The 1619 Project, Episode 4: How the Bad Blood Started is a podcast focusing on the racial health disparities plaguing the United States since the end of slavery. This podcast is a mixed set up of a dialogue and storytelling. It captures the listener first with someone sharing their story of how the lack adequate health care SEVERELY negatively affected a very close family member.
Once this story is shared this speaker then goes on to have a conversation/tell a story with another individual about the history of the health disparities focusing around one woman's journey of becoming a doctor and helping her community. They use archived recordings and background music to help evoke emotion from the listener.
Being an eighth grade math teacher I struggle to find a way in which I would be able to use this form of media to help me teach my curriculum though I have seen a podcast being utilized by the English teacher on my team. For this particular unit the students were listening to the Serial Podcast that focused around the murder of a high-school senior, Hae Min Lee, and the arrest of Adnan Syed for the crime. For the lesson they had to become investigators themselves, take a stance on whether or not Syed was guilty, and back it up with evidence from the podcast. The level of engagement in this unit was ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. Conversations that started in her class spille
d over into the hallways and my class after, so much so that I decided to listen to the podcast to stop the fighting help facilitate the sometimes heated discussions when it was obvious they weren't able to focus on anything else. Students were going home and listening to the episodes before they were assigned and writing letters to people involved to share their thoughts (all outside of assignments). Years after, former students still emailed her when more information came out about the case. This past school year the excitement around the assignment kinda fizzled because of additional information that came out but she is actively looking for another podcast.
I think that podcasts can be a great educational tool to get students interested, engaged, and thinking critically/problem solving. I am still unsure how I would use it in my math class but I think creating an SEL lesson with my advisory would be a good place to start.
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