ABOUT MEGAN GILSON:
Washtenaw County Program Manager Megan Gilson (she/her) has been a part of the 826michigan community for over twelve years, beginning as a volunteer and intern and now serving as the Program Manager for our Washtenaw County programs. Megan has a Bachelor of Arts in Education from the University of Michigan and a Master of Education from Harvard University, where her studies focused on language and literacy education for K-12 students, inclusive education, and program management.
She holds English and Psychology teacher certification (grades 6-12) in the State of Michigan and brings her experience as a former classroom teacher in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor to build supportive relationships with our partner teachers and school districts.
Megan believes in the power of stories and community-building as forces that make change and build a better world, and puts that belief into practice to support 826michigan’s Washtenaw County team in building joy-filled spaces for youth creativity.
RESOURCES:
TRANSCRIPTION:
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU, and welcome to this week's edition of Washtenaw United. It is our weekly exploration of equity and opportunity in our community. I'm David Fair, and this week, we'll explore how providing opportunity to the creative mind can be foundational in creating greater equity. Coupling storytelling and community building, it's a big part of 826michigan and how it goes about setting that foundation. The non-profit serves creative young minds in Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Ypsilanti and, in fact, recently moved headquarters to the campus of Eastern Michigan University. It is doubling down on engaging the right brain and putting it to work for personal and societal growth. Our guest today is Megan Gilson. She is the Washtenaw Program Manager for 826michigan. And thanks for the time, Megan! I appreciate it.
Megan Gilson: Thank you so much for having me!
David Fair: Now that I've made such bold pronouncements about 826michigan, perhaps you can give me your perspective on why the skill of writing is so important.
Megan Gilson: Oh my gosh! So, thank you for having us! We see writing as not just an assignment to complete and turn in, but as a tool for everyone. And it's an extension of your voice and your perspective. It's a way to change people's minds, to envision and build new worlds, make ours better, and connect with other people and figure things out. So, when you look at writing this way, rather than an innate skill that someone's born with or only some people have or something that can be done right or wrong, it's more of a creative process that can be accessible to anyone of any age or background. And so, we think that that is such a fundamental skill in developing your voice as a young person and as you go through your life.
David Fair: So, let's talk about foundational strengths. You received your undergraduate degree in education from the University of Michigan, your master's in education from Harvard. You've spent time teaching students in traditional classrooms in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. Based on your experience, where are the strong points and weak points of our current educational system when it comes to developing effective written communication skills?
Megan Gilson: Yeah. So, getting the chance to work outside of the classroom now with 826, I've been here for about nine years, we are positioned to provide support to teachers because we bring those adults into the classroom, that when you're one teacher with 30 students, you can't give everyone the individualized attention that they deserve. And I always say that writers need that individual-like dialogue with a caring adult or a caring teen mentor to develop their own writing voice, to develop their own practices and habits as writers. And the fact that we are able to bring in so many people because of our great partnerships with EMU and U of M and our community volunteers, we're able to extend a teacher's capacity, so that students get that individualized support. So, I believe that teachers are doing phenomenal work with the resources that they have. As a former teacher, they work so hard, but we're just extending that capacity and extending what they're already able to do.
David Fair: You know, everything is connected in one way or another. Your teacher certifications were in English and psychology. And I think those are two subjects that really work well together. How does the intersection of those subjects promote self-expression and personal growth that you desire in this program?
Megan Gilson: Yeah. So, we offer a variety of writing programs in the community, and students are working on writing, but they're also building these important lifelong skills of self-confidence, of risk-taking, of trying things when they don't know the entire path forward. And so, again, when you look at writing as that and not just an assignment to turn in, it's a way of practicing your ideas before they're out in the world. It's a way to discover what you think about something. It's a way to build confidence in your own person and your own ideas. And that is a skill that we see students taking beyond just the books that they're going to be publishing, which is also an important part of our work, but a skill that they can take into other writing projects and into other areas of life.
David Fair: Washtenaw United continues on 89.1 WEMU. And today, we're talking with 826michigan's Megan Gilson. How does the art of storytelling actually help build community among the young people you're working with?
Megan Gilson: Oh my gosh! So, it looks different depending on which program we're doing, but every program has some sort of sharing component. So, at the beginning, we always do an icebreaker where students get their names and their voices in the room. Sometimes, we ask a question related to the story that they're writing. Sometimes, we asked a totally random, silly question. My favorite one is, "What is your least favorite type of candy?" Because I always gets people talking. They get so passionate about that. So, we get their voices in the room. So, even those quieter students, which I was myself, so I understand, those quieter students feel comfortable sharing something. And then, over time, we push them to share more and more of their stories. And one way that we do this is that we have our adult volunteers and our teen mentors right alongside the students, so that we're not just watching them write, we're just positioning ourselves as experts, but we're really building this community of writers that are engaging in this risk-taking and engaging in vulnerability together. So, when our adult volunteers or team mentors share their writing and ask for our younger students' feedback, our younger students are more willing to take the risk of sharing their half-fleshed out ideas as well. And they end up sharing more and more. So, we'll give them a bunch of different options. We could ask them to share a sentence. They could share a paragraph of their story. They could just tell us about what they're writing. So, we give them lot of access points into sharing their story, and that community building helps them feel connected to other people and helps them be willing to take the risk of sharing their story even if it's not complete.
