The alumni newsletter of Antioch College Fall 2004
The alumni newsletter of Antioch College Fall 2004
A teen sits beside an empty beer bottle and gazes forlornly into the distance. Two angry teens engage in a fistfight in an abandoned lot. Another lonely teen sits atop a dumpster and desolately contemplates the universe. These bleak images of teen alienation are examples of a compelling photo exhibit created by detention center teens from the Greene County Juvenile Residential Treatment Center in Xenia.
Under the guidance of Antioch College Communications Professor Dennie Eagleson '71, Antioch College senior Maurya Orr '04 initiated Project Make a Difference to teach photography to 16 teens.
Since January of this year, Orr has worked every week for two hours with one group of boys and one group of girls. Not surprisingly, Orr encountered obstacles at first, as the majority of teens sat with their arms crossed, sullen and uncommunicative. In order to reach her students, Orr sought to make her classroom fun. Instead of giving her students busy work, she mixed work with recreation. For example, she used basketball to teach a lesson, thus keeping their attention. Eventually, the teens took an interest in Orr’s project, which was to teach them how to use photography as a tool for self-exploration.
“Teens have serious identity issues,” Orr said. “They can’t explain to someone who they are because they can’t truly explain it to themselves. It’s embarrassing for kids to talk about themselves on a deep, emotional level. Photography is a wonderful medium in which teens can speak without using language.”
To aid in self-exploration, Orr taught her students how to make plaster masks of their faces. Students then decorated them using paint and personal photos. Since other cultures have incorporated masks into storytelling, they can symbolically tell the story of who the students are and how they see themselves.
While photography aids in self-exploration, Orr also taught students how to use photography as a tool for community exploration. Orr brought in magazines and asked the students to find interesting photos that spoke to them on an emotional level, and then asked them to point out what they perceived to be their community’s flaws. Their responses reflected their disillusionment with Xenia as a place that lacks positive recreational opportunities for teens. As a small farming town, Xenia simply doesn’t have many places for teens to hang out in other than empty lots or fields. Teens have commented that they dwell in sheer boredom, which can casually lead to teen delinquency.
Orr loves working to combat teen delinquency, and she caters toward those students with special needs, such as those who lack proficiency in reading and writing. Orr feels a kinship with them since she also suffers from learning disabilities. Throughout her life, Orr has struggled with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), which results in hyperactivity and a short-attention span. She also suffers from dyslexia, which hinders her ability to recognize and comprehend written words, and auditory sequencing disability, in which she confuses number sequences, lists and directions.
Orr’s disabilities may have hindered her academically, but she has managed to succeed in spite of them. From an early age, she found solace in her mother’s support and excelled in extracurricular activities such as photography, athletic training and after-school programs.
“The main problem with having a learning disability is that you suffer from low self-esteem,” she said. “You can’t help but feel stupid. Being a teenager is really rough, but I managed to find many outlets, which is what I try to teach my students. Just because they aren’t good readers and writers doesn’t mean they can’t succeed.”
Orr admitted that her participation in several co-ops with Community Media Workshop (CMV) in Chicago greatly aided her knowledge of media. CMV is a non-profit organization that works with other non-profits to teach students how to use media effectively.
“Basically we learned from other non-profit representatives that the media skews our words so the world doesn’t always hear us, so we need to ensure we use the media to get our points across without any misleads,” she said.
Whereas CMV influenced Orr, Appalshop has been the greatest influence on her in terms of planting the seeds for Project Make a Difference. Appalshop is a multi-disciplinary arts and education center that produces original films, videos, theater works, music recordings, spoken-word recordings, radio pieces, photograph pieces, multimedia pieces and books in Appalachia.
Orr participated in a similar workshop in which her students created a video about their community. The students learned how to use cameras, how to edit and how to interview community members.
“The students did such an amazing job that a local church hired them to participate in a commercial and to produce a religious show,” she said. “Because of this project’s success, I learned that youths have a powerful voice in that they can create social change through media and that adults don’t give them enough credit.”
Even though the teens have completed their photography project, they sought to create change in their community by raising enough money to build a youth center in Xenia. Orr and the teens plan to distribute petitions and questionnaires in the near future, and hope to put a levy on the voting ballot to raise the funds. Xenia Mayor John Seraga has recently established a foundation for the cause.
Those interested in learning more about Project Make a Difference and Xenia’s youth center campaign should email Maurya Orr at maorr@antioch-college.edu.