Fresh Starts: The Moth Radio Hour

The Moth

This episode of The Moth Radio Hour highlights personal stories from the Moth's Education Program, where high school and college students sh

Key takeaways

• Starting fresh often involves confronting systemic barriers, as seen when a student was denied advanced math despite strong performance.
• Personal growth can emerge from unexpected challenges, such as learning to fly fishing as a way to connect with family legacy.

Main topics

• Educational transformation
• Personal identity and growth

Notable quotes

"You have to get a 5. No pressure, but you have to get a 5."

Conclusion

These stories illustrate how fresh starts—whether in school, family, or

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:13) This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Peter Aguero. In this show, we are turning the spotlight to a department at the Moth that has been meaningfully changing lives for over a decade, the Moth's Education Program. Speaker 1 (0:27) Since we first walked into a school in 2012, we've worked with more than 2,300 high school and college students from New York City, from around the country, and around the world. Today, we're listening to some of our more recent stories. Some were told on stage for the first time right after the students had taken an eight-week workshop. And others got a few tries at telling before we got to hear them again. Just in time for back to school, we theme this hour, Fresh Starts. Speaker 1 (0:55) These workshops usually start with folks sitting in a circle, introductions, a little-known fact about yourself, and then the ice starts to break before it all tumbles down and we're ready to be vulnerable together. I used to be a classroom teacher about three lifetimes ago, and teaching's always given me this tremendous satisfaction. I really missed it, and I started going to the Moth Slams in 2007, and one day, the producer Jen Hickson... asked for volunteers to teach storytelling for The Moth. I jumped on it and I bugged Jen about it for weeks until I got on the roster. I've been teaching with The Moth now for 18 years. It's a tremendous honor. And there's a joy that comes from teaching folks how to be honest with themselves and how to talk about it in a crystal clear way. You go into these classrooms and... You talk to these kids and no one's ever listened to them like this before. They haven't ever had the opportunity to get in front of people and say something from their mind without having to convince anybody of the value of what it is they're saying. Most of these kids, you get in there and they're like, I don't have any stories. There's nothing I have to say. No one's going to care. And by the end of that six or eight weeks or however long you get to spend time together, they figured it out. They realize it, that their stories have value. Their experiences are real. They're theirs and they can help themselves and they can help others. All you got to do is start at the beginning and tell the truth. So this hour is focused on the Moth Education Program, Moth EDU for short. So sit back and listen. No pressure. You won't be graded on your participation. Speaker 1 (2:27) Our first story comes from Aravachayka. Aravachayka participated in the Moss Story Lab, which is an eight-week storytelling workshop, in person or virtual, for high school students in New York City and around the country. She went on to tell her story at the Education Grand Slam. Here's Aravachayka. I Speaker 2 (2:48) was entering high school at a progressive religious school, and it was considered progressive because there were mixed-gender classes. Speaker 2 (2:58) I walked in on my first day with a brand new dress that went below my knees and a boatload of optimism. I was really excited for this school because this was the only Jewish school in the tri-state area that offered BC Calculus. And I decided, because I knew someone who did it, that I was going to take BC Calculus my sophomore year. And in preparation, I took Algebra II the summer before high school. I looked at my schedule that first day, and I saw that third period on Monday was Algebra 2. The school didn't know me. I didn't know them. I'm sure it would all be okay, and by Tuesday morning, I'd be in a pre-calculus class. Speaker 2 (3:42) You know that really annoying kid in math class who sits in the front row, has their hands super glued in the air, and doesn't let the teacher finish asking the questions before answering? I was determined to be that kid. After class, I went up to my teacher and showed him my transcript. He looked at me and he said, it's my first day too. I don't know what I'm doing. You're going to have to go talk to the head of the math department. In order to find the head of the math department, I had to find the math department, which was also known as the bunker. Located in the basement of my school, it had no windows, no natural light, just flickering halogen lights that cast everyone in a sickly pallor. Speaker 2 (4:38) The head of the math department looked at my grade in Algebra 2, and then he looked at me, and he told me, we'll see after your first test. That's a little unreasonable, but not totally unreasonable. I got an 102 on my first test. Wonderful. He looked at my 102, and then he looked at me, and he said, we'll see after your second test. That was an 102 not enough. Speaker 2 (5:07) I didn't do as well on my second test. I got a 98. He looked at my 98, and then he looked at me, and he said, it's too late in the school year. You can't take pre-calculus this year. I'm sorry. Speaker 2 (5:25) I thought this was ridiculous, and my mother thought this was ridiculous, so by the end of that day, I was signed up for an online pre-calculus class outside of school. I should mention at this point that when someone else asked the head of the math department why I couldn't take BC Calculus my sophomore year and pre-calculus my freshman