Community Arts Partner

Teaching Approach

Teaching Philosophy + Approach

At RadioActive Youth Media, youth learn the technical and soft skills needed to amplify the stories that matter to them. Our approach is to provide interactive, collaborative workshops where participants create new work while gaining hands-on skills like writing for broadcast and using audio technology. Our philosophy is that youth voices are powerful and not heard often enough. Our workshops foster an atmosphere of discovery, accessible to all. RadioActive staff works with youth who come from across the Seattle area, from our most prestigious private schools to our most under-funded public schools. We prioritize outreach and partnerships in areas that have less access to high quality youth programs. We do not believe in a one-size-fits-all approach, and cater our workshops to meet young people where they are, while supporting each person to push their limits.

Curriculum Integration Possibilities

Radio journalism is a practice that, at its core, integrates an arts discipline (audio storytelling and sound design) with a non-arts subject area (journalism). At RadioActive, we teach workshops on journalism ethics to emphasize the considerations and practices that need to be incorporated into the craft of audio storytelling, in order to call it journalism. Each young person in a RadioActive program creates a true story on the topic of their choosing. Youth conduct independent research on their story topics, which range from sneaker collecting, to sexual abuse, to the experiences of Bhutanese refugees, and many more. In past partnerships, we have adapted our programming to the needs of our partners by integrating their subject areas. For example, when we ran a 1-day intensive workshop at Camp Ten Trees (a camp for LGBTQ youth), we prompted youth to create audio projects around the topic of gender. During a workshop with migrant youth in Mount Vernon, youth interviewed each other about their experiences immigrating to America and working in the fields.

Special Skills and Areas of Expertise

Testimonials from Schools

“The students loved the workshop. They can’t wait to do more! They shared with other students in their group about it, and each of them spoke with a sense of confidence.” - Janice Blackmore, pop-up workshop partner at Mt. Vernon Migrant Youth Leaders Club “The teens really were engaged and learned some valuable skills in a very short time” -  Carol Lo, Seattle Public Library Central Teen Librarian