with us is Mira Gordon, program lead at the Miseducation Podcast and a senior at Barnard College. Welcome, Lauryn and Kelvin, and Mira. Is it Myra or Mira?

Mira: It's Mira. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Just making sure. Mira, why is this season called Unmuted in the podcast called Miseducation?

Mira Gordon: The season is Unmuted and it's an opportunity for high school students to really speak out about issues that they haven't had much of a voice in talking about, sharing their experiences with the pandemic. The Miseducation Podcast, that's one word, Miseducation, altogether is a podcast where high school students report on inequities in the New York city public schools. Miseducation really highlighting those inequities that our students are really bringing to the table.

Brian Lehrer: Lauryn, unmute yourself and [chuckles] tell us about you being part of a team investigating how the loss of sports has impacted students' lives over the past year. Are you on a team?

Lauryn Matin: I actually was on a team in my 8th-grade year. I was a [unintelligible 00:03:27] and stuff was actually about to come back right before the pandemic hit. There was conversations about stuff coming back and then when the pandemic hit they all just got shut down. It was hard because I can't imagine what it's like for student athletes who are on teams, especially seniors who are on teams, I can't imagine what it's like for them. It feels really good to be the [unintelligible 00:03:44] on that.

Brian Lehrer: What's the takeaway from your reporting?

Lauryn: The takeaway is sports are way bigger than what people would have thought. Sports affects students' motivation for school, sports affect the way students just want to do it. I can't imagine being an athlete. Students, they sometimes rely on sports for scholarship and stuff like that. When you're not able to do this, it's like your future is being taken away from you because you can't show your talent, stuff like that.

Brian Lehrer: Now the PSAL, the New York City Public Schools Athletic League is coming back, so that must be good news.

Lauryn: Yes, it is. The two people I interviewed, Elijah and Josiah, both of them are super excited about that. They can't wait especially because it's going through the summer. It gives students something to do throughout the summer instead of just staying home doing nothing like we were this whole year.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I didn't realize that. They're extending the season beyond the school year?

Lauryn: Yes. The way I have heard it it's from-- April, May is training time and when it starts and then it ends in August. That whole period of time is the sports season.

Brian Lehrer: That's great. Kelvin, you've decided to tackle this big difficult topic, how remote learning and the pandemic are affecting students' mental health. Where do you even start?

Kelvin Agyemang: With me and my two reporters [unintelligible 00:05:17] and Ravya, we looked at several different sources like the DOE website. We went and talked to a social worker on our hotline on NYC Thrive hotline. We went to talk to different students in different schools and we went to go talk to teachers too. We wanted to just find out exactly what teachers that is counselors and students have to actually say about their mental health and what the school is doing for us.

My takeaway from what I've learned is that mental health is such an important factor that's really being ignored right now, I feel like, because there's no system in place really for schools to use or requirements for teachers to talk about mental health in schools. The hotline that they provided was actually a good hotline with the trained social workers, however, students are not getting this information and they don't know where to go to. That's really a big issue.

Another important factor I learned is that teachers also are struggling. One of my teachers said that it's also draining on them too, however, they can't always speak about it because they're supposed to be the ones that students look up to. They don't really have time in the day for students to talk about their mental health and their well-being.

Brian Lehrer: Were there certain kinds of mental health effects on students that you found in your reporting were the most common?

Kelvin: Yes. I felt that motivation that the students had for school, I feel like has drastically decreased because of remote learning. It's not the same effect that school had before. Before we're in person, we're learning, we're talking to our friends. I feel like friends also helped to bring a positive school environment. Because of this remote learning we've really gone away from our friends and we were really not having a connection to our teachers and our learning that much.

Brian Lehrer: Kelvin, a few teachers who we've spoken to describe that one of the hardest things for them is when so many students at the same time turn their cameras off during remote learning because then the teachers don't feel connected to them and they can't assess how the students are feeling, or even if there at all or just technically are logged in on Zoom or whatever platform, that maybe they're in the kitchen making food or whatever.

