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CNN 5 Good Things
How about a break — for your ears? At CNN, we know the news can be a lot to take in. So each week, 5 Good Things offers you a respite from the heavy headlines and intense news cycle. Treat yourself to something fun and uplifting every Saturday as we share the bright side of life from all over the globe.
Calling All Moms to the Dance Floor!
CNN 5 Good Things
May 9, 2026
Hear why thousands of moms across the country are lining up for a night out. It’s Teacher Appreciation Week: meet the 2026 National Teacher of the Year. A two-year-old boy who was born profoundly deaf can now hear, thanks to a new FDA-approved gene therapy. An iconic TV personality just turned 100. And, how a community in Idaho celebrated a young leukemia survivor's birthday.
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Host/Producer: Krista Bo Polanco
Producer: Eryn Mathewson
Senior Producer: Felicia Patinkin
Editorial Support: Deborah Brunswick, Hazel Tang, Madeleine Stix, Jim Schiffman, Elliott Proctor
Episode Transcript
Krista Bo Polanco
00:00:00
Hey there, welcome. Lots to celebrate this week. We've got moms, teachers, some epic birthdays. So let's dive right into the good vibes. I'm Krista Bo Polanco, and this is CNN 5 Good Things.
Kerri
00:00:12
We knew we were taking a gamble, but we wanted to open every door for him. I never thought this be possible.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:00:20
'A rare diagnosis led one family to a first-of-its-kind treatment that's giving new hope to children who are born deaf. Plus...
Ashlie
00:00:27
I think that this healed a part of our family that we didn't know could be healed after such a long and devastating journey.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:00:32
I'm warning you now, have tissues on standby for that story about a community coming together to celebrate one child's very special birthday. And speaking of birthdays, nature's most trusted voice just had a big one. We gotta take a quick break, but on the other side...
Elizabeth Wellington
00:00:46
We were wanting something like really dedicated for moms to feel connected and alive and vibrant.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:00:52
Moms can feel like themselves again.
Dance party recording
00:00:59
Hello! Welcome to the mom dance party!
'Sarah Battani-Samms
00:01:02
We can give you three hours of fun. And sometimes that makes all the difference in the world to go back into mothering the next day.
Elizabeth Wellington
00:01:08
Yes, I am a mom. Yes, that's part of my identity, but it doesn't have to be the whole of my identity all the time.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:01:16
'Enter moms feeling themselves, a community Sarah Batani-Sams and Elizabeth Wellington built around one pretty simple idea. Moms need space to feel like people too.
Elizabeth Wellington
00:01:26
We were wanting something like really dedicated for moms to feel connected and alive and vibrant. I think we get so disconnected from our physical bodies if you've given birth and dance is one way that we can kind of get out of our heads and really reconnect.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:01:42
'So instead of another playdate or a wine night, they've thrown sold-out dance parties in Denver since 2022 for thousands of moms of all ages who can let loose and be home by 10 p.m. Now they're taking the mom dance party across the country in cities like San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
Elizabeth Wellington
00:02:00
You're going to be welcomed in open arms and we want you to leave with education, with community, with friendship, with empowerment, and to know you're not alone.
Kerri reading to Miles recording
00:02:13
What does the leopard say! Rahhh!
Kerri
00:02:17
One of the days we were heading to school, I was like, Miles, I love you. And he would head his back to me. He turned right around and he went (smooch) and blew me a kiss. And I was, like, you heard me. You heard me say that and you blew me kiss. And it's just, it's amazing.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:02:31
'That sweet moment between a mother and her two-year-old son once felt impossible. Kerri's son, Miles, was born profoundly deaf because of a rare gene mutation known as OTOF. Only about 50 kids are born with it each year in the US. It means the ear can pick up sound, but the signal never makes it to the brain. Instead of relying on hearing devices like a cochlear implant, Miles' family took a chance on something brand new, a small clinical trial testing a one-time gene therapy. Doctors used a harmless virus to deliver a working copy of the gene directly into both of his ears to repair that connection between the inner ear and the brain causing his deafness.
Kerri
00:03:08
We knew we were taking a gamble, but we wanted to open every door for him and knowing that the clinical trial could restore his own hearing was what got us through.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:03:21
About five months after the treatment, 16 out of 20 participants had improvements in their hearing. Now this therapy from biotech company Regeneron has just received FDA approval. So while Miles' condition is rare, doctors say this breakthrough could pave the way for treating other types of deafness in the future.
Kerri
00:03:37
It's miraculous. I mean, you go from being told your child's profoundly deaf and may only ever hear with technology to your child hearing right alongside his friends. Now he's crazy and he's two and he loves music and dancing and running around and yelling at his siblings and it's one of those where you're like, I never thought this would be possible.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:04:03
It's Teacher Appreciation Week, so we wanted to take the time to highlight a special one. Leon Smith, a high school social studies teacher in Pennsylvania is getting some major props.
Leon Smith
00:04:12
Winning the 2026 National Teacher of the Year is just absolutely amazing. I just have so much respect for the teaching profession.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:04:21
'Before students dive into AP US history or African-American studies each day, they start somewhere a little unexpected.
Leon Smith
00:04:28
My classroom is really a community. We always start out every day with a circle where we all get together and I ask a question. Today was like, what's your favorite late night snack? You know, yesterday I asked, you know, have you ever met someone famous? And so we really spend the first five to 10 minutes every class period just getting to know each other. And then by the time it gets to the learning, there's really just a comfortability that exists in the room that allows the students to really engage in rigor.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:04:58
'The 46-year-old has spent all 25 years of his teaching career at Haverford High School outside of Philadelphia. He's also coached the freshman basketball team for 20-plus years. Mr. Smith helps students not just memorize historical facts but think critically for themselves.
Leon Smith
00:05:11
We want our students to be critical consumers of information. And so we don't just learn content in my class, we learn skills that will help them to create the society that they wanna live in.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:05:23
That's why 10th grader Bianca Salerno considers him her favorite teacher and history her favorite subject.
Bianca
00:05:29
He didn't teach us what to think. He taught us how to think, so it never felt like he was telling us history as like a linear story from beginning, middle to end. It always felt like history was a conversation and it made me love history so much and makes me wanna do that when I grow up.
Leon Smith
00:05:46
That's what I love about teaching, that teaching you have a tremendous impact on students' lives and you will make it so that they will never forget you. And you're not doing it because of that, you're doing it cause you care and you wanna make a difference. Because in many ways we've all had a teacher that has done that for us.
David Attenborough
00:06:06
I had rather thought that I would celebrate my 100th birthday quietly, but it seems that many of you have had other ideas.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:06:17
Known as the voice of nature, Sir David Attenborough celebrated his 100th birthday this week. And in an audio clip shared by the BBC, he thanked people around the world for the outpouring of birthday wishes.
David Attenborough
00:06:28
'I've been completely overwhelmed by birthday greetings, from pre-school groups to care home residents and countless individuals and families of all ages. I simply can't reply to each of you all separately, but I would like to thank you all most sincerely for your kind messages.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:06:49
Another way to mark the occasion, scientists have named a newly identified wasp species that was discovered decades ago in Chile after him. The legendary naturalist and broadcaster already has more than 50 species with his namesake, including a flat lizard or the "Platysaurus Attenboroughi" and a tree called the Sirdavidia Solanona.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:07:09
'His storied career started in 1953 at the BBC. But did you know that he almost didn't appear on TV at all? One of Attenborough's first bosses thought his teeth were too big. Who knew? Today, he's the longest-serving TV presenter ever, according to the Guinness World Records.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:07:25
'He pioneered the pivot from black and white to color television, and fun fact, he's a big reason why tennis balls today have that yellow-greenish color, after realizing white was hard to follow on screen. While filming the BBC's Life on Earth in 1978 in Rwanda, Africa, a three-year-old gorilla named Pablo took a liking to Attenborough and playfully laid on him. In this clip from BBC Studios, he reflected on the animal's reputation with this now-famous line.
David Attenborough on BBC
00:07:49
It was really very unfair that man should have chosen the gorilla to symbolize all that is aggressive and violent. And that's the one thing that the gorilla is not, and that we are.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:08:04
Back in 2016, when he turned 90, he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour the secret to his success.
David Attenborough on Amanpour
00:08:10
Well, I think it helps to be interested in what you're doing, and of course an awful lot of people, including me, would actually pay to what I'm doing, to be truthful. And so why stop?
Krista Bo Polanco
00:08:22
You can read more about iconic moments in his career at cnn.com.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:08:28
'Up next, a six-year-old recovering from leukemia couldn't have a normal birthday party, so his community showed up in a big way. Now's the time to grab the tissues.
Ashlie
00:08:44
I thought that we would get maybe 20 moms and it went viral and our entire community showed up.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:08:49
'More than 1,000 people came by the Hillius home in Caldwell, Idaho recently for an epic birthday parade for six-year-old Levi. It was a special trip around the sun for him because he's recovering from acute myeloid leukemia and a bone marrow transplant.
Ashlie
00:09:02
He's always been just a ray of sunshine. Even when we were in the hospital and he was in transplant, so like in his hardest days, he would wrap gifts that were for him and deliver them to other kids on the transplant floor, write them little jokes on cards and put them in their mailbox.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:09:17
The procedures and treatments left him immunocompromised, so a typical birthday party wasn't in the cards for him.
Ashlie
00:09:23
Levi was asking when his birthday party was, and I had to explain to him, we can't have a birthday, it's just gonna be us. And he was very understanding, but as a mom that just broke my heart. So I was like, I know there has to be a way.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:09:35
So Ashlie, Levi's mom took to TikTok with this emotional plea titled birthday parade.
Ashlie TikTok
00:09:40
This is where I need your help. My son can't have a birthday party, and so I am trying to orchestrate a birthday parade from Complete Strangers. We don't have lot of families. She posted.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:09:48
She posted that video on April 23rd, and it's racked up over six million views. Two days later, the community showed up in full force for Little Levi.
Birthday parade video
00:10:03
Happy Birthday Levi!
Ashlie
00:10:03
We Aatually had the military and the National Guard showed up and let Levi sit in one of the vehicles. We had the fire department, neighboring police agencies, car groups, motorcycle groups, a hockey team. We had large semis going through our neighborhood. And over a thousand community members with their cute little signs screaming out their window, Happy Birthday. And he just like looked up and was like, "Wow, I don't know how all these people know me, but this is so awesome." And I was like I don't know buddy, they just all think you're super great. And uh... I think it was just awesome that he realized how big this was and how loved he felt.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:10:35
After receiving mountains of birthday gifts from strangers, Levi donated many of the extras to other kids fighting cancer.
Ashlie
00:10:42
I think that this healed a part of our family that we didn't know could be healed after such a long and devastating journey. And I think we all just need a reminder that kindness and love and compassion in all walks of life, if we just show up for each other, then we can support everyone.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:11:00
All right, that's all for now. Thank you so much for listening. There's more goodness where that came from if you sign up for the CNN 5 Good Things newsletter. The link to subscribe is in our show notes. And join us tomorrow for the next edition of CNN One Thing. Host David Rind speaks to Congressman Cleo Fields from Louisiana about how a major Supreme Court ruling could impact his district and voters across the country. Take care, until next time.
