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A generation ago, children in classrooms in the United States prepared for natural disasters such as fires and tornadoes. Today, active-shooter drills force them to confront the grim possibility that someone – perhaps a fellow student – might open fire in their school. In this StoryCorps animation, one such drill prompts a mother and her 10-year-old son in Texas to discuss a question no child should ever have to consider – whether he would sacrifice himself to try to save his schoolmates. An affecting and troubling short, The Drill gives an aching human voice to the psychological toll of school shootings and the culture of fear they’ve created for schoolchildren and their parents in the US.

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The ancient world
What wine vessels reveal about politics and luxury in ancient Athens and Persia
16 minutes

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Art
David Goldblatt captured the contradictions of apartheid in stark black and white
15 minutes

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Philosophy of mind
Do we have good reasons to believe in beliefs? A radical philosophy of mind says no
5 minutes

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Love and friendship
When drawing your muse hundreds of times becomes an exercise in love
7 minutes

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Thinkers and theories
Is simulation theory a way to shirk responsibility for the world we’ve created?
13 minutes

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Family life
In Rwanda, Sébastien finds traces of personal history in the wake of national tragedy
21 minutes

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Dance and theatre
Leaf through Shakespeare’s First Folio for a riveting journey into theatre history
13 minutes

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Love and friendship
A decade after his wife was swept away in a tsunami, Yasuo still searches the sea
9 minutes

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Architecture
Modern architecture should embrace – not ignore or repel – the nonhuman world
8 minutes