I also understand that for students turning off your camera can perhaps be an act of self care. Screen fatigue is real, and as long as I'm paying attention to enough of a degree, what's the difference if my camera is off? What's your take on why so many students keep their cameras off during remote learning, if your perception is that that's the case? Is it a sign that a student is struggling?

Kelvin: I think it can be a sign that a student is struggling. I feel like so many students keep their cameras off because there's not really a stress on keeping our cameras on. We feel uncomfortable keeping our cameras on. We don't know who is looking at us, first of all. We're always thinking about what others think about us. I feel like that's something we shouldn't be thinking about, but we're regular teenagers and we all have stresses and worries. In the remote learning environment, we're not fully comfortable exposing our faces. There might be things going on in our background in our environment that we wouldn't like to share with other people.

Brian Lehrer: We have a few minutes, listeners, for phone calls, and I wonder if there are any teenagers, high school age, listening right now who want to get in on this and just describe something about your day to day and your remote learning setup. 646-435-7280. Any high school students or middle school students, where do you sit when you learn? Do you turn your camera on or off when you're in remote class? How do you decide for yourself when to leave it on, when to leave it off? 646-435-7280.

Are you using a laptop that you got from your school or a tablet that you got from school? Or did you have one of your own? How many days a week do you wear pajamas to class? You can admit it. Who else is in your house while you learn? Siblings? Parents? Grandparents? Do they help you? Do they distract you? Who makes lunch? What do you have? Give us a sense of any aspect of your learning setups and how it's affecting your life to be a remote learner. 646-435-7280, for any middle or high school students who happen to be listening right now with our three guests from the Miseducation Podcast, Kelvin Agyemang who lives in the Bronx and goes to school in Manhattan, Lauryn Matin, who lives in, goes to school in Brooklyn, she's in 10th grade, Kelvin's in 11th grade and their advisor, is that the right word, Mira? on the podcast. Mira Gordon.

Mira: Yes, program lead.

Brian: She's a senior at Barnard College. Mira, what's your takeaway from the conversations that we were just having with your two podcasters and to put it in the context of the enormity of a year of remote learning?

Mira: My huge takeaway from working with the Miseducation interns this semester has really just been how wearing this whole process is. Clearly, that's something that everyone has experienced in a myriad ways, but I think there's a particular toll that has been taken on high school students when literally every aspect of their lives has been completely upended.

When you're still under the roof of your parents or guardians, so much of your life is really limited. When you get that access to sports taken away and when you can't connect with your friends in the same way, like Kelvin was talking about, you're really, I believe, greatly more isolated and that's really tough. I think this is a really special opportunity for Kelvin and Lauryn and their peers to just speak about experiences that we know so many students are going through. If there's any way that the various students who are experiencing this can feel connected in some ways, that's what we're really hoping for.

Brian: Lauryn, I think you found in your reporting that lots of students in the city lacked sports, even before the pandemic. We did a segment on this before the pandemic, the uneven distribution of sports opportunities around the city. I see your school, for example, only has five sports teams for boys and girls combined. Others have 30. Did that surprise you?

Lauryn: It wasn't too surprising because sports inequity has always been a thing in New York. You could clearly tell what schools don't have sports other schools do. I would say that the pandemic shed more light on sports inequity. My peer, Sean, he actually interviewed someone called David who works directly with sports in terms of the DOE and his takeaway on it was really, really enlightening on how bad sports inequity really is.

Brian: Let's take a phone call from Nadia, a ninth grader in Livingston, New Jersey, checking in. Hi Nadia, you're on WNYC.

Nadia: Hello.

Brian: You want to talk about the remote learning experience?

Nadia: Yes. I study in my bedroom and usually it's a slow day for me because I'm usually in my bed, in my pajamas learning in my English class.

Brian: Can you pay attention?

Nadia: I try my best, but it's very hard.

Brian: Is there anything that the teacher could do or in your experience has done to help the kids in the remote learning experiences? Are there best practices that you've had from your best teachers?

Nadia: The best practices I have for my teachers are the ones who play games with us actually, virtual games so everybody can participate and we have something to look forward to in class, not just taking notes and listening to our teachers speak. I think games are a fun way and they've always helped me look forward to class and want to get up and do it.

