Our Greatest Hits
Our Greatest Hits: Student Reflections on Music and Memories was written by the students of Helen Bernstein High School in Spring 2022 in partnership with Paramount Pictures
Introduction
From The Smiths to BTS to Rocío Dúrcal, music grows up alongside us. It uplifts our triumphs. It soothes our strife. It motivates us, understands us, shapes us. It helps us forget just as it helps us to remember. The pieces in this book are an invitation to explore the question: How do the stories of music intersect with the stories of our lives?
When the authors of this book, students from Helen Bernstein High School, were asked to identify a song that held personal meaning to them and relate it to their lives, they ran far and dove deep, making profound connections between who they are and what they listen to.
This book was born of their hard work and the support of their mentors from Paramount’s mentorship program, Kindergarten to Cap & Gown. For over a decade, Kindergarten to Cap & Gown has supported students in raising their voices and expressing their creativity through storytelling.
This year, in partnership with 826LA, the mentors and students met over nine sessions to brainstorm, craft, and polish their stories. Students gathered in-person to meet with their mentors online, expertly navigating the hybrid world we are living in today. In the classroom and on Zoom, conversations abounded. Debates over musical taste, the exchange of memories brought on by certain songs, the creation of mixtapes, and the dissection of lyrics, rhythm, and flow. All of which were then transformed into the stories inside this book.
Read on now. The authors have much to tell you.
— MADDIE SILVA, APRIL 2022