[intro music plays] [sound of ocean waves] HIKI NŌ, Hawai‘i's new wave of storytellers.

Aloha and welcome to this week’s episode of HIKI NŌ, Hawai‘i's New Wave of Storytellers.

I'm Civic Gomes.

I'm Mariah Daugherty.

And I'm Ash Miller.

We're 11th graders at Konawaena High School on Hawai‘i Island.

We're delighted to host this special episode of HIKI NŌ from the PBS Hawai‘i studio on O‘ahu.

This episode takes a closer look at the stresses students face, especially in high school.

For me personally, I feel that I'm often judged by what I wear, what I say, and if I'm being too loud.

I also feel stressed when I don't understand something or judged because I'm not taking the most advanced classes.

What stresses me out is when I don't get along with teachers.

Teachers are there to support you so you can graduate.

If they're not supportive or make life harder, then graduating becomes much more of a challenge.

Something that stresses me out at school is my focus.

As someone who has ADHD, I find it hard to concentrate on what we're learning.

Due to that, my brain constantly feels like it's moving a mile a minute, and it makes things hard to remember and take information in.

The HIKI NŌ stories that you'll watch tonight, from our peers across the islands show that we're not alone.

The stories touch on our universal experiences, the pressure of schoolwork, fitting in and applying to college.

[intro music continues] In this episode, we'll meet several students from H.P.

Baldwin High School on Maui to talk about the pressures they feel and what they've learned.

We’ll see a creative short film that throws viewers into what it feels like to be a teen, and then we'll meet the student directors behind it.

A student from Waiākea High School will get up close and personal with the camera to tell us about what she is doing to prepare for life after high school.

And we'll get some tips about how to prepare for the dreaded annual school picture taking.

We'll also get to watch a clip from an important PBS Hawai‘i discussion on mental health that features one of our very own HIKI NŌ students.

[sound of an ocean wave] So, without further ado, let's dive into the first story of the show from students of H.P.

Baldwin High School on Maui entitled ‘The Stress of Success.’ I think students are just faced with a lot of things to do that we can never, or we feel that we can never look at a situation differently because of how overwhelmed we are with all of the things that we need to finish.

I would say there is stress in schools, I think, like AP classes and like, IB classes put like, pressure on students to do a lot of coursework that might be unnecessary to them in the future.

I've had this mentality of 'I need to be the top person in my class if I want to get into so and so college, and I need to do this many more dance classes, this many more student council activities, this many more clubs just to out-compete them so that I can get into my dream school.'

[slow piano music plays] So I think the pressure exists, um, based on you know, family pressure to do well and you know, the expectation to go onto college.

Um, also the pressure, uh, with other classmates and students to do well and go to the best colleges.

I come as a product of a grandfather who was a superintendent.

That's been honestly one of my biggest pressures to get a 4.0 because every single time I see him, he always tells me to study hard.

Technically, there shouldn't be any pressure because there's a college that’s available for everybody.

Schooling is so important to him, so I wanted to always like, make it up to him in that sense.

I, I do worry about that about a lot of students because I do see that they don't have the skills, the coping skills to handle all of that pressure.

I've seen them just do studies, do homework, uh, until 12 o'clock at night.

Some advice that I wish I'd gotten is that like, sleep is as important as doing work.

The easiest thing for high school students is to mess up your sleep schedule during the day and then the rest of your day is bad.

I wish that I spent more time trying to get my, trying to get to know my peers, rather than trying to finish my assignments.

What I would like the kids to do or have ready for them is to figure out how to balance and experience life first.

Some things are not as important as they seem to be, um, because then you look back on like some of the things I was stressed about, like, freshman year, I'm just like, I would have had a lot more time if I didn't like, stress myself.

Like, I think that we're so focused on having good grades, that we're not really focusing on how much we've learned over the past years.

[sound of an ocean wave] Those were all true life experiences.

Now for an artistically daring take on the same stresses.

Let's watch the short film from students at Kaiser High School on O‘ahu.

[alarm clock blares] Life is tough.

That's what they say.

But they don't know what it's like every day.

That pressure and stress that you must hide away, parts of yourself beginning to fray, just repeating this ongoing relay.

That constant expectation to obtain that A, to wake up in the morning and to go to school, just so people can test you and prove you’re a fool.

This routine seems to repeat, a constant ongoing feeling of defeat.

The teachers say you obviously didn't try, but they don't know you go to your room and cry.

You did put in effort; you did your part.

They just don't understand you're not that smart.