Brian: Has keeping your camera on or off been an issue for you or your classmates?

Nadia: Yes, that's a huge issue. It's been something that even teachers, they always want our camera's on and a lot of kids will give excuses saying, "Oh, my camera's not working," but really they're probably in bed, and their hair's a mess.

Brian: What do you do for yourself? How do you decide when to keep it on, when to keep it off?

Nadia: I like to keep my camera on, but I found myself keeping my camera on in classes that I like and where I feel comfortable. My favorite subjects will have my camera on, but in math, I'll keep it off.

Brian: That makes so much sense. Nadia, thank you for checking in. Good luck out there. Amelia, a high school student in Manhattan. Amelia, you're on WNYC, hi.

Amelia: Hi.

Brian: Do you want to talk about where you do your remote learning from?

Amelia: I've been doing all of my classes from bed with the exception of when I go to the kitchen to make my coffee, but it's been the same every day.

Brian: Why bed as opposed to a chair? I don't know what furniture have in your house, but do you consciously choose bed for a reason?

Amelia: Yes, I generally wake up about a minute before my first class starts and it's much more efficient to just open my laptop while I'm in bed. It's just more comfortable in general.

Brian: Is that the best thing about remote learning? You can wake up a minute before class starts?

Amelia: Definitely. I used to commute to the Bronx, so I would have to wake up at seven in the morning to leave and now I can wake up right before my class. It's definitely the best part of this.

Brian: What year are you in?

Amelia: I'm a senior.

Brian: Oh, you're going to graduate?

Amelia: Yes, we're actually talking about having a graduation, which is really exciting.

Brian: What do you feel you've lost this year?

Amelia: I was going through all this as a senior. I was doing the college admissions process and I think having my friends around me would have been a lot better because I would've felt more support rather than doing this alone. My parents were supportive, but it would have been nice to have my friends to talk to every day and see how they're doing rather than just texting them.

Brian: What do you feel the price is that you paid educationally? I know you're a senior, you get senioritis, maybe you're not going to learn that much this year. Anyway, you already did the hard work, junior year, but what price do you think you paid educationally?

Amelia: I'm taking four APs this year and I still am expected to take the three-hour tests in May and June. I can definitely see how I'm not even remotely prepared for them based on what I've been learning. It's not that my teachers aren't trying, it's just not the same quality of education.

Brian: If you could advise the school system to do something all over again, if they had to do it all over again, and of course everybody was in an unprecedented situation, what's the one piece of advice you'd give them? Do you have one?

Amelia: Probably less Zoom time as much as having the synchronous learning can be helpful for some kids. I've found it overwhelming to be in my computer for three, four hours a day, just sitting here listening. I just think it's a little bit too much.

Brian: Amelia, thank you for your call and good luck. Kelvin, I'm going to give you the last word, listening to some other students calling up here and for you having reported on students' mental health for your podcast, and even I see started a support group for your peers. Hopefully this year is about to end in September anyway for everybody, hopefully, but if it has to go on, what's the most important thing for the next phase, in your opinion?

Kelvin: By the next phase, you mean when we get back to school or just continue on with the remote learning?

Brian: Yes, continue on with the remote learning.

Kelvin: I think the most important thing that should be focused on is yes, obviously the well-being of students, but just checking up on students every now and then, and just trying to connect with them on maybe a personal level, just so they can feel more comfortable in the remote learning environment.

Brian: Kelvin Agyemang, Lauryn Matin from the Miseducation Podcast and their program lead, Mira Gordon, a senior at Barnard College, thank you so much for joining us today. This was awesome. You want to just tell us, Lauryn, where people can hear the podcast? Should they just go to whatever their podcast platform is and search "miseducation"?

Lauryn: Mira can correct me if I [unintelligible 00:19:57], but I believe [crosstalk]

Mira: You can listen to the Miseducation Podcast wherever you get your podcasts, Spotify, Apple podcasts, et cetera. That's, Miseducation, one word. Miseducation is a program of The Bell.

Brian: Good luck to all of you. Thank you for joining us.

Mira: Thank you so much.

Kelvin: Thank you.

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