“Welcome to ‘Behind the Eyes of Our Youth’, where we talk about anything and everything” are the opening words to a raw and honest podcast series hosted by juniors and seniors at Martin Luther King High School in East Germantown.
‘Behind the Eyes of Our Youth‘ is a podcast series hosted and produced by the students enrolled in Dr. Stephen Flemming’s Communication 101 Program. This class fulfills a humanities requirement that students need to graduate, and through a partnership with Harrisburg University, students who pass the class will earn three college credits.
Flemming is a pure Philadelphian, born and raised in West and Southwest Philly, educated in Philadelphia public schools, then attending Temple, Cabrini, and Drexel for his doctorate. He’s been a teacher for 18 years, and a podcast producer for almost four and a half years.
The podcast was born out of necessity during the online and hybrid teaching days of the 2020-2021 school year — “the idea came from the fact that we needed to use some minutes in class,” Fleming explained. He admits he had no prior experience or plan. Flemming “quite literally launched into it. I hit record on Zoom and told them we were just learning as we go.”
However, it did fit perfectly into the curriculum: “I didn’t just see the communication course as just public speaking, so I expanded it to include things like podcasting, and some journalism principles.”
The inaugural students in 2020 named the show, and to this day ‘Behind the Eyes of Our Youth‘ is student-run. The students select episode topics, which provide real insight into what the students care about.
“The students each week suggest topics and vote on them and discuss them,” Flemming explained.
On the show, students are often anonymously sharing their unfiltered thoughts and opinions about topics that “grown ups” would never speak into a microphone about. Recent episode titles include ‘Thoughts on Our Current President,’ ‘Can potential fathers have a say in abortion decisions,’ and ‘About the Staff at Martin Luther King High School.’
In May of 2024, student-podcast hosts released an episode with Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. In this episode, Krasner explains to the students the problems with the parole and for-profit prison system.
“I know that the reality is that the place you stop crime is in this classroom, with proper funding to education, and with treatment available to those who need it,” Krasner said. A student asked the DA about his opinion on the federal government spending money overseas, when Krasner gave a political answer of “it’s complicated,” the student doubled down, going as far as referencing Norway’s healthcare system.
In January of 2023, the hit television show based on a Philadelphia Public School, ‘Abbott Elementary‘ aired its “Read-A-Thon” episode which introduced the now-running plot of Abbott’s podcast club.
“I remember that episode,” Flemming continues “I love it. I love the idea that they’re doing it on, there was some discussion and murmuring. We were just wondering whether they got the idea from us.” Abbott Elementary writers did not respond to requests for comment.
The most downloaded episodes of ‘Behind the Eyes of Our Youth’ are about redlining’s relationship to crime in Black neighborhoods and college preparedness — and the audience is not just students. According to Flemming, the “audience isn’t generally teenagers. It’s mainly those 35 and up that listen to us.”
Through this podcast, Philly youth is capturing the attention of adults, while freely speaking their mind.
