What High School Is Like in 2023: A Multimedia Challenge for Teachers and Teens
Academic Mentorship

What High School Is Like in 2023: A Multimedia Challenge for Teachers and Teens

May 18, 2024
12 mins read
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For the first time ever, we’re inviting educators as well as young people to participate in a call-out, and we’re hoping that you can help us create a vivid portrait of secondary school today, told by those living through it.

Here are the basics:

  • Anyone who works in any capacity in a secondary school, or is a student over 13 who is attending one, is invited to contribute.

  • As with our original Coming of Age contest — the blueprint for this effort — you can submit almost anything you can upload digitally, whether writing, images, audio or video.

  • We hope you’ll reflect on and document an aspect of your experience, big or small, that is especially meaningful to you, for any reason. (That might be your soccer team; that one class you love — or hate; the place in school you hang out; a new program or policy that troubles you; or a relationship that gets you through difficult days. As long as it has to do with your experience in a secondary or high school, it’s fair game.)

  • To help you figure out what you want to say and how you’d like to say it, we have a step-by-step guide.

  • You may send in artifacts, such as photographs from your camera roll, or you can create something new.

  • You may work alone, with a partner or in a group. If you work with others, you can work with your peers or across ages, roles and even schools. (You may only submit once, however.)

  • Each submission must be accompanied by a short artist’s statement that gives the work a bit of context.

We can’t wait to see what you’ll make. Click below for many more resources and details.

Questions? Post a comment here or write to us directly at LNFeedback@nytimes.com. You might also consider hanging this one-page announcement on your class bulletin board.

Our core question: What can you show or tell us that might help explain what it’s like to be an educator or a student in a secondary school right now?

We know that’s huge, so we’ve broken it down a bit.

Here are 15 related questions that invite you to think about who you are and how that identity affects your life at school. They ask how you learn — or teach — best, and what gets in the way of that. And they invite you to describe what your school is like, what role it plays in your community and how it is affected by the world outside.

Use them as journal prompts or discussion starters — or post your thoughts in the comments section of the forum and join what we hope will become a lively and useful conversation.

You can tell us almost anything about your life at school, and you can submit those thoughts in words, images, audio or video.

What might that look like? Well, when we ran our Coming of Age contest, which encouraged teenagers to document their lives during the peak years of the pandemic, we made the same open-ended invitation, and we received screenshots, charts, poems, plays, photos, paintings, journal entries, videos, doodles, essays, Lego sculptures, posters, soundscapes, illustrated lists, comics, musical compositions, recipes and rants. Take a look at the 2020, 2021 and 2022 winners.

This year, we’re inviting you to send us anything that responds to our theme of the experience of high school in 2023 and that you can upload digitally.

That might include any one of the following — and our step-by-step guide includes teen-created mentor texts to show you examples of many:

  • Essays (including personal, opinion or even informational ones)

  • Diary entries

  • Poems

  • Songs or raps (either just the lyrics or recordings)

  • Interviews

  • Letters, email exchanges or text messages

  • Excerpts from your school work or assignments

  • Photos or screenshots

  • Illustrations, drawings or paintings

  • Comics or political cartoons

  • Videos (must be posted to YouTube; you can send us the link)

  • Podcasts or soundscapes (must be posted to SoundCloud; you can send us the link)

  • Graphs, charts, maps or other data visualizations

  • Or … anything else that you can upload digitally and that tells a story. (Lists? Excerpts from lesson plans? The options are endless.)

We hope to honor many, many students and educators across a range of schools. We’ll be looking not just for excellent work, but also for how the submissions can be woven together to tell a larger story.

So think creatively about what you can contribute from your unique point of view. And don’t forget that every submission must be accompanied by a short artist’s statement that can help provide context and tell us how it relates to our theme.

Please read the details before submitting an entry. You can find more in the Frequently Asked Questions section below.

  • Your submission must in some way respond to our focus question: What can you show or tell us that might help explain what it’s like to be an educator or a student in a secondary school right now?

    Please note: Your accompanying artist’s statement will offer you a place to explain how your work connects to one or more of these questions, even if the piece itself does not make that obvious.

  • You can work alone or with others. You can work with people your own age, or across ages, roles and even schools. For example, a teacher and students could work together on a submission, as could students participating in a club with chapters across schools. However, your name can be on only one submission.

  • You can submit anything you can upload to our system digitally. Please see the “What to Submit” section for more detail. Please also make sure that you have set your permissions so that YouTube and SoundCloud links are not private.

  • You may submit an artifact you have already created, such as an image or screenshot from your camera roll, or you can make something new.

  • Your submission can be funny or sad, raw or polished. It can be deeply personal or, with their permission, can reflect the experiences of others.

    It’s up to you what to express, as long as you address one or more of our focus questions. Our related guide has many examples to inspire you.

  • When you submit your entry, you must fill out an artist’s statement of up to 400 words telling us when, where, how and why you created the piece, and how it relates to our theme of secondary school in 2023.

