What Students Want Principals to Know | The MAPS Media Institute

Introduction

Mason Pashia: You’re listening to the Getting Smart podcast. I’m Mason Pashia. Listeners of this podcast know a couple of things to be true. One is that podcasts like this one are just one part of Getting Smart’s larger media channel. We like to think about multimodal ways to tell stories, and this is just one of them.

So it’s a whole industry. Storytelling also matters. This is a skill to be honed and shaped in a wide variety of these modalities. So today we’re going to think about what that looks like when you apply that and give access to these opportunities to students in high school and beyond. I think we’re, as a country, as a sector, really cutting down on these opportunities. There have been stats that about 30% of local news sites are gone every 10 years, and so at a certain point that will result in very few local news sites, and everything will just kind of be trained on this strange AI world that is getting built on the internet.

And so today I’m going to talk to a couple of people who are working against this, and they’re doing amazing work. I had the opportunity to meet the folks from this organization up in Tacoma, Washington, I think earlier this year, as a part of an Education Reimagined learning cohort. And so I’m thrilled to be able to talk to them and talk to some people who are participating in this program. So joining me today are a few different folks. We’ve got Clare Ann Harff, the executive director of MAPS; Mikaela Doney, a student from the Fort Belknap community who is in the MAPS program; and Laurel De Groot, a homeschooled senior from the Bitterroot Valley, also in the program. Thank you all for being here.

Clare Ann Harff: Thank you.

Meet the Guests

Mason Pashia: Yes, it’s very fun to see you all in virtual places. It is so rare to meet someone in person and then talk with them virtually. I feel like I’m always doing the opposite. But I can attest that, hi, Clare Ann, I know how tall you are, and I also know how tall your colleague Carly is, who is also in the background of this call. So, something you don’t always get the luxury of with Zoom.

Okay, I’m going to do a quick around the horn and just hear you all introduce yourselves and what drew you to the MAPS Media program to begin with. So, Clare Ann, how about I just start off with you?

Clare Ann Harff: Yeah, you bet. First off, just thank you again for inviting MAPS, and in particular Mikaela and Laurel for making the time. Really honored to be showcased and shared, and of course part of the work that you’re doing on Getting Smart. My history with MAPS starts at the very beginning.

MAPS started in 2004 in the Bitterroot Valley, and that’s in southwestern Montana. We’re about an hour south of Missoula. A retired Hollywood producer, who was quickly getting bored having not much to do, asked around to the five school districts in our very rural valley and asked if any of them had interest in starting a media class or film class. One of the schools took it up, and once he was in the school and he had a great turnout, he was at that crossroads: “Do I stay in the schools, or do I turn it into a nonprofit?” I’ve always been in nonprofit arts, and I was a part of that team who helped make the decision to create a nonprofit instead of staying a school-based program. So that’s where I originally started.

Then in 2013, I joined the team as a program director and instructor, quickly showed my business acumen as well as human acumen, and moved into leadership in 2016 when the founder was getting ready to cross over. So I had about four years to work with him. My business partner, and partner in crime as I say, and I were entrusted to carry on not only the vision and legacy he established, but to meet with a very open mind and open heart all the other opportunities, unknown opportunities, that were to come our way, including this day today together.

Aside from MAPS, I’m a very proud mom of a 20-plus-year-old. I’ve been in the arts my whole life. I was raised by a family who recognized the importance of creativity and made sure we had it. So for me, this kind of work is just built into my DNA.

Mason Pashia: Love it. That’s awesome. Okay, before we jump into what MAPS is, you talked about the vision, but we’ll get to what that is. Mikaela, how about you? Who are you?

Mikaela Doney: I feel like my response is not as good as CA’s after she did the whole thing. Well, anyways, hello. I am Mikaela Doney. I am 17, from the Harlem/Fort Belknap community, so very close together, just across the river type of thing. And I am very interested in audio and just filmmaking and everything.

