This Changes Everything

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

The COVID-19 crisis has really screwed up a lot of teenaged lives. In this episode, six students from Talawanda High School, in Oxford, Ohio, talk about how the pandemic has affected them—academically, socially, mentally—and what the experience might mean for Generation Z as a whole. The group also looks at how local, state, and federal officials have responded to the crisis and asks, "What can we learn from all this?" Episode producer and host Eliot Berberich is a freshman at Talawanda High School, but already an experienced student journalist and podcaster. Interview recorded May 8, 2020, with everyone calling into Eliot Berberich's home studio via Google Meet.


1) What have you liked about our 'Online Learning' experiment?

2) What would you change? Why?

3) What are you 'nostalgic' for (do you miss) from the way school was before? Explain.

4) Given the choice would you rather keep learning this way or go back to school in the Fall? Why?

5)  Decades down the line will do you think you will look back on this as a defining moment in your lives? Why?

6) What predictions do you make for how this will affect 'Generation Z' as a whole?

Democracy & Z is a student podcast, developed in collaboration with our friends at Elementz. The podcast features young people from communities across our listening area, sharing their unique Gen-Z perspective on current issues.

Face Mask Fears

Lawmakers are recommending that residents wear face masks in several major cities including New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia, but many African Americans fear they could be labeled a threat if they cover their faces to protect themselves. Jericka Duncan speaks to some black men who believe they were profiled by police while wearing face masks to combat coronavirus.

Sadly this is not the only story where black men have been unjustly profiled.

In Chapter 10: 'The Matrix In Me' we learned that we all have 'Implicit Bias,' or unconscious prejudice, whether we are aware of it or not. But if we consciously agree with what our unconscious minds reveal we can deal with it.

1) Why were the black men in both instances questioned in the first place?

2) Were the white men/ officers in these stories racists? Why or why not?

3) What is the difference between 'racism' and 'bias?'

4) What could have been done to change the outcome if anything?

5) What do these stories reveal about the deeper problem of race in America?

4 Dead In Ohio

50 years ago today, May 4 [1970] -- Four students at Kent State University in Ohio, two of them women, were shot to death by a volley of National Guard gunfire. At least 8 other students were wounded.  But why?

1) Who might Neil Young be referring to in the line “found her dead on the ground”?


2) What do you think Neil Young means in the song with the lyric “we’re finally on our own?”


3) What did students at Kent State think about the Vietnam war then?  What do they think now?


4) Do you think everyone agreed with Neil Young’s view of what occurred at Kent State? Why do you think “Ohio” might have also been a “touchstone of opposition” for people that supported the Vietnam War?


5) In what ways do you think the song “Ohio” might have been a more effective method of expressing shock and opposition than any journalism could have been?