New Canaan HS Students Create Pandemic Podcasts

Press release from the New Canaan Public Schools:

June 17 2020

New Canaan, CT - Since the COVID-19 outbreak, a number of NCHS students
have been sharing their thoughts and experiences through podcasts that describe how living
through the pandemic has affected their lives. As part of a class project at the high school,
approximately sixty-five students, freshman through senior, taking Music Tech I and Music Tech
II, have been asked to record podcasts to document their feelings over the past several weeks
when social distancing, living in quarantine and distance learning took effect.

The students’ teacher, Anna Moody, labelled the assignment “To My 35-Year-Old Self” and
asked her class to design their podcasts as a record not only for the present but the future. “This
audio blog will give you real time documentation of what happened from your perspective,” she
told her students, in her initial instructions. “We want to memorialize this time and be able to
revisit when you are an adult with a family of your own.”

Ms. Moody suggested her students present observations from all levels and perspective, be it
from a personal or family, community or global outlook. She gave them latitude to talk about
whatever topic they chose, suggested other family members participate, and required each of
their six individual podcasts be at least 90 seconds long and include music that reflects the topic
of the podcast. Ms. Moody found some songs so interesting and relevant, she created a
"quarantine playlist" from their podcasts to memorialize this time through music.

What started out as a school assignment took on much deeper meaning as the quarantine
continued, and the project went beyond the classroom for many students. In their podcasts, they
began sharing personal and enduring stories about how making the recordings themselves was
providing new insights into what it was like living through a pandemic. One subject that arose
was how their podcasts may possibly be used in classrooms as a history lesson for future
generations learning what life was like for high school students in 2020.

To listen to samples of some exemplary final podcasts,click here.

Without realizing it, this pandemic has changed you, your friends and family, and the entire
world,” added Ms. Moody, to her students. “People will be talking about this for generations to
come. We are living history.”

This press release was produced by the New Canaan Public Schools. The views expressed here are the author’s own.