So I was really drawn to MAPS. At first, we didn’t have a building for a little while, so I didn’t know what to do or how to join or anything. And then after we did get the building, I was like, “Yes, I can finally join.” And so now I’m finally a part of something that I wanted to be a part of for so long, and I honestly really enjoy it a lot. So yeah.

Mason Pashia: That’s awesome. I can’t wait to hear about what you’re doing and what you’re so excited about. Laurel, how about you? Who are you?

Laurel De Groot: All right. Hello, my name is Laurel. As you said, I am a homeschooled senior in high school from the Bitterroot Valley, but I’ve been with MAPS five years, and I’ve worked there four years, and I’ve participated in pretty much every class that we have offered for a very long time. Specifically, the music side has always interested me, and I’ve had a lot of fun doing filmmaking.

I’ve done photography projects, tech, 3D printing, all that kind of stuff, but I was drawn to it because it offered a social learning benefit that I wouldn’t necessarily get as a homeschooler. So it was really cool to be able to learn things with technology that wasn’t practical to get for one class.

You’re able to try so many different things through MAPS, and that’s the real reason why I came here: you can learn a lot about different things in ways that you can’t learn them in many other places.

Mason Pashia: Yeah, that’s super cool and important. We talk a lot about unbundled learning at Getting Smart, and part of the Education Reimagined conference was really about this ecosystem approach to learning. So where are the assets in your community? Who can use them? How can you provide them to people who otherwise would not have access to them, whether that’s because they’re homeschooled and they’re not in the system that may have these tools, or because they’re just not something you usually have access to as a high schooler, like real industry-quality tools? So that’s exciting. I can’t wait to hear more about your music journey, and Mikaela, your sound and film journey. Should I call you CA? It seems like all the cool kids are doing it.

Clare Ann Harff: I’d love it if you would. My not-so-secret nickname. Thanks.

What Is MAPS Media Institute?

Mason Pashia: Okay, CA, fantastic. So what is MAPS? It sounds like we’ve got this vision from a founder, but give me the big goal and then the day-to-day mechanisms of what this program is.

Clare Ann Harff: Yeah. So let’s start with the acronym, right? MAPS Media Institute is the name of the nonprofit, and MAPS stands for Media Arts in the Public Schools. As I explained in the intro, that’s where we started, and then we quickly expanded into a community-based program. Our mission from the beginning has always been to provide professional and completely free media arts education to primarily young people, defined as upper middle school to mid-20s.

We do this in a number of ways. We have three brick-and-mortar studios across the state of Montana: one in southwest Montana, where I am, in the Bitterroot; one in the state’s capital in Helena; and our third program is up on the Central Hi-Line, 15 miles south of Canada, right outside of the Fort Belknap Indian Community. In addition to the three brick-and-mortar studios, we also have what we call the roadshow, or the MAPS Media Lab, where we bring our equipment, programming and staff to communities that are pretty far away from those brick-and-mortar studios.

Then in addition to those four programs, we also have a client-based program, which is a revenue source for MAPS. For example, in Fort Belknap, a tribal department contracts with us to create a series of informative videos about their department, and the crew are the learners who participate in the MAPS program. So they’re not only getting direct workforce development skills, they’re also creating media to strengthen their community.

And that, to me, is the secret magic. It’s not even a secret. It’s really the glue, and part of the success that has been with MAPS since day one: real work experience for these young people, and really all of us.

Mason Pashia: That’s so cool. I think that is the project that your colleague Carly was telling me about in Tacoma, that was like, “Oh, we have to talk about this.” So I’m really excited to hear more. And this media undertaking is quite an undertaking. Media has changed a lot since 2004. You started with probably pretty early digital cameras and digital camcorders, and, well, here we are today.

Clare Ann Harff: Oh, in the Bitterroot, where the first studio was created, we had the first Apple lab in the whole county. So we’ve seen a lot change and have had to adapt along with it.

