SECTION 2: OUR APPROACH

Wide Angle’s pedagogical principles are driven by student-centered, asset-based approaches, engaging youth as collaborators and creative visionaries. Our programs provide opportunities for creative youth development and promote media literacy skills that center youth needs, experiences, and perspectives. Through digital inclusion, we aim to combat the digital divide and provide career pathways in media through apprenticeships.

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Student- or youth-centered

Wide Angle is youth-centered. Students' needs, experiences, and perspectives are at the forefront of all decision making to create programs that support young people holistically - through education, building life skills and providing career pathways. We aim to create spaces in which media instructors/staff can learn from students, and students can learn from one another. Genuine student relationships are developed and established; learning outcomes are derived from student interests, needs and goals; and students have an active role in learning, leading, and serving. As an organization, we prioritize and keep our focus on the perspectives of young people. Our organizational chart illustrates how we center youth in all aspects of our work.

  • Wide Angle is not youth-led: Wide Angle staff, board, and leadership, most of whom are adults, make decisions to govern the operations of the organization. When possible, youth help shape the organization by participating in the youth council, developing communications strategies, and engaging in the hiring processes and strategic planning. Students are surveyed throughout the year to include their voice in decision making, and Wide Angle continues to open new opportunities for alumni and parents of participants to be engaged for volunteer advisory committees and board service.

  • Wide Angle is youth-serving: Youth participate in our programs, and instructors provide opportunities for youth leadership and for youth to take creative lead on their projects. Youth are engaged as collaborators and creative visionaries in the work.

Assets-Based Lens

We center a strengths-based or assets-based approach. Rather than centering a mindset of “fixing what is wrong”, we focus on building upon the good that is already present. When asked to describe the challenges that many communities in Baltimore face, we emphasize the impact of systemic inequities. For example:

  • Under-resourced or under-invested communities: Historical oppressions have shaped our society and denied equal access to all. We use this term to emphasize that many individuals and neighborhoods have been deprived of resources that are deserved (e.g. fair and equal access to housing, high quality public education, infrastructure investments, reliable public transportation). We prefer these terms to underserved, which can imply that someone is waiting to be served by someone else, instead of acknowledging that systematically resources are not allocated equally or equitably. 

  • Historically marginalized communities: Recipients of systemic discriminatory policy. Similar to under-resourced communities, the responsibility lies within the system, not on an individual. Many groups have been denied full participation in mainstream cultural, social, political, and economic activities (including, but not limited to, BIPOC communities, women, LGBTQIA+, low-income individuals, disabled people, and senior citizens).

  • Historically minoritized communities: Similar to historically marginalized communities, the use of minoritized further emphasizes the power dynamics of making a specific group that may actually be a majority of individuals, but they received minority status (eg: Baltimore City, where over 60% of the population is Black, but wealth and other resource distribution does not reflect that breakdown).

  • Words we do not use: Inner city, ghetto, at-risk or at-promise youth, thugs, riots. These words have been manipulated to become the coded language of oppression, used to forward specific political or social agendas. E.g., “Inner City” is not an inherently negative term - it describes a geography or location - but it has become coded language to imply BIPOC/poor city residents or communities, frequently with a negative connotation to advance white supremacy. We do not use the term “youth at risk”, as it focuses on the actions of an individual or a generalized group of young people, without directly acknowledging the social systems that oppress them. 

  • A note about the words we use: We acknowledge that any word can be co-opted and manipulated over time. For example, even the word “youth” can and has sometimes been used to characterize or stereotype students and young people negatively.

Creative Youth Development

Wide Angle aims to design spaces for youth to have artistic expression rooted in their ideas, stories, dreams, and lived experiences. Workshops are facilitated by media instructors who provide curricula that are responsive to youth interests and also promote skills such as leadership, teamwork, collaboration, public speaking, interpreting information, and civic engagement. Youth have access to new tools, creative support, and mentorship, and are connected to hands-on resources for skill-building.

Media Literacy

Media shapes almost every aspect of our lives—from the entertainment industry and news outlets to our education system and social media channels. Media literacy is the ability to identify different types of media, critically evaluate, and understand the relationships between media, information, and power. In Wide Angle classrooms, students analyze media, identify implicit biases and learn to extend their critical thinking as they produce their own media. (Adapted from: National Alliance for Media Literacy Education).

Digital Inclusion

Digital inclusion means ensuring that everyone has access to opportunities in the digital age, regardless of race, income, zip code, disability, or other factors. Wide Angle supports digital inclusion by offering free media education, access to online tools, providing students with devices, and advocating to close the digital divide. While our work addresses barriers that disproportionately impact historically under-invested communities, our programs are open to all eligible youth, regardless of background.

Internships, Apprentices, & Journeyworkers

Interns and Apprentices engage in year-long, paid on-the-job and technical training, and they apply their skills to produce media deliverables for community-based clients. (Apprenticeship positions are formally registered at the state and federal level; Internships are not.) Interns and Apprentices complete their position with a portfolio/reel, resume, references, and professional development training, which provides them with the technical and professional skills needed for a media career. Journeyworkers have completed their apprenticeship and are recognized as having mastered the required skills and competencies. The media industry is currently predominantly white and male-identifying. Our workforce training programs are one way that Wide Angle is actively working towards diversifying the media industry.