Theme music

This is Sound School. IÕm Rob. 

You know that line in the Talking Heads song ÒOnce in a Lifetime.Ó The one where David Byrne says ÒAnd you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?!Ó 

I had that question ringing in my head recently when I was up on the mainstage at the annual Avdio Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia. I was hosting a live recording of Sound School and wondering ÒHow the hell did I get HERE!?Ó 

I actually know the answer, but itÕs still surprising to me. The whole thing. 

For the last four years IÕve run a week-long, audio storytelling workshop for reporters and producers at Radio Slovenia, the countryÕs public radio network. This year, the workshop was in Kope, a ski resort in the mountains not too far from the Austrian border. There were six students from Slovenia in the class plus producers from Germany, Hungary, and Serbia. At the end of the workshop, the students play their stories at the audio festival. 

This year, I was asked to host a chat at the festival with Samantha Broun for Sound School. SamÕs my partner and my teaching assistant at the Slovenian workshops. More importantly, sheÕs a very accomplished reporter. SheÕs earned several awards for her reporting on criminal justice including a duPont-Columbia Golden Baton for a story she produced for Frontline. 

We were invited on stage at the audio festival to talk about her recent work with teenagers. 

Sam [00:28:43] I find teenagers to beÉ willing to really share if you are interested in them, they want to tell you who they are and what they're about. It's my favorite age. 

For about a year and half, SamÕs been recording close, heartfelt, meaningful interviews with young people. Dozens and dozens of them. SheÕs received very little funding to support her work. But that hasnÕt stopped her. ItÕs SamÕs audio passion project. 

LetÕs go to the audio festival stage to hear more about the project and why sheÕs so compelled to do it. 

Rob - Sam has a really incredible radio project, an audio project, really, that I want to share with you, and it's called ÒSmall Truth Things.Ó And here's how it works. 
She will communicate with a school. She'll get permission to go into the school and record interviews with students. She doesn't know anything about the studentsÉ.Sam has never met them before. She knows their name, maybe she knows what grade they're inÉ sheÕs going into the interview cold. 
Derek - I love romance. I love watching cage drums. I love reading romance books. I love. I love love. Love is amazing. My name is Derek. I'm 16 years old and I live in Brooklyn, Massachusetts. For me, what makes a cute romance story is an unlike women character. They're not perfect when they start writing the book. But from the challenges they overcome with this person, they realize, I'm a better person when I'm with this person, and I love being around them. I want to change more. Let me become a better person. Let me change. My relationship with like liking romance. I have had like times where I've shared that to the wrong people and they have to make fun of me for it. But I really hope that in the future some guy or myself will find the bravery to write a romance book for all those guys that truly need it, and that it becomes something big to real so people can realize romance isn't just for girls. Guys like it too. We we like romance, we like being hopeless romantics, we want to hear these stories and relate to it. And yeah, no one can deny that love is a thing that I'm being most of on earth. With love, anything can happen. Love is amazing. 

Rob [00:08:10] That's Derek. What stood out to you about your interview with Derek, Sam? 

Sam -  I think his willingness to tell me that small true thing about himself, I mean yeah, it it's n it's not a thing that boys talk typically talk about, about love, about liking romance novels. And so when I asked him what are you passionate about, that was immediately what he told me. 

Rob - What did he say about the interview afterwards? 

Sam - I was in this school in Brookline, Massachusetts, which is just outside of Boston and I was there for a week, which I usually am, and at the end I got a beautiful thank you card from the school, from the principal and the the students who I had interviewed, and Derek's note said thanking thank you for letting me speak without fear, for not being afraid. 

Rob - How do you interview someone that you don't know, that you know nothing about? You've just met for the very first time?

Sam -  When a student walks into the room, like Rob said, I I don't know anything about them except their first name and how old they are. And typically I start by thanking them for being willing to do it. 

Then I tell them that I've been thinking a lot about kids recently. I think because of the state of the world and because a lot of the teenagers that I have in my life have been struggling a lot. I think because of COVID, because of social media and being pulled into their phones and away from each other, and that that's why I started doing Small True Things. That I believe that if we are curious about each other and if we listen when we ask questions, that we can't we can find Small True things that we can relate to. 