David Fair: When you build a community of writers and when they find each other and something in one another, how do we, the community at large, ultimately benefit?
Megan Gilson: So, we are training young citizens here. They are sharpening their own voices because we see writing as a tool for many different purposes. Whether or not they become a professional, published author as an adult, writing is a tool that they can take into every area of their life.
David Fair: You know, the entirety of our society--you, me, everyone--we're spoon-fed so much short form, often misinformed content. Have you found that social media and the so-called TikTok world to be a barrier in helping young people tap into their own creativity and form of self-expression?
Megan Gilson: You know, we haven't yet. I feel like the way that we approach writing, I really want students to know that they can create their own stories that don't exist. So, I think sometimes students come in and they see good writing as copying stories that they already like. And that's part of the way there. Like, they're taking what they likem and they're trying to create something. But what we really want them to do is form brand-new ideas. Som we teach them how to do this. One thing I really love to do is to have students create a character by combining unlike things, so we'll make a list of different character ideas like cat, slice of pizza, robot. And then, we'll be like, "Okay, what if we combine all of these things?" So, it's like a pizza-cat-robot. And then, we're creating this brand new character that no one has ever heard of before, and they're not tempted to rewrite the Sonic the Hedgehog movie. But they're instead taking elements from these movies or stories that they like. Like mayben your character is adventurous or they're really fast or they solve problems. And then, you're combining it with this brand-new, silly idea that we came up with that is something that the world has never seen before, because that's a writer's job. It's to create things that are brand-new.
David Fair: Our Washtenaw United conversation with Megan Gilson from 826michigan continues on 89.1 WEMU. We've touched on it a couple of times, but the organization did recently move headquarters from Ann Arbor to Eastern Michigan University. How does that expand access and opportunity?
Megan Gilson: Oh my gosh, we're so excited to be here! So, just being situated on EMU's campus, we've been able to start a number of amazing conversations with university partners and with professors. And being situated in the Ypsilanti community allows us better access to the schools that we've be working with since we started in 2005. The majority of students that we serve in Washtenaw County are Ypsilanti-based. And so, being in the community just allows us to reach the students better. We don't have to ask people to go out of their way to come to our programs. We are bringing the programs to them. So now, we are offering programs in additional community spaces, so in schools, with our partners at Parkridge Community Center, here at EMU and at the Ypsilanti District Library. And we're going to where people are rather than asking them to come to us. It's also allowing us to have these great partnerships with emerging teachers. We have a partnership this fall with an education class here at Eastern where 50 students will be volunteering in our programs. So, that helps us get to that number of that individualized support that we're bringing into classrooms--those one-on-one mentors that work with students and helps them build confidence and help them talk through their ideas before they put it on paper. And we're just so excited to be here.
David Fair: I love that those who are participating get to write alongside adults and have the role models and mentors working directly with them. You know, we always look for how adults and teachers impact kids. I'm sure in your years with the organization, you've encountered kids who have written stories or shared of themselves in a way that has had impact on you. Anyone in particular stand out?
Megan Gilson: Oh my gosh, so many! But, yeah, I think, a number of years ago, I was working with a second-grade student at Erickson Elementary, who said, "I don't really think of myself as a writer." And I can relate to that. As a young person, I also thought writing was really challenging and didn't see myself in that way. But she had an amazing, amazing sense of humor. She's always laughing. She's always making jokes. And I was like, "Oh! This is a writer!" So, we helped her turn her humor into a story. So, she actually wrote a story about a Thanksgiving turkey that, left up on the table, it came to life, and it was dancing. There was like ham on the the table, and the ham was dancing, too. And it was just a very chaotic, funny table scene with all these foods dancing around. And the student ended up reading it in front of a huge audience at a book release party many years ago. And it just had the bit. She's so tiny. She's like a second grader. And she just had the biggest smile on her face. You could see in the moment that she was building confidence in herself by doing something that she felt a little nervous about and felt a lot uncertain about. But having 826 there with her, just being like, "Yeah, you can do this! This is a fun idea! People want to hear it!" And so, we always say we're not giving students a voice because they already have these wonderful, hilarious, brilliant, wise voices within them. But we're just sitting next to them, listening to their voices, and encouraging them, and pushing them toward wherever they want to go.
David Fair: Well, on this side, we certainly look forward to hearing those voices amplified further out into the community. Thank you so much for the time and sharing the stories today, Megan! I appreciate it!
Megan Gilson: Thank you for having us!
David Fair: That is Megan Gilson. She is the Washtenaw Program Manager for 826michigan and our guest on Washtenaw United. Washtenaw United is produced in partnership with the United Way for Southeastern Michigan, and you hear it every Monday. I'm David Fair, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU-FM, Ypsilanti.
WEMU has partnered with the United Way for Southeastern Michigan to explore the people, organizations, and institutions creating opportunity and equity in our area. And, as part of this ongoing series, you’ll also hear from the people benefiting and growing from the investments being made in the areas of our community where there are gaps in available services. It is a community voice. It is 'Washtenaw United.'
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