Lessons from a School Shooting Survivor (0:30)

Guest: Missy Jenkins Smith, author of “Lessons from a School Shooting Survivor” and “I Choose to Be Happy”

Twenty-two years ago, Missy Jenkins Smith was in a hospital bed learning that she was permanently paralyzed from the chest down. She was 15. The day before, she’d been shot by a fellow student at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky. Three of Missy’s classmates died in the shooting. This was 1997. Three months later shooters would kill four students and a teacher at a middle school near Jonesboro, Arkansas. A year and a half later… Columbine. We didn’t know it then, but it was the beginning of an era in which fatal school shootings would become common in America. Since the day a school shooting changed her life, Missy Jenkins Smith became a counselor for at-risk youth, a motivational speaker and author. Her latest book is: “Lessons from a School Shooting Survivor: How to Find the Good in Others and Live a Life of Love and Peace.” 

 

How We’re Saving the California Condor (17:54)

Guest: Tim Hauck, Condor Program Manager, The Peregrine Fund

A baby California Condor has flown its nest in Zion National Park. “Condor 1000” is the bird’s name because it’s the 1000th condor born in the wild since conservation efforts began in 1982. Only a handful of those wild-born chicks have survived to successfully leave their nests. Condors are the world’s largest flying land bird. Why’s it so dangerous for them out in the wild? 

 

As America Becomes More Religiously Diverse, Tolerance of Other Faiths Isn’t Enough (36:05)

Guest: Diana Eck, Founder of the Pluralism Project, and Professor of Comparative Religions at Harvard University

America’s religious landscape is changing. Fewer and fewer people identify as Christian each year the Pew Research Center surveys Americans. The ranks of people who say they don’t affiliate with any religion are swelling. Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans who identify as something other than Christian has risen a bit in the last decade. All of which means that we’re less religious as a country, but also more religiously diverse than we have been. How do we make sure our religious differences don’t drive us apart?

 

Why a Spanish Dictator’s Remains were Removed from his Grave and Reburied (51:12)

Guest: John Rosenberg, Associate Academic Vice Principal, Brigham Young University

Spanish dictator Francisco Franco’s remains were laid to rest in a special building called the Valley of the Fallen for almost fifty years. Until October, when the Spanish government moved them to a private grave. Franco ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975 and was buried with victims of the Spanish civil war, but critics said that gave him too much respect for what he did.

 

Photography Project is Capturing the Faces of the Last Remaining Speakers of Indigenous Languages (1:07:24)

Guest: Paul Adams, Head of Photography, Brigham Young University

Thousands of languages are on the verge of extinction as the last speakers pass away. BYU photography professor Paul Adams is traveling the country capturing taking portraits of these final speakers, including Marie. The project is called “Vanishing Voices” and one of the photographs from it has just been accepted into the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.

 

How Teachers Tailor Reading Instruction (1:24:40)

Guest: Rachel Wadham, Host, Worlds Awaiting on BYUradio, Education and Juvenile Collections Librarian, BYU

Rachel brings topics relating to children's literacy to Top of Mind a couple times a month. Today she discusses how teachers can manage classrooms with kids of varying learning abilities.