Student Voice and Making Music Together

Mason Pashia: Amazing. Well, I want to hear a little bit about this experience of learning. So Mikaela, you said that you pretty much love it, that you just really enjoy this program. What about it do you feel is so engaging or community centered?

Mikaela Doney: Well, I love how… Sorry, I’m trying to think of all the right words. I love how our… Sorry, I have a hard time thinking of the right words.

Mason Pashia: You’re totally fine. Can you tell me about a project that you did that was really representative of what this program means to you?

Mikaela Doney: So one time we did a project and we worked on a song. And like Laurel, I am really into audio and music and everything that has to do with that. So it just meant a lot to be able to come together as a group. It felt like our own little band type of thing. And so being able to come together and showcase all of our own personal talents, and just be able to have fun together and create, was a really, really fun experience, and honestly, I want to do it again.

I want to do a lot more of that. So yeah.

Mason Pashia: Being in a band is, in my opinion, the hardest relationship in the world. I did it in college for a number of years, and I’m writing a blog about this right now: being in a band is one of the most valuable experiences you can have for learning entrepreneurial skills, for learning relational skills, for learning creative skills. It is so hard to balance a lot of different creative ideas from different places, and then keep everyone equally engaged and interested in the idea the whole time. Did you come into that problem at all? As you were working together to write a song, was it kind of like, “Oh, now it’s this person’s idea,” or how did you make that a collaborative project?

Mikaela Doney: So basically our instructor was really good about letting everyone have their own thing that they want to say, or having everyone be like, “All right, you cannot sit out because you’re helping us.” Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound like he was really demanding about it.

I mean he helped bring us all together, and helped it to where nobody was making fun of each other or anything, and all ideas were welcome. And if someone’s idea didn’t get used, even though I think everyone’s ideas got used actually, that didn’t mean they were any less important.

He put them on some other part that we needed to be able to make the song really good. So yeah.

Mason Pashia: What genre would you say your song was?

Mikaela Doney: That’s a hard one. I want to say alternative rock, but at the same time it was kind of… Yeah, I think alternative rock type thing.

A Low-Stakes Place to Fail and Try Again

Mason Pashia: Yeah. Awesome. Laurel, how about you? What do you feel is so engaging about this program to you? You can use a specific project example if you want, or just talk to me about why you love it.

Laurel De Groot: I really like MAPS because it is such an engaging way to learn something. When you’re around people that you don’t necessarily know, it’s interesting to get to know those people and their creative processes, and there are always really good instructors at this program, and they can help steer us in the right direction with that.

Oftentimes, they’re also really good at managing dynamics between people and helping people to work together, even if they think differently. So meeting new people and then making friends and creating things together is incredibly rewarding for me. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I love it.

It’s because we can do really cool things with expensive equipment and learn cool things together. And I just love the environment. It’s less like an elective kind of class that you would take in school and more of a club, because you don’t always have to be super focused, super in the grind trying to get a good grade, even if it’s a fun class. It’s a really low-stakes environment, but you have the guidance, and not the pressure, from an instructor who can take you through all the different difficulties of learning something new. So it can help you do things that you were scared to do before, because you don’t necessarily have a bad result if you fail.

You can fail and try again without feeling judged or upset, and you can encourage each other when you’re struggling with something. And I think that is something that’s hard to find in situations like this.

Mason Pashia: Yeah, I think you’re so spot on. Both media and the arts have this really cool rapid learning cycle where it’s just constant failure, learn, failure, learn. I remember when I would be trying to learn classical guitar songs back in the day. I’d look at a piece of sheet music and be like, “Nope, there’s no way that my fingers could ever possibly do that.”

And then seven weeks later, it’s bad, but I’m doing it. And then seven weeks after that, it actually kind of sounds like something. So it is really so powerful. You learn how to fail. You learn how to stop, to pick yourself up again and try again, or you learn from the failure. CA, you went off mute. Do you want to build on that?