William - I turned 18 January. And it's not my favorite thing being in the Phillips, I'll be honest. It's not like, oh, it's your 18th birthday. Here's all the new things you have to do. It's okay, you're 18 now, now you have to figure out housing for college. Or you need to make an email to apply for an ID so you can apply for this, so you can do that. And you have a week to do it, have fun. It's like that kind of thing just happens now. It's a lot of not knowing what's happening. When the college finances are gonna get you, when you have to go apply for jury duty, stuff like that. And like it's gonna come in the mail, is it gonna come over email? It kind of comes out of left field when one of those things does come up. So I really just don't know what to expect. And getting used to that has been a little challenging over the last few months since I jumped 18. Dumping is a good word for it. My name is William, and I live on MarthaÕs Vineyard in the town of Edgartown, Massachusetts. 

Rob - I'm wondering about a choice that you've made for these. They're all about a minute and a half, two minutes long, give or take. We don't hear you. We don't hear any of your questionsÉ it's like you're not there. Why that choice? 

Sam - Because I mean it's not about me, but I do my hope is that you can feel what happened between us and I think that's the most important thing. I think that my goal is with each person I sit down with that eventually I get to something real with them and that you can hear that in what is shared. 

Rob - It's almost like you step away and just let the tape shine and let them shine. 

Sam - Absolutely. 

Rob -  Yeah. Get out of the way of the tape, as we might say. 

Sam - Yeah. 

Rob - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you give the students any coaching on how to answer questions? 

Sam - I do ask students to kind of fold my question into the answerÉ. They understand how to do that because of school, that oftentimes if they have to write an essay or something like that, they've been trained to kind of include the question in the answer. 

Rob - Just so we get a sense of the breadth of the subjects that the young people talk to Sam about, let's listen to one more. 

Avery -  My name is Avery, I'm 16 years old, and I live in Brooklyn, Massachusetts. At first glance, people see me as kind of a shy person, since I really don't speak to people that much. Being shy feels like just being in your own bubble, and being in my bubble is like a good feeling. Nobody can judge you, nobody can talk bad about you. Just your own person in this space, which I find comforting. I think mostly people who are shy have a hard time speaking up and communicating with others. Like groups of people in my class, like friend groups that don't really want to talk to me, which I understand, like I'm not bothered by it. It's more like I'm just like wondering, is it because I'm mute? Is it because I don't know? It's like I want to change. I want to speak to more people, I want to speak up and not be that regular person I've been for like a long, long time. But yeah, I wish I could just let go and I also just want to stay in my bubble. It's very confusing, but that's just how I think it. 


Rob - You call the project Small True Things. Why? 

Sam - Because I, I guess I feel like especially in America, like we have really begun to be very polarized. We have lost the ability to see the humanity in people who are different from us, that we've lost our ability to have empathy for people who may be different than us. And I think that it doesn't take huge conversations, it doesn't take any tricks, it really is that we really can relate to each other over the smallest of things. And so that even if you're not a shy person yourself, like Avery is, that to hear her be so honest about her shyness makes you feel something for her. 

Rob - We're partners. I know you pretty well.  (laughs) I know you very well. And often you will say about a book that you've read or a conversation that you've had with a friend or a poem, you'll say, ÒOh, what I really like is that it got into the nooks and crannies.Ó 

Sam - Yeah. 

Rob - What do you mean by that? Uh 'cause If because I feel like this project, Small True Things, is like that. 

Rob -  Yeah, things as well. I think the nooks and crannies for me are the honest parts. It gets into the honest parts. It gets you can hear their honesty, and I think you can't deny somebody when you hear their honesty, when you hear somebody being real like that. 
Rob - Right. Where'd the idea come from? 

Sam - The idea for Small True Things came from a fellow radio producer named Erica Heilman, who lives in Vermont. And like I said, I'd been thinking a lot about kids, worried about them, and it was a a year or so after COVID, and she called me one day and she was very worried about her son who was a senior in high school at the time, and my stepdaughter, Rob's daughter, Gwen was also a senior. And I had noticed when the students her age had gone back to school that things had changed. Things had changed for kids, they had been sucked into their phones for a long time. Things had changed in school communities. Like I said, I knew some young people who were feeling depressed. 

And Erica called me and she was like, Sam, we can do something about this. It's really simple. We could just do what we do. We can go to a high school with our recording gear and sit down with kids and ask some questions about themselves and really listen, reflect back what we've heard and make these little audio pieces that we then play back to them to make sure we get it right, and then we give to the school. 

