Blog #8

This American Life: “The Problem We All Live With – Part One”

I’m not quite a podcast listener so when I saw for this weeks assignment the class was to listen to a podcast, in all honesty I assumed I was going to have it play in the background as I do things around my room and then write anything on my blog to complete the assignment. However, within about five minutes in when I started to realize the issue being spoken of, it had my attention and my heart broke. I plan on becoming a teacher so this hit even harder for me. This story is just one of the many horrific issues African American and Hispanics in poverty have to endure in America. To see bright students not reach their full potential because of a fail school system is extremely disappointing but unfortunately not all too surprising. I am not shocked about hearing that the system at Normandy failed their bright black students, I am not shocked to hear the rude words and “worries” the white parents had when they argued about having Normandy students come to their children’s schools, and I am not shocked to see how much the children of the Normandy district excelled when they were given the same resources and efforts by sitting next to the privilege white students of the Francis Howell district.

Listening to the podcast as a whole a lot of things didn’t surprise me by my knowledge of how the U.S has been with African Americans. However, it does pain me to see what Mah’Ria Martin and her mother Nedra Martin, had to endure. Here is an intelligent and studious student who wants to succeed and wants a better education and she has to deal with so much coming at her from all angles. Why is that? Why can’t we give that to our children? It pains me to see children who have absolute no fault in where they were born or how they look or what they have, to be judged and mistreated for these circumstances. I knew as a college student if you have more money you can probably get a better education by going to a more prestigious university and everything but I didn’t know it was still an issue for grammar to high school. This podcast clearly exemplifies how our system really is set up so the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. How can the students in Normandy excel with their school’s circumstances and resources? Even the top of the class are struggling and left behind. On top of the fact that they already will have much less opportunities because they are black and poor. It’s a clear bath set up for them to fail. It is truly disappointing but at least a bit relieving to see that they are trying to make a change by desegregating the schools. Something that should have never happened in the first place. In essence, I appreciate this podcast for shining a light on an issue that is not spoken of enough and hope more change to come for all school districts that are going through the same obstacles.