    As our rubric shows, this statement is an important part of the submission, so we hope you will craft it carefully. See more information in the F.A.Q. below.

  • If you are submitting writing, regardless of the genre, it must not be more than 450 words. Our form allows you to use line breaks and spacing as you choose. (This does not include the accompanying artist’s statement, where you will have an additional 400 words to describe your project and its relevance to our themes.)

  • Videos and audio recordings can be no longer than two minutes. (Video should be uploaded to YouTube, and audio should be uploaded to SoundCloud. You’ll need to provide the URL and make sure you have not set your upload to “private.”)

  • All submissions must be original and include only your own work. For example, if you create a collage, none of the images can come from the work of others. Similarly, you cannot submit a screenshot or photo of someone else’s social media post or artwork. You may, however, take a screenshot of a text conversation you had or a Google search you conducted.

  • Please be sure to use non-copyrighted sound effects or music for any video or audio pieces. You cannot use copyrighted sound effects or music for the sole purpose of making your podcast sound better. Instead, you can find royalty-free music and sound effects on Freesound and SoundBible, or by doing a web search for royalty-free files. You can also use audio editing software to create your own music or sound effects.

  • You cannot submit anything you have already published elsewhere, including in a school newspaper. You can, however, send in work you have posted on social media, as long as the work is your own. (Please do not send a link to the social media post itself; just send the work.)

  • We understand that some of what you want to express might be sensitive. Though we need your full name and details when you submit, if we publish your piece we can work with you to keep some identifying details private. In addition, please keep the privacy of others in mind. You must obtain permission if you photograph or videotape other people, or use their full names.

  • Please also keep in mind that The New York Times is a family newspaper, so your submission should be appropriate for a broad audience. (For instance, please avoid cursing.)

  • You must be an adult working in a secondary or high school in any capacity, or a student age 13 to 19 attending a secondary or high school, to participate. Homeschooled students who are between 13 and 19 and take part in organized learning or extracurricular activities with others are also welcome to submit. All students must have parent or guardian permission to enter. Please see the F.A.Q. section for additional eligibility details.

  • All entries must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on Oct. 4, 2023, using the contest entry form below.

This challenge is a variation on the Coming of Age contest we ran in 2020, 2021 and 2022. We have developed new materials for this contest, but the older materials can be easily adapted since, except for the focus question, the challenge is the same.

New for 2023:

Related resources from our Coming of Age Unit:

Below are answers to your questions about submissions, judging, the rules of the contest and teaching with this contest. Please read these thoroughly and, if you still can’t find what you’re looking for, post your query in the comments or write to us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com.

QUESTIONS ABOUT SUBMITTING AS AN EDUCATOR

Why are you inviting teachers to submit this year?

The New York Times Learning Network turns 25 this month, and we’ve decided that the best way to celebrate is to hear from our core audience — secondary schoolteachers and their students in the U.S. and around the world.

At a time when education news is regularly featured on the front page, we want to offer you a place to speak for yourselves, in whatever way you’d like to do it. Whether you’re reacting to headlines about book bans and staff shortages or spotlighting something personal about your own classroom or subject area, our hope is that the collective portrait that emerges will help readers understand what it means to work with adolescents today.

I’m not a teacher, I’m a high school librarian/cafeteria worker/principal/custodian/secretary/coach/paraprofessional/bus driver. Can I still participate?

Yes, and we strongly encourage you to do so! We are hoping to hear from people who work in all capacities in secondary schools. Your perspective is important to telling the full story, just as your role, whatever it may be, is part of helping educate the young people in your care. Please consider showing us what you see that others may miss.

So should I do this on my own or alongside my students?

We’re purposely posting this contest a month earlier than we usually begin our programming in the hopes that teachers might consider participating in addition to using it to plan the curriculum for their students. Whether you decide to work alongside your students, perhaps doing this project together as a kind of inquiry into the meaning and role of school today, or to simply submit on your own, we welcome your voice.

QUESTIONS ABOUT SUBMISSIONS

But I’m just an ordinary high school student/teacher. What can I contribute that will say something new?

No matter who you are, you have something interesting to add to the portrait of high school in 2023 that no one else can.

Your experience of school is yours alone, filtered through who you are, where you come from, how you learn, who you learn with, where the school is, what its culture is like and so much more. What aspect of your experience — big or small, serious or funny, in the classroom or outside of it — would you most want to explore?

Our Coming of Age contest showed us how important each perspective was to creating a vibrant whole. Whether students focused on something small and personal, such as playing a video game or suffering through physics class online, or on something larger, such as participating in a global protest or experiencing the death of a loved one, the best pieces were grounded in details that made a specific time, place and point of view feel real and alive.

You can do that, too. To get started, you might brainstorm ideas with these questions.

Do the submissions have to be only about school, or can they also be about me or my life outside of school?

The focus of this contest is the high school experience, but we know that experience extends beyond the school day and outside the school walls. Anything you’d like to show or tell us that you think meaningfully addresses our theme is fine to submit — and don’t forget that you’ll also be writing an artist’s statement that can help explain the relevance of your piece.