So at the end of a week, when I've been in a school for a week, I'll go back to the school with a whole pile of these small truth things and give them to the school. And the idea is that the school then uses them so that students begin to understand each other differently. So that somebody might hear something about their best friend that they never knew, or they might hear something about a kid that they see in the hall but had never spoken to. 

And and that has happened. So, in in some of the schools I've been in, they have all school gatherings a couple times a week. And the idea is that there's no assignments tied to this. It's different than school. We don't want reflections, we don't want kids writing their own Small Truth Thing. It's simply about listening and being respectful. 

And so at certain schools they do at these all school gatherings just simply announce. Here's today's Small Truth Thing. 

And it, it turns out kids are really proud when they hear that their audio piece is gonna be played, they invite their families. The the principal of the school has reported that the room goes silent and everybody listens, and then at the end there's big applause. And that oftentimes for students they'll walk around the rest of the day feeling kind of puffed up and proud.

And and I I I guess one of the surprising things is that I've also heard from teachers in a school that it's shifted things for them. That they are reminded of the breadth of humanity of the their students and that their lives can be complicated or that they can be impacted by other things. One teacher said that it it put her back in touch with why she teaches, which is about connection. 

Rob -  One thing I'm noticing about what you're saying is that you know, here we are at an audio festival and it's largely radio producers and, and podcast producers. You haven't said that word once. That all that you're making it for, you're using audio for a school. 

Sam - Yeah, I think my first audience is the student themselvesÉ And then and then the second audience is the schoolÉ And then if it gets played beyond that, if it airs on the radio, that's great. I would love for these to be played on a public radio station in the communities that they're made in, because I think it would be great for a whole city to be to learn and hear about the young people who live there. 

Kadjatou -  I'm from Guinea, so I'm a Guinea Fulani. There are lots of Fulani people from other places like Sudyong, North Africa, like Sudan, Muritania, but I'm stupid from Guinea. And these visits, they're very important to me. They're something that I wear all the time. I like for people to notice my culture and background when they first get to know me. Just to understand that it's a very important thing to me, and it's not something that you just like take away from me. There's one specific bracelet where it was it was given to me as a baby, and I will be continually wearing it until I grow old and die, and I will be buried with it. The sound of the bracelets, it makes me happy because people will turn to me and the first thing they'll notice are my bracelets, my traditional accessories. The values of tilani that I carry with myself are mostly like there are other people of other cultures, and you need to understand that. We also have this saying in fulani, which my dad told me this morning. So that's basically if you're in a community or in a study where people have one eye, it's better for you to close your extra eye and see through that one eye so you can see the world the way that they see it. And so when people ask me, are you African-American? I say no, I'm African. Or I just say I'm flying. People ask me, oh, aren't you born here? I'm like, yeah, I was born here. But for me, I've grown up knowing my culture, so it's like when you know your culture, you're not as far away from it. Like you can always turn to it if you need help. And so when people ask me, are you American? I say no, I'm African. My name is Kadjatou. I'm 16 and I live in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Rob [00:27:44] I cannot believe she's sixteen. I know. I I was trying to figure out how I could get someone to buy beer for me when I was sixteen. Like I I would never have been able to answer any question remotely like that. It's really, really stunning. 

Sam [00:27:58] YeahÉ I said, I love your bracelets and off we went. 

Rob - Yeah, remarkableÉ What are the some of the things that have happened in terms of difficulties for radio producers? 

Sam - So yeah, finding a quiet spot can be really hard. Bells. Schools have lots of noises like bells to change classes. I don't know how this is possible, but I think I've done this seven times now, and I think five out of seven times there's been a fire drill while I've been there. So you're in the middle of an interview and then everybody has to go outside. 

One time there was - and this is a very American thing, but a live shooter drill, which was terrible and they told the kids about it in the morning and then I was in a room with a student and we had to pretend like there was somebody with a gun in the building. That was terrible. 

Some of the other things that go wrong is a kid I there's amazing interview with a kid and I make a great little piece and their release form doesn't come back. That happens. And that that's just a heartbreak for me because I don't get to share it with them or or you all. 

Rob - And a release form, just to be clear, is a form that a parent needs to sign that says  

Sam - Yes, 

Rob - my kid can do this. 

Sam - Yeah. 

