Educational Resources: Conversation, Activity Guides, PD Offerings
Here are our tips for centering youth voice and choice and using This Teenage Life in your school!
- Start as a club: Consent is one of our core values. Research shows that if young people actively choose to be a part of an activity, they'll be more engaged and committed. If you want to go deep and develop a long-term conversation community, start by forming a small, opt-in club with ~6 young people.
- In the classroom...small groups and youth choice: Start by making small groups (~6-8 young people in each group). Each group should choose their topic for each session. These groups should be consistent so that they develop a rhythm and sense of trust over time. In-person or using Zoom breakout rooms we recommend that groups are made beforehand (put folks who are friendly together).
A day or two before the conversation, young people should choose the episode they're going to explore. At home, before the conversation, they can listen to the episode and use the journaling prompts in the guide. After the conversation they can do the activities together or at home individually.
We recommend that for a while groups choose episodes and topics from the first two sections below. We had been working together for almost two years when we had most of the conversations in the third section.
- Pre-listen: We recommend, especially in the beginning, that you listen to the podcast before having a discussion. It models active listening, authentic sharing, and storytelling around the topic at hand. That said, if some folks don't have the chance to listen, no worries! We've made the guides accessible no matter what!
- No grades, no forced participation: This Teenage Life is meant to help develop trust and relationships based on personal storytelling and identity-based conversations. Thus, these conversations and the affiliated work shouldn't be graded. In addition, cold-calling or cajoled participation shouldn't happen either. People will talk when they feel comfortable and when they have something to say.
Conversation & Activity Guides — Suggestions on when to use them!
Each conversation and activity guide goes with an episode of the podcast, This Teenage Life, which can be heard in the "episodes" section of this website, and on podcast apps including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
If you're an educator using these guides with your students, below are some of our recommendations.
#1: Episodes and guides to use in the beginning as the group is just getting to know each other
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Lies Parents Told Us —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by this episode featuring stories about stuff parents make up especially when we're little (e.g. Santa Clause, myths about where babies come from, etc.) and our own misconceptions of things our parents said when we were younger.
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Missing Childhood —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by this episode about Missing Childhood, which is about what we miss regarding the carefree and imaginative dimensions of childhood.
- Pets —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by our Pets episode about our relationship to the animals in our lives during quarantine in March, 2020.
- Resilience in the face of adversity
— Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by our episode From Kabul to California: Resilience in the Face of Adversity made in collaboration with a group of teens in Kabul, Afghanistan. Together teens talk about perseverance and times when they overcame societal expectations that got in the way of their goals.
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Dreams —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by this episode about the strange, surreal worlds our minds create when we're asleep.
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Your experience of quarantine —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by this episode which was our first conversation in quarantine. It's about grappling with staying at home without as much social interaction with friends.
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Beautiful Boredom —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by our episode about boredom and how we can use it to do creative activities. It took place in March, 2020 when we were all in quarantine, feeling isolated, and figuring out how to make our time as enriching as possible.
- Talking Back
— Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by the episode called From Kabul to California: Talking Back made in collaboration with a group of teens in Kabul, Afghanistan. Together teens in Kabul and California talk about times when they’ve “talked back,” and stood up for what they believe.
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Small Acts of Kindness —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by our episode about the Small Acts of Kindness that can be sources of brightness, even during dark times.
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Fears about Adulthood —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by this episode about the idea of adulthood and the logistical and more existential concerns we have about growing up.
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Feelings of Power —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by this episode about times when we feel powerful, and times when we feel like we've lost our power. It's primarily about small moments experienced by a group of teenage women and how those moments lead to a sense of empowerment, or just the opposite.
#2: Episodes and guides to use when you're comfortable with each other and have developed a safe space with trust. At this point folks should be respecting norms, asking each other authentic questions, not interrupting each other, never talking about the conversation outside of it, and leaving conversations feeling good, seen, and heard.
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Middle School — Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by our episode called Middle school Middle school can be rough. You’re trying to figure out who you are, while constantly paying attention to the opinions of those around you. In this episode, we share experiences from middle school that are still influencing us today.
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13 —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by our episode about our experiences of being 13 about the challenges we faced during adolescence — the messiness of friend groups, puberty and insecurity related to our desire to belong.
- Ideas of Beauty
— Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by the episode From Kabul & California: Ideas of Beauty about beauty standards and moments when teens from Afghanistan and the US talk about feeling empowered and beautiful.
- Cancel Culture —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by the episode Cancel Culture about this internet phenomena and it's repercussions.
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Love in High School —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by our episode about teenage love and thoughts about whether or not we believe in love and how we feel about having a romantic relationship in high school.
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Self-Doubt — Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by this episode about things we tell ourselves, our ideas about how others perceive us, and how these thoughts get in the way of saying or doing something that might actually be worth it.
#3: Episodes and guides to use when you've been having challenging conversations for a long time, have real friendships and authentic connections, and are attuned to power dynamics, skilled at active listening, and deeply respectful of each other and group norms.
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Inner Monologues —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by our episode about Inner Monologues, which we recorded during quarantine (March, 2020). It's about the voices in our own heads and how we take care of ourselves and our mental health. But most people have some kind of inner monologue. Sometimes our inner monologue can go in circles or be negative, especially when we're alone. In this episode, we share what our inner monologues sound like, and what we do when we want to shift from being negative to having a more positive outlook on the world.
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Parents are people too—
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by this episode. Use it to have your own meaningful conversations when we began to see our parents/guardians as human beings who have their own needs, emotions, styles, fragilities, crushes, etc.
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No Shame. Period
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Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by the episode
called No Shame. Period.Periods can be a sensitive subject. But at This Teenage Life we approach periods, and hopefully all things, with openness and curiosity. In this episode, we talk about our experiences of menstruation and our perception of periods.
- Black Lives Matter —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by this episode about our responses and processing of the brutal murder of George Floyd and the following BLM protest movement that swept the nation.
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Queerness —
Here is our conversation and activity guide inspired by this episode featuring our conversations about our explorations related to gender identity, sexual orientation, and coming out.