Listening to this American Listening assignment felt like listening to one of the old fashioned radio shows from the 1930?s. The stories were just audio clips with supporting audio documentary. The First story in this session kid politics told the story of a class democracy in a Chinese Classroom.

The first section of Kid politics told the story of a Chinese classroom and its race for class president. The speaker talks about all of the atrocities of dirty politics. The kids in this story begin with simple bribes and promises, then their campaigning efforts escalate to full-out mudslinging. The next section is speaker’s recollection of listening to clips about the watergate scandal.

The Watergate scandal was something that occurred during the Nixon administration. The speaker mentions something about someone throwing someone under a bus and being charged for conspiracy. The speaker goes on to mention something about the Invasion of Granada. She uses this example to further explain Cold War politics. She uses the teacher’s examples to show how fear is instilled in the minds of the youths that she’s teaching. I did like the speaker’s descriptive language when she was describing the different scenes during the re-enactment of the invasions of Granada. This section ended with a discussion of consequences due to the action they chose during the Mock Invasion of Granada.

The next part of the show was talking about a debate about global warming. There apparently were laws passed to have teachers and instructors to teach both global warming and climatic change. The show host brought in a professional in the field of Global Warming to talk to a student who is skeptic about global warming. The point of the argument is to try and convince the student that global warming is true. The show host made the professional sound boring like she was constantly droning on. The argument was thwarted by its inconsistencies and missing pieces. There needed to be more information to convince the student.

The last section of the radio show talked about a school where the students made the rules. The school was entirely democratic. Students made the rules that they all abide by. The meetings could be called by anyone, meetings were held every day, and the students decided what was best for or them.

The radio show brought up a lot of interesting points. People don’t necesarilly need scientific fact to be convinced on certain matters and that it can be hard to uproot skepticism. People need re-assurance to know that they made the right decisions, or the best decision they could make given the situation. Sometimes it’s better to allow people to call their own shots instead of having someone call the shots for them. Sometimes all someone needs is to be heard. We all have some moral responsibility to the actions that we have done. I feel that this radio show was enlightening and enjoyable. I encourage you guys to listen to it because it did raise a lot of interesting points on human social interaction teraction.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/424/kid-politics