If it’s not hard, it’s not great.
Though poorly worded, this is the message my choir director repeated to us singers for years, trying to instill in us that we create our best work when challenged.
As a member of the Keystone State Boychoir until tenth grade, I’ve sung a lot of songs that originated in cultures different from my own. I wasn’t just taught to sing the notes, I was taught to sing the story. Learning the “why” behind the songs gave significance to every single note. As I sang alongside my friends with that understanding, I felt a strong connection to the people whose lives were touched by the same songs a long time ago, before we had organized the sheet music in our binders.
My favorite stories to tell are ones that I go into knowing nothing about.
Just as I learned the movements for and meaning behind the South African songs I sang in KSB, witnessing the way Strath Haven’s Tech Crew prepares for and puts on a musical scratched the itch I have to learn about others’ worlds. The experience of sharing that knowledge with others through song, video, photography, or writing, is always some sort of journey for me, and I make sure to keep it that way.
As someone with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, I joke that I’m allergic to boredom. It’s hard for me to keep a passion for something that I’ve done similarly a couple of times. Though almost every project comes with a crisis moment (sometimes even tears), I keep it interesting by challenging myself. And what’s a better challenge than spearheading the new video section of a student publication in a school that hadn’t had a broadcast program since the 90’s?
At the beginning of the school year, Ms. Plows met with me and posed the question: What would video content on the Panther Press look like?
I remember asking for more guidelines and then realizing what Ms. Plows was really saying. The other video creators at Haven and I had the opportunity to set a precedent for Panther Press video.
I got to experiment all year, discovering new ways to tell the stories of Strath Haven and bugging the rest of the staff to try video creation as well by saying, “You know what? That would make a GREAT video.” I offer the idea whenever I can because I know how a lack of knowledge and the prospect of challenge can hold you back from creating some really cool stuff.
I didn’t write an article at all until the May 2023 issue of The Panther Press because I didn’t know how.
Though there were people all around me ready to show me the way, I felt dumb for asking. It’s so easy for all of them, why isn’t it easy for me?
I was ignoring the fact that every writer at The Panther Press had to overcome challenges to write like they do, and once I took on the challenge of learning a new medium, accepting that I may stumble along the way, I ended up creating work that I couldn’t be more proud of.
Through my experiences alongside other talented journalists, I learned to ask questions instead of assuming answers. Each word of my articles and frames of my videos are filled with significance because I followed the story and told it to the best of my ability with the same energy that filled me while telling stories through song.