Clare Ann Harff: Well, we just had a staff meeting the other day, and we have these core creative commitments that we don’t make public, but we keep as a team. Sometimes we share them with students. So my point is, it’s not a poster on the wall or anything yet. But one of the last ones is all about that value of persistence. Practice persistence, right? Even for us working with young people, for those days you don’t want to show up, or those days when one more thing is something you just can’t handle, right? That balance of mental health within positive creativity is a huge responsibility that we take seriously every moment.

And then how to encourage all of us to keep practicing that persistence. It’s about showing up. It’s about opening up to the creative flow. And the most important thing for us within that is that no matter what, we always care about where you are at as a human being. That’s how we aim to relate with the learners that we get to work with. So I loved hearing that organically, without this core commitment that we talk about as a team. It just makes me go, “Yes, we’re succeeding.”

Mason Pashia: Yeah, that’s evidence right there. That’s awesome.

Clare Ann Harff: Yeah, so thank you for that.

Industry Skills and Self-Discovery

Mason Pashia: No, I mean, hey, it’s all y’all. I think there’s something interesting about media where, in many ways, media has some of the earliest influences on us as people, and so we start to see it as a valuable thing that we want to be able to make.

And so when we start to make it, it does some of that workforce development bridging just naturally. Everybody you meet now wants to be an influencer, and that’s because they’ve been impacted by or surrounded by the internet and influencers. That’s such a challenge with so many sectors, where there’s just not visibility into what a social impact consultant does or what a civil engineer does. But there is visibility into what someone who works in Hollywood does or what someone who works in the audio industry does. So I’m curious, both Mikaela and Laurel, I want to know about an industry-relevant skill that you think you’ve built in this program that you’re really proud of.

And then I also want to know about a skill that is more just something you’ve learned about yourself in the time you’ve been doing this. Laurel, you’ve already given me an answer, that comfort with failure, but I would love to learn one more.

So I’m going to start with you this time, Laurel. Industry relevant, and then something you’ve learned about yourself.

Laurel De Groot: Okay. So there have been two things that I’ve really been able to hone here at MAPS, that I think I could take into an industry, and one of those is music. I’m fairly competent with how to use DAWs and audio equipment, how to build songs, how to write them, and the things you need to produce them and put them out into the world. I think I’ve gotten a lot of practice with that, and I’ve had really good experience trying out different ways of doing that here at MAPS. So that’s been really, really great. And the other part, which might not be super perfect, but it’s impossible to be perfect anyway, is interviewing.

I’ve done multiple projects with MAPS where I’ve gone with them to different locations, and I’ve met different people in completely different industries for different reasons, for different projects, and I’ve practiced talking with them and learning about who they are and what they do and why, and helping shape their stories into things that we can use to help educate other people. And so I think that has been helpful, also just as someone who has less broad social interaction with the community around me. Since I’m not in school, I don’t meet all these different kids around me, and I don’t get to know, “Oh, what do your parents do?” or something like that. But I can go out and actually meet real people, real adults in real positions who do things like this, and that can help show me possible paths in the future, and also just how to interact with cool people. And it’s kind of a fun reminder that even when you’re surrounded by a world where it feels like you’re being told there are all these horrible people everywhere, there are still actually good people.

You just have to find them.

Mason Pashia: That is super true. And honestly, on that interviewing point, such a good point, because so much of life is just engaging with people in a way that makes them feel either seen or good or proud in some way. And I think at its best, that’s what an interview is for, for non-journalistic reasons, really, more conversational, getting to know people. That’s such a valuable managerial skill, or such a valuable skill for networking and business development. That’s amazing. I think one thing that the arts have generally done poorly is atomize a skill into all of its component parts. I went to school for songwriting, but now I do storytelling, and there’s a very clear line there.

But when I was doing storytelling, I was never like, “You know what I’m going to do is run a media website with a podcast.” There’s just a weird way we make it so that if you know how to use a DAW, you’re producing your favorite band. And that is awesome, and that would be so great.