Then comes the pressure from your mom and dad, who were so clearly disappointed that your grades are bad, you are punished and picked on for the rest of the year because you finally gave up on that future career that was once so close but it's now so distant.

It's hard enough getting up and going to class without the pressure and expectation that you have to pass.

The worst part, however, is not that you're a disappointment.

It's the permanent, never-ending embarrassment of always failing and coming last, of never been good enough.

Your confidence dropping fast.

Everyone else seems to be doing just fine.

Their parents are all proud, unlike mine.

Honestly, I can't think of a worse place than this, when in reality, it's made out to be somewhere where we should miss.

We should all take a moment to reflect on ourself.

All these high expectations can damage one's mental health.

If I was a teacher, I would always try to make sure that fear of failure is not a reason to cry.

People need to understand school is no longer fun or good because some of us don't fit in, although we wish we could.

[sound of an ocean wave] To get a better understanding of that film, let's meet the student filmmakers who produced it.

[sound of an ocean wave] Jack and I chose this topic to create a film about because it’s something that he and I, along with many teenagers, related to the most.

For us, it almost felt like a call to action.

Most are all familiar with this topic and how teenage life can be stressful, but oftentimes, this topic gets overlooked about the stress and pressure involved in our everyday lives.

So, for this film, we wanted to express this emotion that many teenagers are having.

We wanted the audience to have a better understanding of what we're going through, and to also relate to the teenage life.

We did this by creating tension throughout the film.

The clock would tick faster, the music would build up, and this tension created an uneasy feeling, which depicted that feeling of pressure and stress.

In the beginning, the individual had a routine, but later in the film, those routines faded, giving a stress and lack of caring feeling.

We expect the audience to understand this more and to learn that it's not all that easy for us.

This video puts the audience into a teenager's perspective, and that's kind of what we wanted.

[sound of an ocean wave] Now, let's go to Hawai‘i Island to meet Taylor McCann, a student at Waiākea High School, who shares a student reflection about how she juggles work, school and making plans for after graduation.

[sound of ocean waves] Aloha.

My name is Taylor McCann, and I'm a senior at Waiākea High School in Hilo, Hawai‘i.

Since the school year started, I've been struggling to find the motivation to keep up with my schoolwork.

As a senior, it's really difficult for me to not channel all my energy into my post-graduation plans.

I'm planning on pursuing a career in the film industry, and I've been fortunate enough to get the opportunity to travel to New York City later this semester to participate in an International Student Film Festival.

Around my travel plans, I continue to work every day to produce independent short films for other organizations around the country.

I've also been working part time to save money for my education and housing after high school.

I know high school is important, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to apply myself when I could be preparing for the other exciting experiences to come.

To keep my head on straight, I've been sharing my struggles with my friends so we can help each other feel understood and stay on track together.

And like, turning them in to schools.

Dude, good luck with that, it sounds stressful.

I feel the same.

I feel the same way, honest.

No, ‘cause seriously, like.

This is Taylor McCann from Waiākea High School for HIKI NŌ.

It's important to me, I have no idea.

[sound of an ocean wave] Next, let's dive into the HIKI NŌ archives to watch this story about mental health from students at Moanalua High School on O‘ahu, which profiles one student's efforts to reach out to her peers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

All right, okay.

All right.

All right.

Bye bye.

Because of COVID, um, every school had to figure out how they were going to handle distance learning different complexes, different schools had different plans.

Moanalua High School decided to take on its first quarter with 100% distance learning.

This has affected students’ mental health at home after losing their normal routines.

I'm gonna circle the fives because they don't match.

I didn't know how to handle this new way of learning, and also including the other problems that I was going through at the time, just everything just wasn't going to be good and that I would disappoint my teachers and my parents too, if like, I wasn't doing good in school.

So, that led me to have a lot way more anxiety than I already had.

I think that many students are feeling stress and anxiety, not only from the distance learning, but, you know, things are happening at home.

For me school was like, an escape for like, my problems at home and just like, everything that was stressful in my life going on.

I think their outlets for physical activity, talking to their friends, the, the social interaction, those things have been taken away.

I had outlets like soccer and judo, and that was a really good way for me to not only get my mind off of all the schoolwork and student council stuff I was doing, but to just interact with my friends.

In an effort to help other students cope with the isolation caused by distance learning, Taylor started a project geared to bring awareness to teenagers’ mental health.

My project is researching the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on teens and adolescents, and majority of teens and adolescents haven't been impacted by the virus itself, but the side effects of the virus, like being cooped up at home, being quarantined, not being able to go to school play sports.

As long as it helps just like, one family, I think it'll be worth it.

