From stories of babies getting switched at birth to spending a month with Long Island Jeep dealers struggling to make their monthly sales goal, This American Life (TAL) podcast is as diverse and multifaceted as the variety of people and issues it covers.

Primarily a journalistic non-fiction program, producers at WBEZ have concocted a delicate ecosystem of human interest, law, culture and wonder. Through an array of featured essays, memoirs, field recordings, short fiction and found footage, radio host Ira Glass guides listeners to realize things in this world are relentlessly interesting, even if we take too little time to notice them.

Last week I found myself journeying across TAL archives to find out how to best fix the poverty-education gap. I’m greeted by Glass and journalist Nikole Hannah, who present a startling discovery.

A famous 1964 painting by Norman Rockwell depicts Ruby Bridges, a little black girl, walking with books in hand on her way to an all-white school; TAL episode 562 is named after this painting, “The Problem We All Live With.”

We meet 13-year old Mah’ria Martin and her mother after Hannah details the fact that there’s only been one thing proven to cut the achievement gap between black and white students by half. It’s the same event detailed by our friend Norman Rockwell in his painting: desegregation.

Hannah’s work recalls how old fashioned, Brown v. Board of Education, 1954 bussing worked until sometime thereafter when white people fled from the schools. Bussing inadvertently re-segregated the school systems.

This is where Mah’ria and her mother come in. Their goal is for Mah’ria, a very bright girl at the top of her class, to have access to “quality teachers and quality instruction;” all the while, there’s a socio-political mess brewing in the district.

To say that every atom of my being was glued to the words coming out of my laptop speakers is a gross understatement. The podcast was unparalleled.

In and of itself, radio and its equivalent — the podcast — may forever be an old-fashioned medium. Desegregation may be an old-fashioned topic. But the way in which Glass and Hannah work to produce a very much alive commentary on “The Problem We All Live With” continues to captivate me in a way that cannot be accomplished through other mediums. So where TAL lacks in visuals, it is abundant in message and substance.

Episode 562 concludes that exposure is the only way to understand the other side. Mah’ria and her mother learn a lot as they navigate the murky waters of districting. The question, ‘What’s next?’ is repeatedly asked and answered and asked again.

There’s no doubt TAL leaves a remarkably strong impression. And whether we’re listening to dialogue about race, twins being switched at birth or swindlers at a rowdy Long Island Jeep dealership, TAL excels at offering what many mediums of entertainment fail to offer, perspective. All you have to do is tune in.