And also, there are just so many other viable pathways that you can use with that skill. So thank you for sharing that. That’s awesome. Mikaela, how about you?

Mikaela Doney: For me, it’s more on the performance side when it comes to all the skills and everything that comes with MAPS. I’m usually the one that does the voice acting and that stuff, so I know how to put my feeling into it. That’s what I’ve learned to do a lot lately: no matter what I’m doing, I’ve got to put my feeling into it or else it won’t sound real.

So with that, if it were to come to industry stuff, I feel like it would be more in the area of acting and all that stuff. And so that’s basically where my skill set is from that. And I did learn about myself a little bit more while being in MAPS: if I have a vision for how I want things to be, I am allowed to say it, and then I can just go off of it.

And I’m able to be heard out… Trying to figure out how to describe it, sorry. But just being the one that’s able to help others as well, show them, “This is how I’m thinking it should sound,” or, “This is how I’m thinking it should be.” Or I’ll hear other people tell me that, and I’m like, “Okay, I’ll try it.”

And so it doesn’t hurt to try when we’re here. And honestly, it’s just really fun being able to do all that stuff. But yeah, that’s kind of my point of view when it comes to this.

Mason Pashia: That’s amazing. Pretty cool, CA. A lot of confidence and agency and all kinds of things there.

Clare Ann Harff: Oh, yeah. I’m smiling as I’m listening to you both, because I’ve seen you both in action. I have so many memories with Laurel, just because of the five years together. But one that really sticks out is when you saw the whole picture, from running audio, editing an interview, operating camera, what production really looks like, and you were like, “Ooh. Oh, yeah.” Right?

And then Mikaela, even though we’re only a few years into working together, and you have such profound skills as a musician, I’ve seen you compromise when you’re working with your team. I’ve seen your skill set get stretched in a way that maybe you weren’t comfortable with. It was a series of PSA projects they did, or are doing, for Fort Belknap Tribal Health, for tobacco prevention, a positive choices type thing. And I just love seeing any of us shine in ways that we didn’t know. That’s what I love: the unexpected.

And it even lends back to your point at the beginning of this part of the conversation, Mason, about how many kids, or young people, we have come in to MAPS who are like, “Yeah, I want to be an influencer.” But then when they understand what it really takes, they’re like, “Oh, okay. Well, maybe I’ll just learn how to run camera,” you know? Or, “Maybe I’ll just be part of the audio team.” And I always want to give a quiet high five to the team, or even the whole crew, like, okay, that romanticized idea of what this is has been broken down into the many, many, many components it is. But yeah, I really appreciated everything you both shared. It was good to hear for me.

Community-Connected Media Projects

Mason Pashia: Okay, I have two directions that I want to go with our remaining 15 minutes. One of them, I want to know more about the community connectedness of the work. I think that’s really important. And the other is more about recommendations for people in schools: how can you make learning more failure-resilient and more engaging? I’m going to end with that one, just so you all know that’s coming. But I would love to talk to you both about this community-connected work. I don’t know if you both were engaged directly in that project that Clare Ann named at the beginning, making the videos and communicating to and for the tribes.

But I would love to hear about that work, or something similar where you’ve done a project that actually got you outside of yourself and was really like, “Oh my gosh, I’m adding value to this community right now,” or, “I’m actually helping them to share their story.” Mikaela, we’re just going to keep snaking around, so I’m coming back to you.

Mikaela Doney: All right. Well, for me, when it comes to… Wait. Ah, I can’t speak. When it comes to being in the community and doing the community project, when we’re at MAPS, it kind of feels like a big family. Sometimes we might or might not agree, but at the same time, we still get to have fun.