Taylor Katahira hopes to start the difficult conversation about mental health and help teens find the support that they need.

So she started with helping herself, and now she's trying to help other people who feel lost in this like, technology and the digital mess that we're living right now.

I'm not only hoping to educate and encourage kids to reach out to each other to their teachers, but I'm hoping to encourage parents and teachers to really sit down and talk to their kids, talk to their students about how they're really feeling.

You literally have no idea what someone else is going through.

When you're online, that just makes things even more difficult because you can't like, see them, and you can't reach out to them in the way that you normally would.

Hey sis, how are you?

By raising awareness that mental health should be a priority for students, Taylor hopes that others will find themselves in the same way she did.

This is Frances Uy from Moanalua High School for HIKI NŌ.

Okay, bye.

I'll talk to you later.

[sound of an ocean wave] Now for a different take on the difficulties of being a student, let's watch this next student reflection, also from a student on Moanalua High School on O‘ahu.

It's from the HIKI NŌ archives, but it's still as timely as ever.

Hi, my name is Jalen Acob, a junior at Moanalua High School on O‘ahu, and I recorded the following reflection on April 16, 2021.

The past year was challenging.

Just school in general was a struggle itself for me.

As my junior year was mostly at home, I still had to do my part on researching colleges, studying for SAT and ACT, keeping up with my grades, and prepping for senior year; all floating in my mind without realizing and taking the time to step back.

I tried out some no-screen activities, and after a while doing them consistently, I began to truly appreciate them.

Journaling daily, getting outside for some fresh air, and sewing helped with my mental health.

I enjoyed doing them and use it as an outlet away from stress.

I never thought I would see myself journaling or sewing, but when going back to reality, it changed me to have a better mindset.

I have many things to improve on, but by giving up, with my ability to stay strong, and being honest with myself, facing my fears, and being uncomfortable is what it takes to be grounded.

[sound of an ocean wave] The topic teenage stress reached a national audience when the Independent Lens documentary, Try Harder, recently aired on PBS stations across the country, including PBS Hawai‘i.

Everyone’s driven.

Everyone sees college as like, their logical next step, and they're willing to work their tail off to get there.

If I don't go to one of those big colleges, I will not be able to do what I want to do.

This moment in their life is the most important moment in their life thus far.

What does that pressure do to you?

HIKI NŌ student and Baldwin High junior, Mina Suzuki, took part in a live panel discussion on the topic after PBS Hawai‘i's virtual screening of the film.

[keyboard music continues] We discovered Mina through the HII NO episode that you took part in thanks to your teacher Trisha as well.

It’s an incredibly personal story and if you don’t mind, Mina, we want to show it with those who are here with us today.

But here’s Mina’s story.

I love you.

Three simple words.

Eight letters that can be conveyed in a multitude of languages, objects and emotions, something that seems forbidden to say since I had never heard it growing up in my Asian household, where showing what you actually feel is taboo.

For me, love was always conveyed in the forms of: Study hard, And go to college.

Ever since I started school as a little five-year-old, I thought I earned love through my accomplishments.

'Good job on your report card' was the closest phrase to the forbidden three words.

In order to feel loved, I became someone who lives off of what others think of me, always feeling the overwhelming desire to be number one, piling on extracurriculars until I'm about to break, building up for a resume for a college I'm not even too sure that I can handle.

There's always been a disconnection between me and people because of how I perceive love.

It feels as if I'm stuck behind a glass wall where I can see the people I hold close to my heart, yet I'm just an observer they won't notice until that glass cracks when I do something phenomenal.

I realized the extent of how I created the illusion that people loved me when I got a boyfriend.

He helped me to come to the terms that love doesn't come from what I do, but from people loving me for who I am.

My built-up qualms about saying the forbidden three words caused me to have trouble reciprocating them back whenever my boyfriend would say them.

As we continued dating, I began to see that it really wasn't such a sacred phrase that my family had painted it to seem.

Two years into our relationship, and he still teaches me things about love every day.

Love comes in many forms.

I'm slowly rebuilding my thoughts about what love is and how love works.

Yet, I know that through time and breaking out of my glass, I'll find my meaning of 'I love you.'

As an Asian American, watching this film, um, and then living in an Asian American family as you shared in your HIKI NŌ story, what’s the challenges with that?

I think one of the challenges of being an Asian American is definitely trying to live up to the standard that Americans set as Asians being exceptional.

I think that it’s something that a lot of my friends in my demographic experience, that feeling the need to be at your best all the time.