year, he explained that they didn't have enough resources for me. They did have four boys, though, taking advanced math at the time, so I guess four is just the maximum. Speaker 2 (5:55) At the end of my freshman year of high school, I returned to the bunker with my pre-calculus grade. He looked at my pre-calculus grade, and then he looked at me, and then he looked at the A-plus again, and he looked at me and he said, you know, we have this program where you can take pre-calculus over the summer. I pointed to my grade and I told him I've already taken this class, and he said, no, our pre-calculus is different. Speaker 2 (6:22) After spending that summer taking pre-calculus, I can testify that the unit circle is still the unit circle, no matter where you learn it. I was allowed to take BC Calculus my sophomore year. And for the first time in my high school math career, I really felt like I was flying. I was learning integrals. I was learning derivatives. I learned something called a Taylor series, which is really cool. It's when you have a function, and then you use derivatives to approximate that function in a series. And as you add them up and you add more terms to the series, the closer and closer it approximates the function, and it's just beautiful to watch. It's also how calculators do math. Speaker 2 (7:06) And so it really broke my heart a little when an older boy who had taken BC Calculus his sophomore year came up to me and told me that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to take it your sophomore year because he got a four and I'd have to work really, really, really hard to get a five. I was not interested in taking pre-calculus a third time, so I continued on. And later on that year, a freshman boy asked me whether it was a good idea to take BC Calculus my sophomore year. And after further questioning, it came out that he had actually been offered the spot and wasn't even sure whether he wanted it. Another freshman girl came up to me with the same question, and I told her it was a fantastic idea, and if she really was interested, she should email the head of the math department. Before we both went our separate ways, me to history and her to Hebrew, she told me teasingly, you better get a five, which is the highest score you can get on an AP, so I can take this class too. She was only joking. Speaker 2 (8:06) Later on, I went to math class, and I was learning integration by parts. And while my math teacher was in the middle of writing out a U, he all of a sudden capped his marker, placed it carefully in the tray, and turned around to face me. He clasped his hands together and told me, if you don't get a 5 on this exam, it'll reflect badly on me, and it will reflect badly on you. So you have to get a 5. No pressure, but you have to get a 5. Speaker 2 (8:36) I did in fact get a 5 on the BC Calculus exam. Maybe because I took Algebra 2 twice and Pre-Calculus twice. And I no longer attend that school. But more importantly, that freshman girl, she's taking BC Calculus there as a sophomore. Thank you. Speaker 1 (9:07) That was Aravachayka. She is now at university, and would you believe she majors in computer science and math? All of us still love Pascal's Triangle and a Taylor series and as a member of the university's debate team. Our next story was told by Edie Wadman. We met Edie at the Moth Story Lab here in New York. Here's Edie at the Moth's Education Grand Slam in the spring of 2025. I grew Speaker 4 (9:45) up in this weird suburban neighborhood of Brooklyn, perfect for Verizon commercials, because the houses looked like they could be anywhere, and the streets looked like they were made for playing kick the can. I had four friends growing up who lived on Kick the Can Street, aka the cul-de-sac around the corner from my house, and so all throughout elementary school I would go over there and we would make up games, most of which involving eating dirt. And as we got older and we reached middle school, I would go over there and we would sit on the cul-de-sac and plan our future. Specifically, a backpacking trip around Europe that we would take the second that we graduated from high school. In order to fund said trip, we needed funds, so we came up with business ideas. Starting a famous clothing line, starting a famous rock band, anything that can make us lots and lots of money. But growing up, I was always more of a realist. And when we were kids, I was the first one to suggest that maybe we bring the dirt eating to a gentle close. And as we got older, I was the first one to point out that none of us could really sew, never mind play a musical instrument. But at 12 years old, there was one business idea that I thought could take us to Europe. And that was babysitting. So one day, we walked around the neighborhood and we plastered flyers on every single lamppost with our 12-year-old phone numbers written in block print. What could go wrong? And we waited. And we waited. And when we waited some more, and when weeks passed, and we hadn't received a single call, I was crushed. Four years later, I tried again. It took until about a month before my 16th birthday for me to finally book my first gig. The big girl way, not through flyers on lampposts, but through Facebook. Speaker 4 (11:42) My first gig was around the corner from Kick the Can Street, so I knew the route well. I walked over confidently, went up the elevator confidently, walked down the hallway confidently, shook their hand confidently. I had felt ready to take care of kids since I was a kid, so I was feeling pretty confident. I waved goodbye. I turned to the baby. And then it began. The ear-splitting scream and the blubbering tears. Her mom was probably still in the elevator. It had been 15 seconds. There was no way I could ask for help now that would ruin my Facebook reputation. And so I waited. 10 minutes, 20 minutes. I bounced her on my hip. I cradled her in my arms the way one does to