Jose - My name's Jose. I'm currently a senior. I live in such a fault, I've lived there basically all my life. As far as me as a person, I'm usually just keeping to myself. It's not that I don't want to talk to people, I just tend to get awkward with social interaction, but I just tend to avoid it. In school it was not exactly great. I was kind of seen, at least elementary, I was kind of seen as this is a weird kid. And a lot of my peers just kind of stayed away from me. And whenever they didn't recommend me, it was usually at my expense. For the most part, I would just try to ignore it. And it didn't really help. The thing is when it comes to the bullies, if you try to just ignore it, that's gonna tell them that you're not gonna do anything about it, which will just encourage them to keep going. Throughout all this, I never told my my mom or anybody else about how bad it was. And how it emotionally, it was making me actually dread going to school because I knew that it would mean it would just be learning and be getting ridiculed by my peer. But going at the high school, I think that's when it changed. At least in the sense that I wasn't seen as the quote-unquote weird kid, just kind of learned a recent problem, which to me first, at least it was just an improvement. And I think it was last year that I finally had a heartfelt conversation with my mom. We're actually going into depth about it. And it was hard because I had had no loyalty there for a while. But it was also relieving when I finally expressed how the voice makes me feel. Because I finally made it know my truth. I realized now that it would have been better if I didn't say something about a student because at least it could have stopped it from continuing as it did. Because it changed more easy for me. As a kid, I tended to just ignore my own needs. And if I had to go back and tell my young person something like me, stand up for yourself because you matter just as much as anybody else. 

Rob - When you and I teach together, sometimes we'll mention to the students this kind of woo-woo idea that sound and audio storytelling is touch at a distance. I think if someone was to ever ask me, what do you mean by touch at a distance, I might play that piece. 

Sam - Jose was a pretty remarkable kid when I showed up at the school that morning to interview people, he was standing at the front door with a big plastic tub of little matchbox cars. Usually kids play with them and boys collect them. And here he was a senior in high school, and he was trying to get into the school with his matchbox cars. 

And so I got out of my car and I opened the door for him and he went in, and I didn't I didn't realize he was somebody I was gonna interview. And then he walked into the room where I was interviewing kids a little later, and we sat down, and I think his, this answer was to one of the first questions I asked him, which is how would you describe yourself, right? And he says, as a stereotypical weird kid. 

And we spent a whole bunch of time talking about what that meant and what that's like and what it means to be bullied. Really incredible that he opened up to me like that. 

And then I thought, but how am I gonna make a piece about that? Like, how is this kid gonna be okay with sharing that? And so then I asked him a whole bunch of questions about matchbox cars, which was also a very long, detailed, lovely conversation. 

And so for Jose, when I went home to make a piece for him, I made two, which I'd never done before. And I went back to the school and I played him a piece about matchbox cars, which he loved because he was really into matchbox cars and painting them and fixing them, and he had brought his collection that day to show the other kids in the school. 

And then I said, but I made a second one, Jose, and I I I actually think it's really powerful because you were very honest with me and and very vulnerable, and I think that it would really help other kids, probably. Kids who are either bullied or kids who are bullies, to hear what you had to say about that. And I played it for him, and he was like, I like it. 

And amazingly, Jose's school is the one that you know would every a couple times a week play these for the whole school when they were gathered. And so the principal wrote me one day and said, We're gonna play Jose's tomorrow, and I was like (takes deep breath) I thought, I wonder how this will be for him. And he invited his mom and at the end of it everybody applauded, just like every other one, and she said he just was glowing for the rest of the day. 

Rob -  That's touch at a distance. 

Sam - Yeah. 

Rob - Yeah. In a minute, I want to open the floor to see if anybody here has any questions about Sam's project and these interviews and what the young people say and that sort of thing. But I I want to drill down for a second and ask you about this moment when you bring a finished Small Truth Thing to the people. It seems like that's a super important part of the process where you're getting permission from the young person to share it. This is the opposite of what happens in journalismÉ and so yet you're doing that here. Why? 

Sam - Yeah, because, because I think this is about me modeling, being curious and and listening, right, and connecting. And so by bringing this back to them, I'm saying, did I hear you right? Did I get it? Do I understand who you are? This little thing about you, did I did I get it right? And so it's important to me, and especially that they're gonna be shared in their school. They they've done something that's very vulnerable already, and then that we may take it to the next level by sharing it in their school. I wanna make sure I I get it right. 


Rob - Does anybody have any questions for Sam? In the back with the sweater vest. I appreciate your sweater vest, by the way. 

