In this article, I share some Humans of New York (HONY) posts I use with my high school students to discuss more complex, real-life scenarios when targeting problem-solving, perspective-taking, and social inferencing in speech therapy. The links to the stories are below and completely free to use. All credit goes to Brandon Stanton, the interviewer and photographer for Humans of New York. Several of these I got directly from paging through some of his books I’ve purchased.
I’ve struggled with finding activities for my older students with goals that include social inferencing, problem-solving, resolving conflicts, and higher level perspective-taking. There’s only so many short films on YouTube you can show. And YouTube short films are great; I love them. But I wanted to find more resources I could use to talk about these concepts, and more real-life scenarios rather than general, vague social problem scenarios that lack naturalness, lack emotion, lack connection.
I want my students to feel some connection to the characters and situations we discuss. And I want to use high quality materials with them.
I loved the Humans of New York series on Facebook, a collection of real people, real problems, actual lives that people are talking about. With real-life pictures that draw you in to the person and make you a little more invested in their stories. It’s powerful, moving. So I wondered if it was something I could use in some of my speech/language therapy sessions with older students with social pragmatic and problem-solving goals.
My findings? A LOT of HONY posts have swearing, or otherwise inappropriate themes. Most of them aren’t well-suited for talking about in a classroom or therapy room. But I bought Brandon’s books – Humans of New York and Humans of the World, and I don’t regret the purchases. I’ve found a few gems in the books that I’ve used with my students and felt like we had productive discussions based on the stories, drawing real critical thinking and perspective-taking.
So I thought I’d share a list of some of the Humans of New York posts I like. Some of them I’ve used with students already and some of them I haven’t yet, but feel they would be well-suited for addressing inferencing, perspective-taking, or problem-solving goals. These aren’t beginner-level activities or discussions, and they won’t readily apply to our students’ lives right now. But I think there’s value in exposing our students to different people’s experiences whether they can relate or not, and exposing them to different points of view or world views that they may not notice otherwise.
Shorter posts to target problem-solving and perspective-taking
Some guiding questions you can use when discussing these:
- What is the problem?
- What is the person currently doing about their problem?
- What is the outcome? Is what they’re doing effective? Is their choice helping or hurting them?
- How is the person feeling about their problem?
- What are some other things this person could try to solve their problem?
- How do you think those solutions would go? Do you think they’d be effective? Why or why not?
- What solution might you choose if you were facing this problem?
- How do you think another character (e.g., manager, girlfriend, friend, parents) might be affected by this choice?
https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/91466613216/today-im-supposed-to-meet-the-manager-at-my-new
https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/70152531167/i-had-a-whole-vision-i-wasnt-a-pro-but-i-could
https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/107417435716/ive-watched-a-lot-of-people-who-did-worse-than
https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/74174205413/well-theres-this-girl-that-im-friends-with-and
https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/75061129655/i-told-her-that-if-she-wanted-to-start-over-to
Longer posts to target reflection on how a person solved their problem & perspectives changing over time
- What is the problem?
- What did the person do about their problem? Was it effective?
- Did their choice help or hurt them, and how do you know this?
- How did the person feel before, and how do they feel now? What changed over time?
- What lesson did the person have to learn to work on their problem?
- How do you think another character (e.g., wife, friend, parents) was affected by their choice?
- Were there any negative consequences for their choice? Do you think those consequences were worth it?
- How do you think you would feel if you were in this person’s shoes?
https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/178961226566/when-i-was-eighteen-a-large-group-of-students
https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/140701739731/i-was-working-as-a-school-safety-officer-when-i
https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/181849715696/ever-since-i-was-twelve-years-old-my-mom-wanted
Longer posts to target emotions and perspective-taking, problem-solving, and with bonus opportunities for vocabulary in context
- What is the problem?
- How does the person feel about their problem?
- What is the outcome? Is what they’re doing effective? Is their choice helping or hurting them?
- What lesson is the person learning? How do you think this lesson is changing their perspective and feelings over time?
- What are some other things this person could try to solve their problem?
- How do you think those solutions would go? Do you think they’d be effective? Why or why not?
- What solution might you choose if you were facing this problem?
- How do you think you would feel if you were in this person’s shoes?
- Using context clues, what do you think [vocabulary term] means in this sentence?
https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/187759350661/im-seventeen-im-doing-my-best-to-convince
https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/137426761756/i-think-i-felt-entitled-to-success-because-im