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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Artsy If You Haven't Listened to This American Life's Two-Parter on Harper High School...

Posted by Alison Hallett on Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 1:44 PM

Go do it. Now.

TAL's reporters spent five months at Chicago's Harper High, a school which last year saw 29 shootings of current and recent students. Violent gangs, the show explains, are not something these students "join": Gang affiliation is determined by which neighborhood a student's family lives in, and it's essentially compulsory. Kids walk home from school in the middle of the street because it feels safer than taking the tree-lined sidewalks; administrators must decide whether to cancel the Homecoming dance after a shooting; and counselors pour incredible amount of themselves into helping students who are profoundly traumatized by the amount of violence they've seen.

It's just ridiculously good, important storytelling set at the intersection of gun violence and the sorry state of our nation's schools. Listen to the first episode here.

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