Janko Petrovicz Ð Hi there.  I'm Janko Petrovicz. I I was moved by well what you've been saying now. I was wondering in this Jose story that is really, really powerful. I mean I really appreciate your approach because it, it just seems so honest, really and so respectful towards the person. But have you ever asked yourself that you're actually with these little stories that you're you're helping these kids to liberate themselves in a certain aspect of their identityÉ like when he puts things in words with your help, he actually gives name, gives a name to something that is so identity forming for him, like bullying is. Do you actually any time  do you ask yourself like  what's the responsibility behind because you're actually influencing a person in a very particular stage of his you know of his becoming a man or a woman? 

Sam - I'm not sure if this is gonna answer your question, so if it doesn't, please ask again. But I I do I do think about that. I do think that kids this age feel things really big and so they things are really important to them or they have had formative things in their lives that they carry with them, but other people aren't aware of and and that's a huge responsibility that I hope I'm very thoughtful about. 

I think one of the things I love about this project is that with social media kids are so used to curating who they are, right? Like they take so many selfies and put up videos and they're, they're putting forth a certain image about themselves that is very one dimensional, I would say. It's you know, they're being very careful. And I hope that these are in some way the opposite of that. 

Rob - I remember you telling me once when you went back and played a piece for a young person and he was listening with his headphones on and and as he was listening to himself he was kept saying ÒPeriod!!! Period!!!!Ó like he was just so pr pr like excited and agreeing with himself like ÒI got it, I got it!Ó

Sam - That that's true that I think kids are not used to hearing themselves in this form. And so when you say radio is touch at a distance, I think actually for a lot of them, they're hearing themselves in a different way. 

Nico - My name is Nico. I am 18 years old and I live in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. I've struggled a lot with my money like growing up and one thing that I'm really passionate about in my life that I've never told my parents is that I'm queer. Yeah. But I think in the 7th grade I kind of had this movement where I just realized that the life I was living wasnÕt true to myself. 

And so I kind of had this whole mental breakdown in the back and all of my hair. And then I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like, wow, like this is really me, you know? I felt like I was under a pile of bricks and like I finally lifted it off myself. 

So that year was the first year that I ever, like bought my first binder, which helped me feel warmly. It was just like a huge moment really. 

But I don't see myself coming out to my parents anytime soon. My parents are very occasional, so it's kind of hard for me to get to support at home. 

But you know, at school, like I do Gender and Sexuality Alliance. It's kind of like a second moment to me. And like after school, I'm be able to find community where I'm accepted. And so I'm out to my entire school. Yeah. 

And I think coming out again and again and again kind of gets tiring, especially nicely for a lot of like queer youth. But an older teaching person was told me that the more you do it, the more confident you'll be in yourself. And it's like building blocks. Like one day I will be able to come out to my own parents, then that's probably the biggest building block I'll be able to put on there. 

Rob - I'm so proud of the work you do. 

Sam - Thank you, 

(Applause) 

Rob - we should probably end there, but what is it about young people? 

Sam -  They're just so, they're full of life and they're complicated and they're passionate and they're confused and they want to talk, they want to be heard, they're finding their way. And I think it it's about saying, I see you, you know, I see you, I hear you, you got this, you're awesome. Yeah. 

Rob - Thank you very much for talking. 

Sam -  Thank you. 

(Applause)

I spoke with Sam Broun in October. We were in Slovenia at the annual Avdio Festival sponsored by Radio Slovenia. Many thanks to Matej Proprotnik for inviting us. And to Mateja Grebenjak (gra-ben-YAwK) for her audio visual help. Hvala to both of you. 

Theme music

When we got off stage after talking for about an hour, Sam said to meÊ 'Oh my god. I have so much more I wanted to say!'Ê
Well, she'll have that chance very soon. She's writing an article for Transom that will be published this month -- in November. Find it at Transom dot org.Ê
Of course, If you want to listen to more Small True Things right away, visit Sam's website. Small True Things dot org."
This is Sound School. The backstory to great audio storytelling from. IÕm Rob Rosenthal. I produce this podcast for PRX and Transom and have help along the way from Genevieve Sponsler, Jay Allison, and Jennifer Jerrett.
Thanks for listening. 
##




Sound School Podcast 86 (transcript) - Seeking Small True Things - Sam Broun
Podcast Date: November 18, 2025





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