No, journalists of tomorrow, we have not given up

There’s a moment in any good interview when you let off your pen and start paying attention. Your posture changes, the atmosphere shifts and you get a feeling that the story is starting to take shape before it ever hits the page.

As I scribbled away listening to my students interview each other, I realized those moments would be frequent and profound.

To paint a picture, here’s a quote from each of them during their profile interviews.

“If I just stopped doing things the second I got afraid, that wouldn’t leave a lot of options,” Lauren Shein said.

“Life has a path for you, you just have to follow it and do your best,” Tashvi Khare said.

We throw a lot at our students during High School Journalism Institute. But they also bring so much with them that can’t be taught in a week or bought in a lifetime. Wisdom, perseverance, kindness and perspective — those all fit the bill.

It’s my second year as a mentor at this camp, and being surrounded by young people so eager to change the world reminds you of a time before you found your place in it. A time when you saw yourself as someone building (or dismantling) the machine and not as a cog in it.

It’s funny how quickly life’s maintenance takes over. The bills pile up, the rent comes due and life leaves the station whether you’re on board or not.

And when it takes so much energy just to make it to the next stop, you forget you used to hold hope like them, too.

We used to sit in class and daydream about saving the day. We climbed without ceilings and ran without limits and believed with our whole hearts that someday, we’d make an impact. I don’t see it as a consequence of youthful naivete. To me, it’s a conscious act to choose courage over fear.

That’s the kind of heart we need right now. Seeing it alive and well as our students swap stories both bitter and beautiful and exchange visions of a better day to come is beyond rewarding. And seeing so many thoughtful and dedicated mentors warms the heart, too.

Yes, what I’ve shared is sappy, perhaps overdone and admittedly cliche. It’s been a roller coaster of a week. But I think the real problem is that so many people, sometimes myself included, stopped listening somewhere along the way. Our time on this planet is so overwhelming, making it easy to let slip the idea that we could make all the difference, if only we tried.

But these kids have vowed to step up to save this world that’s been left for them, and I think we owe it to them to show we haven’t given up on it either.

— Austin De Dios covers county politics, programs and more. Reach him at 503-319-9744, adedios@oregonian.com or @AustinDeDios.