And I think that’s kind of detrimental to your mental health, because if you're always trying to succeed and you don’t step back to analyze like, ‘Oh my gosh, maybe my habits aren't healthy,’ then, you know, you kind of follow the path I did where you can’t say no and I pack my life.

I think that’s been one of the struggles of living in this kind of community.

On the subject of suicide, Mina, and again, with all due respect to confidentiality and friendships and everything, is that a subject you hear about, in you – not your circle of friends, maybe, but around campus?

It definitely was kind of a topic last year.

We did have a classmate unfortunately who did commit suicide so it was really jarring to hear that when the news came out, and it kind of really rattled our class, like, ‘Oh my gosh, we never thought this would happen in our time as high schoolers,’ and I think that it was definitely very devastating to hear.

Later on, we spoke with Mina about her thoughts on teen stress.

I think that it's important for the adults across our communities in America to understand the pressures that teens feel to achieve because when teens feel that they can't openly express themselves about what they're experiencing with their stressors from school or getting a job or their extracurriculars, it really takes a toll on like, their mental state, and it feels like this inescapable pressure to just do well constantly.

Grades and academic achievements definitely are not the most important things for a teenager to be worrying about.

I would say focusing on good character, focusing on good morals to guide you throughout your life, to become a good, kind person is where it really, truly matters.

I would say the societal formula that we give to teens like, to go to college, to get into some STEM field, to be this top-notch doctor is definitely not what really matters.

It's like, that's not what's going to make people happy.

What makes people happy is pursuing their passions and you know, focusing on what they love doing.

To watch the full panel discussion on Try Harder and teen stress, go to PBSHawai‘i.org/HIKINO.

[sound of an ocean wave] Now for a unique How-To, that’ll help you take the stress out of taking your school photos for the yearbook.

It’s from Pearl City High School on O‘ahu.

Let's watch.

[school bell rings] It’s your senior year.

You're finally entering your last year in school.

You can't wait to experience the best moments of your life, moments you want to remember fondly forever.

So go and take your senior portraits, that way you will remember the fun times in high school.

But preparing for a photo that shows your identity while still looking good can be really difficult.

So, what do you do?

How do you get the perfect senior photos?

To start, you have to find out and confirm what date and time your appointment is.

This will let you know how much time you have to prepare, to get the things you need for the perfect portrait.

After confirming your appointment, move on to planning your look.

Start with the outfit.

It can be something from your closet, or brand new.

Think about identity, whether it's formal, or if it's comfortable.

Maybe it matches the environment like color, textures and pattern.

Don't forget the accessories.

It makes your features pop and adds personality.

For women, plan your makeup session so it complements and matches your outfit as well.

The most important thing is to create a look that makes you feel confident.

Now you're completely set for the shoot.

Just be confident, have fun, and now you're guaranteed to have the perfect senior photos.

[sound of an ocean wave] Thank you for watching this episode of HIKI NŌ.

We hope you've enjoyed the work of Hawai‘i's New Wave of Storytellers.

We sure enjoyed sharing these stories with you.

Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

You will see some bonus behind the scenes content and keep up to date with the latest and best stories from Hawai‘i youth.

See you next week for more proof that Hawai‘i students HIKI NŌ, can do!

[outro music plays] The story “Living with Pain” was about my dad.

He lost his leg in a motorcycle accident a few years back.

And I guess he’s just talking about what he does on a day-to-day basis and how he dealt with pain, living with it.

The first shoot day, I had the camera.

I shot the interview.

Did a lot of b-roll, and Malina interviewed her dad.

When he was talking, I was kind of amazed.

I just saw him as uh, I guess someone to look up to because not a lot of people go through that kind of hard times.

So Shanna transcribed it and then together we just looked at what hit us, I guess.

Like powerful sound-bites and we just highlighted it, grabbed it and pulled it down and we just tried to arrange them in some kind of way that it told a story.

I was really thankful she did all of the transcribing because, like the thought of having to go back and look back at what he – all that he talked about kind of made me uncomfortable.

So I was really glad that I had someone that could, I guess, help me through that type of journey.

I knew that Malina was going to be emotional.

And I would be too, because her dad is telling his story of what happened that changed all of their lives.

I was glad to have helped her through this time because I would need someone there for me if the roles were reversed.

I think doing this story changed my relationship with my dad because ever since, like, right after I did the story I felt like I was able to talk to him.

Just about anything.

And I would just come and talk with him sometimes, and then it would just feel normal I guess.

A little more normal than how it used to before that.

I think Malina needed to get this story done because she wanted to show other people that the hard times aren’t going to last forever and that I think she just wanted to get her story and her father’s story out there.

[outro music plays]