Thursday, May 10, 2012

"Ar go"

Unlike NPR's Planet Money, which started out with one of the best debuts in in recent journalism then faded rapidly, American Public Media's Marketplace has managed to maintain its exceptional quality for better than two decades.

Here are a couple of examples from today's show (I'll blog about them later if I get a chance):

A beautifully done story on a program to help teen mothers in Cincinnati (*and the source of the title of this post). **

And a good account of the pros and the cons of the coupon business.

This show is definitely worth setting aside a half hour of you afternoon.


** While listening to Rayana and Liyah's story, keep this in mind:

Hart and Risley also found that, in the first four years after birth, the average child from a professional family receives 560,000 more instances of encouraging feedback than discouraging feedback; a  working- class child receives merely 100,000 more encouragements than discouragements; a welfare child receives 125,000 more discouragementsthan encouragements.

2 comments:

  1. That I definitely believe, based on what I see on the street every day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's also worth noting that there's a nasty synergy between this destruction of self-esteem and the lack of confidence many people feel towards math. The toughest part about teaching the subject in schools in lower class neighborhoods is convincing students that they can actually learn to do it.

      Delete