Simple alarm clock drawing7/14/2023 ![]() ![]() Students weren't reporting to the area where they were assigned. "Teachers weren't able to be in the classrooms they're usually assigned to. "There were times when some other high schools relocated a grade level to our campus, which also made for extra adjustment to the classrooms," the administrator says in the podcast. Georgianna also interviewed an administrator with Jackson Public Schools, who agreed to discuss the crisis as long as Georgianna promised not to use her name.īecause water pressure continued to vary from school to school, instead of returning to virtual learning, the district sometimes sent students from one school to another. ![]() "I couldn't do anything else besides hold it." "Class was not my main focus," Mariah says. ![]() "They ended up shutting down some of the bathrooms" because the toilets could no longer be flushed, says Mariah, Georgianna's cousin, who remembers one particularly uncomfortable day. "Something so simple as using the bathroom has become difficult," Georgianna narrates, under the sound of a flushing toilet. Even after students returned for in-person learning, low water pressure remained a challenge. Imani Khayyam for NPRįor two days early in the month, all Jackson Public Schools went virtual because little to no water pressure in schools made it difficult to prepare meals and flush toilets, Georgianna reports. Georgianna McKenny wins the high school award in NPR's fifth-annual Student Podcast Challenge. Georgianna's podcast is about a few tough days in January, when low water pressure across the city hit families and schools hard. When Mariah looks for a bottle of water, she finds none. NPR judges loved Georgianna's entry because she took on a major story in her community, conducted in-depth interviews – and made excellent use of sound.Īfter being awakened by that blaring alarm clock, "Mariah starts her day by going to the bathroom, to check if her water pressure is working before getting ready for school," Georgianna narrates at the beginning of her podcast. "I don't listen to podcasts," she says, "they're, like, really boring."īut once she settled on the Jackson water crisis, and specifically, on her cousin Mariah's experience of it, Georgianna had something just as powerful as experience. Though she admits: She didn't actually know how to make a podcast. While most of Easterling's students worked in pairs – one writing, one producing – Georgianna did both, alone. I spend a lot of time in my head, actually, so it wasn't that hard," she says, smiling. We walk to Easterling's classroom, where Georgianna heads to her usual desk, in the back corner, and begins explaining how she went about making her podcast. "I texted her, and she was like, 'What is that?' Like, she didn't know about it. "She lives in Georgia," Georgianna remembers. Then she mentioned the water crisis, which has troubled Jackson for years, while texting with a friend from out of state. Georgianna grew up south of Jackson and struggled, at first, to settle on a subject. "Since I have students from all over Mississippi, they did research on the parts of their hometown that gave them a sense of place. "The idea was, they need to know their hometowns better," Easterling says of the assignment in his University Composition class. Georgianna poses with her English teacher, Thomas Easterling, who assigned the podcast contest as part of his composition class. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |