Maplewood Students Participate In "Dear Future Me" Documentary

MAPLEWOOD, NJ — A short documentary filmed in Maplewood is attracting some national attention.

Every June at Maplewood Middle School in suburban New Jersey, 6th graders participate in an end-of-the-year rite of passage: they compose a letter to their future 18-year-old selves. This extracurricular assignment not only encourages middle schoolers to reflect on who they are, but to imagine who they might become.

After the letters are written and sealed, teachers safely lock them away for six years and wait. When these same students are young adults ready to graduate high school, the teachers mail the letters back.

This year, for the first time, the students opened those letters on camera for all the world to see, which turned into the film “Dear Future Me.” According to a news release, the parents, students and school district granted HP and award-winning directors Sarah Klein and Tom Mason special permission to film this ritual.

According to Mason, “2020 has changed all of us in profound ways, and that really comes to the surface for these kids. For the seniors, it's a clear sense that their more innocent, younger selves could never have imagined that things would turn out this way… For the 6th graders, these letters highlight how difficult it's been to go through all this at such a formative age... but they still manage to have fun riding bikes, building forts, and just being kids. It's a resilient spirit that I think we can all take a page from.”

Produced by HP and Redglass Pictures, the films were released this month on HP.com’s digital storytelling hub, The Garage and select VOD platforms. In addition to the films, HP has created a Dear Future Me mini-site, where viewers are encouraged to print instructions on how to write their own letters to their future selves.

You can watch "Dear Future Me" now on HP's The Garage by clicking by clicking here.