Is digital art allowed?

Yes, but the digital creation must be done by you. (We do not allow A.I.-generated images, even though we think they’re cool, too.)

Why are the artist’s statements so important? What will you do with them?

As we did with the submissions from the 2020, 2021, and 2022 Coming of Age contests, we will read your artist’s statement alongside your work to understand how it relates to our theme. If you are a winner, we will also publish an edited version of your statement as a kind of caption for your piece.

We have found over the years that the context each statement adds makes the winning collection as a whole more powerful for our audience. The statements also help show how people addressed the same theme in different ways, and highlight the nuances of each work.

And we have heard from many teachers that writing these statements is immensely helpful to students. Stepping back from a piece and trying to put into words why and how you made artistic choices, what you wanted to express and how the work connected to a larger theme can often help you see your piece anew and figure out how to make it stronger.

We hope you’ll compose your statement as carefully as you do your main piece because, as you can see from our rubric, it is an important part of the submission.

There are so many options, both for format and for message. How do I even begin?

We know that choosing what to say and how to say it might be the hardest part of this challenge, so we have created a five-step guide for documenting and reflecting on the experience of high school to help.

_________

QUESTIONS ABOUT JUDGING

How will my work be judged?

Your work will be considered by New York Times journalists as well as Learning Network staff members and educators from around the United States. We will use this rubric to judge entries.

What’s the prize?

Having your work published on nytimes.com and potentially in print. You also retain the copyright to your work, so you are welcome to use it however you like after publication.

When will the winners be announced?

About 10 weeks after the contest has closed.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE RULES

Who is eligible to participate in this contest?

This contest is open anyone who works in any capacity in a secondary or high school, and to students age 13 to 19 who are in a secondary or high school, anywhere in the world.

Middle school students and college students cannot submit an entry. However, high school students (including high school postgraduate students) who are taking one or more college classes can participate. Students attending their first year of a two-year CEGEP in Quebec can also participate. In addition, students age 19 or under who have completed high school but are taking a gap year or are otherwise not enrolled in college can participate.

The children and stepchildren of New York Times employees are not eligible to enter this contest. Nor are students who live in the same household as those employees.

My piece was published in my school newspaper. Can I submit it to this contest?

No. We ask that your creation be original for this contest. Please don’t submit anything that was already published — in a school newspaper, in another contest or anywhere else — at the time of submission. You can publish the piece after since you retain the copyright to your work.

You can, however, send in work you have posted on social media, if the work is your own.

Whom can I contact if I have questions about this contest or problems submitting my entry?

Please post any questions in the comments section or write to us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com.

QUESTIONS ABOUT TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH THIS CONTEST

How do I use this contest in my classroom?

If you are participating in this contest, you’re probably doing it at the beginning of a new academic year, a time when focusing on individual identity and building community are both critically important. During the years we ran our Coming of Age Contest, we heard from many schools that used the related curriculum in their classrooms to do those two things. Here is one great example. As you are setting classroom guidelines and expectations, you might use elements of this project, such as our writing prompts, to get to know your students better and to understand some of the history and expectations they bring to being in school.

This project is an extension of Coming of Age, but with the twist that we’re asking those in schools to focus on what it’s like to be in school. Though this might feel a bit like asking a fish how it likes the water, it might help to think of it as an inquiry into the role and meaning of secondary school today — a topic on which there is no better authority than those living it. We hope this project will encourage educators and support staff to collaborate across departments and roles.

Of course, we’re also asking educators to submit, and we’re very much hoping many of you will choose to work alongside your students, however this inquiry takes shape for you.

Here are some ways we can imagine it looking in different classrooms, and how it might build subject-specific skills.

For social studies teachers, this contest might be a creative way to help students reflect on how world, national and local news affects them. As we pose it in our list of related questions: How do you think the times we are living in are shaping your educational or teaching experience? Participants might choose to respond to new laws or policies, or they might want to do a more general reflection on how school could be more relevant, useful, inclusive or meaningful to them and to your community.

This is also a media literacy challenge since we are, in part, asking students and teachers to look at how the news reports on education. We’re asking, What do outsiders, including the media, get wrong about what it’s like to be a teacher or student right now? What can you show or tell us that might help make that portrait more interesting, nuanced, complete or real? To help, we are linking to more than 75 free New York Times articles on teaching, learning, schooling and teenage life.

For English and art teachers, this contest offers a range of ways for students to express themselves, to learn about how meaning-making works in different mediums and to experiment with composing across those mediums. The related writing prompts and mentor-text exercises can encourage your students to do the kind of reflection and documentation that can lead to narrative, persuasive or informative pieces focused on the issues that matter to them. The prompts can also serve a practical purpose, like helping students write college essays.

If you are a STEM teacher, you might have students create data visualizations about some aspect of school life, especially if, perhaps, you are a fan of our What’s Going On in This Graph? series and want your students to try making their own charts, graphs or maps.

We hope you’ll have fun with the possibilities!

Update, Oct. 5: This contest is closed.



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