We’re still silly together. The best part about us is that we’re all, I don’t know if I want to use this word, but we’re all nerdy in the same way. And it’s always really fun and it’s really awesome. So being a part of this little community, it just brings a lot out of you. No matter how shy you might feel, even if you feel like, “I can’t do this,” eventually you get pulled out of your shell, and eventually you’re like, “Yes, we’re a family and we get to do this.

It’s super fun,” and all that fun stuff. So honestly, as a community, I really love this, and it brings us a lot closer together. It goes back to teamwork. It helps us learn how to work as a team a lot more and figure out how to cooperate, even though sometimes we might not want to.

But it helps us cooperate a lot, and so I’m really grateful for that.

Mason Pashia: Do you have a project where you feel like you got outside of MAPS with MAPS? Where you went and worked with other tribes, or the larger Belknap community, or did some kind of video work or interviews?

Mikaela Doney: I don’t know. Was I ever a part of any of those projects? I don’t really think so.

Clare Ann Harff: That would be the project you guys are working on right now, with the PSAs for tobacco prevention. It would’ve been the tribal department videos we did last year. Any of that. Yep, there you go.

Mikaela Doney: With our PSAs, we have a lot of fun. I know a lot of PSAs are supposed to be more on the serious side, but at the same time, we also could have fun with it. And so being able to reach out to our community is also really good. I’m trying to think of how to word this. I know what I want to say, but I can’t word it.

Mason Pashia: No, you’re totally fine. Did it make you feel more like a part of the community to be contributing in that way, in a way that felt real-world and relevant?

Mikaela Doney: Yeah, it helped me to feel more like I was heard. So being able to know that people will listen to me, and that people will be like, “Hey, that was the person that I heard on that audio,” or, “Hey, that’s the person I saw on that video.” Because for one of our MAPS promotional videos, I was the one on the cover.

I was the one that had to do the beginning part with my sister. And so because of that, I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say, “Hey, I know you,” and all that type of stuff. So I’m just like, “Oh, okay. That’s fun.”

Mason Pashia: You’re a regular celeb.

Mikaela Doney: Yeah, yeah, totally.

Mason Pashia: Very cool. Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that. Laurel, how about you? How about a project that brought you out of the MAPS community, or with the MAPS community but out into the larger Montana community that you serve?

Laurel De Groot: So I would say that my favorite community-based project that I’ve done with MAPS is Our Water, Our Ways of Life. That was the title of it. It was a photography project with me, an instructor and some other students, where we interviewed different people in our community with different roles on how water affects them, how important our river is, and how important it is to preserve our water, use it in a way that is beneficial to everyone, and conserve this resource that is really important to everyone.

So we interviewed and photographed fly fishermen and doctors and Native peoples for whom the water has meaning, and it was really cool to get to learn about the different ways that water is important. It was cool to just talk to people. We would go to people’s houses or their workplaces, so the river for the fly fishermen. And for a rancher, we went to his ranch to interview him. So getting out into these different areas geographically in the community, to see how the river itself works, has given me a greater appreciation for the river, and it’s also been rewarding to see that exhibit up in different places. That was a couple of years ago now, but it’s about to be put up again in a different branch of the local community, in response to try to keep the water safe from a proposed mine at its headwaters.

And so we’re using that project to once again try to spread the word and protect the river from this thing that can really affect all of us. It really will. So it’s really cool to feel like you could have had an impact on something that is so big when you yourself feel so small. And yeah, it’s cool.

It’s been in local museums. It’s been in art galleries, and so it’s just been moved around, and it feels good to know that my work is actually out there in a way that not all of my work at MAPS has been. Sometimes I make stuff for me, but it’s cool to make stuff for other people.

Mason Pashia: It’s such a cool project. That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing. It sounds like they need a sequel to The Lorax called The Laurel, and it’s about defending the rivers. I think that’s awesome.

Mikaela Doney: I would totally love to watch that.

Clare Ann Harff: Let’s work on that this year, Laurel, eh?

Mason Pashia: Yeah, there you go.

Laurel De Groot: Student film.

