My nephew Jake is high-functioning autistic. Having little real knowledge about autism, I was often taken aback when my sister, his mother, would talk about his progress in school. “He passed his test about Romeo and Juliet,” she once told me. I responded with delight, but privately wondered how that could be so until the day I spent my first full afternoon with him at home, just the two of us.

While I sat reading, Jake bounced between a video of Romeo and Juliet and the Internet. As soon as he got bored with one, he’d jump to the other. His attention span was short, but when he zeroed in on what he was doing his concentration was entirely on the task at hand, and his working process was methodical.

I took special note of his video watching. He’d watch for five minutes or so, jump off and go to the Internet (on a computer located in another room), and then come back to the video, which he would rewind to a point slightly beyond the video’s starting point the last time he looked at it. He’d repeat the lines out loud. By doing so, I observed, he was memorizing the play which, I believe, was why he was able to pass the test.

That incident led me to reflect on something I’d always noticed about my brother, who had learning disabilities that were never properly diagnosed. Phil was unable to do simple tasks such as count change, but he could converse in depth, and factually, about subjects as diverse as World War II and football, all with information he learned from documentaries and events that he watched on TV.

It’s no real surprise, however coincidental, that I ended up working in, and becoming a passionate advocate of youth-created media. My most recent “a-ha moment” came this past fall, when I worked with a group of eighth-graders at Ferryway School in Malden. When preparing a short, ad-libbed public service announcement about teen pregnancy, the two “stars” incorporated facts we’d discussed in previous learning sessions, with no prompting from me.

The same holds true for my work at Terrascope Youth Radio (a project of MIT). High school aged teens pick environmental topics that they research and turn into audio features. In doing so, as a group they’ve learned what it takes to become a LEED-certified building—and talk about what they know in casual conversation. As individuals, they’ve learned about subjects as varied and different as biodiesel fuel and eco-fashion.

Learning from the media and learning through creating media are two entirely different yet connected techniques that I wish we would dare make standard teaching methods. How many of us, as adolescents, wished we could remember a math equation as easily as we could the ring size of our favorite star? How many of us learned quicker watching something factual on TV than reading a textbook?

Young people who are given the opportunity to use media as a tool for learning and expression come away with a number of valuable skills, among them critical thinking, better writing skills, public speaking. Our youth will be well served if (and when) formal education finds a way to partner with youth-media organizations, of which there are many, to create a new option for learning.

Beverly Mire is assistant director, education for MIT/Terrascope Youth Radio and a youth media consultant. She resides in Cambridge, Mass.