YOUTH
AT THE
CENTER

This Big Picture Learning blog details the process of creating our Youth at the Center film to highlight high school youth working alongside supportive adults in the trades through the Harbor Freight Fellowship Initiative. We convey the importance of raising awareness of the trades as a desirable and valuable pathway for learners in the State of Vermont and beyond.

Know Thyself,
Grow Thyself,
Make Thy Mark,
See it Through

Galen and Eurbey, seniors at EPIC Academy, a Big Picture Learning-inspired personalized learning program at Lamoille Union High School, in Hyde Park, Vermont, wanted to tell the story of how their peers were afforded the opportunity to learn through interests in the real-world alongside supportive adult mentors. They developed a comprehensive proposal for their senior thesis project (STP), and with support and encouragement from EPIC advisors Kim Hoffman and Amber Carbine-March, they reached out to me, Beth White, from Big Picture Learning’s Harbor Freight Fellowship Initiative. Together we dove into the process of project planning and grant writing.

After several grant writing attempts, we gratefully received Vermont Community Foundation’s Green Mountain Fund and SPARK grants, as well as a micro-grant from Vermont Learning for the Future and in-kind support from B-Unbound, a Big Picture Learning Initiative, to produce our film.

What started out as a straightforward STP took on a life of its own ultimately attracting 17 more youth and 17 additional adult partners, becoming a 2-year journey of storytelling and filmmaking to bring attention to and celebrate Vermont’s Flexible Learning Pathway Initiative. 

Our Youth at the Center film informs, inspires, and elevates the pace of change in education by showcasing how powerful learning happens when youth are in the driver’s seat doing what makes their hearts sing alongside supportive adults.

Stories of powerful relationships, meaning, and practice, expressed with raw vulnerability, transformed everyone present at each film shoot. We zigzagged across Vermont to capture youth working alongside adult mentors in unique learning environments, which included an airplane hangar, a car maintenance shop, and an artisan woodshop.

As these youth and adults told their stories on and off camera, it was as if a dose of courage and inspiration were delivered directly to the hearts of those of us listening. Unfiltered emotions and profound aha moments were a powerful and much-needed tonic for families and neighbors aching to hear something positive about our community, our state, and the future of education.

Learning From
Our Mentors

It was clear from the outset that we had an unconventional story to tell about Vermont youth – one that helped rescript the “College-for-All” narrative to include the trades in such a way that honored and validated the powerful pathway options for youth who love to problem solve, fix, build, and create through apprenticeship alongside supportive adults. It was up to us to start the conversation about how to support our rural Vermont learners' interests in the trades, especially those furthest from opportunity.

Our team set up an ambitious schedule and reached out to partners who were experts in engaging with communities across Vermont to document and share everyday expressions of tradition, innovation, and culture. The connections we made strengthened our work. 

The talented Sacha Antohin and Mary Wesley from Vermont Folklife Center mentored us through a crash course in ethnography and shared techniques for conducting powerful interviews with dignity and integrity. 

Kathleen Kesson briefed us on our collective history of personalized learning in VT and Act 77. 

Bess O’Brien, from Kingdom County Productions, graciously offered in-person mentoring at her kitchen table in Barnet, Vermont, where we discussed everything from storyboarding and production to post-production and distribution.

We crisscrossed the state from South Burlington, Alburgh, Woodbury, Cambridge, Lincoln, Fairfax, Hyde Park, Fairfield, to Burlington, Jeffersonville, Hinesburg, Williston, Shelburne, Charlotte, and Poultney. We interacted with mentors in the trades from Swanton, Morrisville, Charlotte, and Poultney. We interviewed advisors from Big Picture South Burlington, MVU, Hazen’s Flexible Pathways Program, LiHigh, CVU’s Nexus program, and Lamoille Union High School’s EPIC program. We interviewed national Big Picture Learning Harbor Freight Fellowship directors, Elliot Washor and Charlie Plant. Our team worked in person and virtually. 

We organized ourselves with Google Drive folders and shared Adobe Premiere Pro tips and YouTube Videos. We had folders for B-roll, footage, and resources from our partnering mentors. Best of all, the entire effort was youth-directed – teenagers controlled our timeline, budget, script, and logistics. In the end, we produced 3 short documentaries – one of which we are especially proud.

Learning from Our
Not-Great First Draft

Despite COVID and my breast cancer elimination treatments, which started in late summer 2021, we successfully shot footage with youth and adults from EPIC Academy, Nexus, and Big Picture South Burlington. Our recordings highlighted the impact of student-centered learning and made up our first 31-minute film. We became familiar with what to do and, more importantly, what not to do in filmmaking, from background music to ensuring sound quality, and learned how to navigate Adobe’s Editing Suite.

With this new knowledge, we set forth to put together a 3-minute short about a youth blacksmith apprentice from Lihigh School in Poultney, Vermont, Devin Dupuis, using footage shot by his advisor. After receiving a generous 6-month extension from Vermont Community Foundation, we scheduled visits to three more youth working with their hands alongside mentors and shot footage, which ended up becoming our final documentary, Youth at the Center: Celebrating Vermont’s Flexible Learning Pathways.

Stronger Together

By showcasing what Julia Freeland Fisher describes as local “disruptive innovations [that] are beginning to emerge that will reshape how schools can connect students to coaches, mentors, experts, and peers,” the process of filming itself generated excitement and appreciation for programs that prioritize personal learning for youth. Our film lifts voices of those that are often unheard or uninvited to conversations about school – especially for those who love to work with their hands. Our networks expanded as we learned about the art of cinematography in these real-world settings and we like to think that our film will be the start of many conversations with stakeholders in and around Vermont – and beyond. 

Act 77 is a gift that allows us to create as many pathways to graduation as there are youth. Our Youth at the Center series is rescripting the narrative around trades work to normalize these career pathways by highlighting youth and adults engaging in work that makes their hearts sing. It is important to do what we can to inspire and promote learning opportunities that will result in talented tradespeople – in Vermont and beyond – to keep Vermont Strong – not just during catastrophes, like our recent cataclysmic flooding – but always. We are stronger together.

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