Clare Ann Harff: Yeah, final project.

Mikaela Doney: I love that.

Mason Pashia: I can’t wait to see the mustache. I think that will be the important part.

Laurel De Groot: I rock fake mustaches.

Relationships, Trust and a Shared-Asset Model

Clare Ann Harff: I was just going to say, Mason, if I could, I know we’re getting to the end of your time, but just…

Mason Pashia: Yeah, please.

Clare Ann Harff: It’s something that I’ve seen in my tenure with MAPS, and just as a citizen before I joined the team, and it’s a testament to both the stories that Mikaela and Laurel shared. It’s really that relationship building, you know?

When I think about what sets MAPS apart from schools or other learning entities, that is still so fundamental to the work we do, right? It’s the visiting, the time. I’m thinking about Fort Belknap in particular. That program literally was years in the making.

Years of making sure we were filling a space that they needed filled, and how we could work with their youth, with their whole community. And part of the commitment up there was that the stories would be coming from the community, right? They’re not just handed assignments. Youth in all of the places where we have programs or projects are documenting the history or the people or the issues and experiences, even if they’re only creative experiences, right?

That doesn’t even need to be qualified. And whenever I’m asked to talk about MAPS, I’ll go in depth about that, because the level that we commit to doing that really does set us apart, and it is fundamentally an ingredient in the success of a community-based nonprofit that started, you know, right when the internet was coming out.

Mason Pashia: Totally. No, I think it’s so cool. For all the listeners here, and I want to turn it back to Laurel and Mikaela in just a second, the funding landscape is changing. What it means to be a school district is not changing, but I think people are going to have to get a little creative about who they serve.

And so organizations like MAPS are super interesting examples of an intermediary organization that really meaningfully serves public schools. I think it’s a really cool model, and other people should think about it, in media and otherwise. How do you create an asset that is shared among people and let people have access to it?

That also provides more funding to organizations like MAPS, if that actually happens. So that’s super exciting.

Clare Ann Harff: Absolutely.

Advice for Principals and Superintendents

Mason Pashia: Laurel and Mikaela, last thoughts today. I want a word of advice for principals and superintendents listening about how they can either make more engaging learning experiences, or, and this might be the same thing, create learning experiences where failure is more accepted. So I’m curious what your MAPS experience or your homeschool experience or your public school experience has taught you about that specific thing. Laurel, I might start with you. Feel free to take a few seconds to think. I know it’s kind of a burly question.

Laurel De Groot: I have a banger of a sentence, so my answer might just be one sentence, but I’ll see if I can build off of it. MAPS is unique because it teaches young people that there is inherent value in all creative ideas. Even if those ideas aren’t used, they’re important. They might not be used for the project you’re working on or the specific task that you’re trying to complete. Creating your own story and your own way of… Hang on. Okay. Okay. Okay. Lock in. Lock in.

Mason Pashia: Banger of a sentence. You got this.

Laurel De Groot: Thank you. I think that letting each other express our ideas, even if they aren’t necessarily useful or practical, is such a freeing experience as an individual, and I think that’s something that is important for every person out there: to be able to put out your ideas that really matter to you, and your ideas that are a joke and you know they’re stupid, but you just want to put them out there anyway just for fun. I think sometimes we try to put a price on creativity. Like, if you’re good at music, you can become a musician. You can be a famous musician or be in a famous band or something. But MAPS helps to teach us that we can create something that doesn’t necessarily need to change the world, but you can.

Why Small Classes Help Students Feel Heard

Mason Pashia: That is so good. I do have a follow-up for you, I’m sorry. I think that’s such an important point. I want to know how MAPS makes you feel heard on those ideas, right? Because a lot of this stuff is cutting-room-floor material. I have a ton of ideas all the time, and a lot of them are good, and they don’t even happen. And that’s fine. And a lot of them are bad, and they shouldn’t happen. But I’m curious how MAPS as an institution or organization makes you feel heard as a person who has these ideas. Because I think that’s where schools really struggle. Sure, there are environments where kids can express themselves, but the next part is missing, which is, “I hear and see you.” And that’s hard, especially in really big systems. So what does MAPS do that does that for you?

