You’re a 6’6”, 240-pound high school senior – all muscle.
You’re a favorite on the football team, you just won an athletic scholarship to Boston College, and your coach says you’re built for a career in the NFL.
There’s just one problem – you’re terrified of being hit.
That was comedian Gary Gulman’s teenaged life and he shared his story recently on NPR’s This American Life in a charming 26-minute podcast episode. For the past few years, I’ve successfully used podcasts in my classroom to help students build the listening skills that are now needed for their computerized state exams. The kids love the episodes (maybe because those days are a half-hour less of me talking, eh?) and I love the breathing room they give us when we’re between units.
If you’d like to hear Gulman’s entertaining story of life as a reluctant football star, you can access both an uncensored copy and a clean/bleeped version here:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/676/heres-looking-at-you-kid
Note: The NPR program’s language is mostly clean, but Gulman does say, “Fuck, yeah!” twice early in the uncensored version of the episode as a tool of characterization to describe his enthusiastic assistant football coaches. The material is appropropriate for high school students, but you should listen to the podcast before using it in your classroom to make sure the content is a good match for your students.
Also, the second half of the episode deals with issues surrounding childhood sexual abuse and repressed memories. I don’t plan to use this “part 2” segment of the podcast at all; instead, I’ll instruct my kids to stop listening at the 26-minute mark.
As always, I wrote some questions to guide my students through the episode. After they complete the question set on their own, I’ll have all of us come back together for a full-class discussion of the topics raised in the program. You can write your own questions or download a copy of my set here:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Listening-Skills-Podcast-Based-Listening-Activity-Listen-Learn-8-CCSS-4611517
Want more podcast-based lessons? Click here and scroll down on that page to check out my full catalog of options: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Laura-Randazzo/Category/Listen-Learn-Podcasts-291031
Happy summer, everyone!