Laurel De Groot: I think one of the reasons MAPS succeeds in this is because it isn’t a huge system. Most of the time our classes have six or 10 kids in them, and so as you get to know people, you can take the time to see that each person is actually a person. They’re not a classmate, they’re not a teacher, they’re a person, and they’re a mentor, and they’re a friend. And so being able to see that humanity in each other really helps you to understand that each person has ideas that can be used in ways that are important, or in ways that could be shelved for later. Like, “Oh, that’s a great idea for our next film, but that’s not part of the plot for this film.” And so I think it can be really… I don’t know. Is that answering your question or not?

Mason Pashia: 100%. No, it does. I think what you said is really important, both in structure, which is that these small, intimate settings are a really wonderful catalyst for this, and they’re kind of a nice-to-have because not everyone gets to do that. But something you touched on is this culture piece, where that affirmation is not top-down.

It’s not that the school is responsible for doing that through the educator. It’s that the school is responsible for building a culture where peers can be that affirmation for each other. It can be like, “This idea was good and heard because it made my friend laugh.” And that matters, and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything beyond that, and that’s okay. So I think you totally answered it. That was great. Banger of a sentence. Well done.

Laurel De Groot: Can I add one more thing really fast?

Mason Pashia: Sure, go for it.

Laurel De Groot: Okay, I’ll be fast. Another thing with MAPS is that it heavily pushes us to respect each other, even before you get to know everyone. You have to respect each other’s boundaries and each other’s beliefs, and it can be hard to enforce that in something as big as a school. That’s something that comes from the ground up: when we first go into our first day of class, here’s a little slideshow about what we do at MAPS and what we don’t do, and how you can’t be mean to each other for things that you possibly can’t even control. That can give a whole new level of safety for each other, because the instructors can actually enforce that, since there are few enough kids that you can see how they treat each other. So okay, that’s it. I’m done.

Mason Pashia: No, wonderful. Okay, Mikaela, over to you. Close us out. What’s your banger sentence? What do you have for us?

Mikaela Doney: Mine is very similar to Laurel’s, actually. So in my experience at school, I kind of was one of the kids that was never heard out or anything. This may be hard to believe, but I was the shy one. I was very quiet and timid.

Mason Pashia: Now you’re an actor.

Mikaela Doney: Yeah, I know, right?

But because of that, I was always scared to try out for things, or always felt like I wasn’t able to be noticed for the talents I do have. But with MAPS, having that small… I don’t want to compare it to school, but outside of school, it’s more like everyone was free to be who they were no matter what, and no matter how weird or silly you were, it didn’t matter.

You were always welcome. You were always able to be that person no matter what. And so I find MAPS more of a safe place than school is for me, because school is just, it’s school. MAPS isn’t entirely like school, where you need to get this done now, you need to do this, or it has to be done a certain way or anything like that.

It’s just where you can be free and you can just have fun. So that’s, yeah.

Mason Pashia: Yeah. Right. It’s like when you’re having fun, you’re learning, right? That’s very true. I don’t know if you were watching, Laurel, but you just had some enthusiastic head nods along with what you were saying, Mikaela.

Mikaela Doney: Yes.

Mason Pashia: I really appreciate that. I think all of our listeners are hoping to make the “it’s just school” feeling a little less bad. That is what they’re trying to do. And I just encourage them all to keep trying, because it is not easy work. But examples like this are what keep them going. So Laurel, CA and Mikaela, thank you so much for joining me today on the Getting Smart podcast. I really am grateful for your stories and what all of you are doing.

Clare Ann Harff: Thank you.

Mikaela Doney: Thank you for having us.

Mason Pashia: Of course, of course.