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514: Thought That Counts
Dec. 20, 2013

Prologue

Host Ira Glass speaks to teenagers at the Arundel Mills Mall in Maryland about something that's difficult for so many teenagers: finding Christmas presents for their parents. He talks to Kevin and Karyn Delauder and their dad JD, and two other teens, Gage and William.
512: House Rules
Nov. 22, 2013

Prologue

Ira talks to 15 year old Jada who, when she was in third grade, moved from Akron Public Schools in Ohio, to the nearby Copley-Fairlawn schools in the suburbs. After two years, Jada was kicked out by administrators who discovered that her mother was using Jada's grandfather's address in Copley, instead of her own in Akron.
509: It Says So Right Here
Oct. 25, 2013

Prologue

Host Ira Glass tells the story of man in Florida named Lanail Hudson who it turned out wasn't actually Lanail Hudson. He had stolen Lanail Hudson's identity and had been using his name for decades.
508: Superpowers
Oct. 18, 2013

Prologue

Host Ira Glass talks to comic artist Chris Ware, who thought about superheroes a lot of the time as a kid. He invented his own character and made a superhero costume, which he wore to school under his regular clothes.
507: Confessions
Oct. 11, 2013

Prologue

Ira talks to Father Thomas Santa about the kind of confession that he finds among the most difficult to listen to — and not because what’s being confessed is too big or too horrible — but because, as Father Santa explains, they aren’t sins at all.
504: How I Got Into College
Sept. 6, 2013

Prologue

Students all over are starting college this month, and some of them still have a nagging question: what, exactly, got me in? An admissions officer talks about the most wrongheaded things applicants try. And Michael Lewis has the incredible story of how a stolen library book got one man into his dream school.

Act One: The Old College Try

Ira talks to Rick Clark, director of undergraduate admissions at the Georgia Institute of Technology, better known as Georgia Tech. Clark says the latest trend in misguided college admissions efforts: parents emailing and calling the admissions office, pretending to be their own children.
485: Surrogates
Jan. 25, 2013

Prologue

Host Ira Glass visits Claremont Middle School in Oakland, CA — a school with two principals. Principals Reggie and Ronnie Richardson are also twins.
484: Doppelgängers
Jan. 11, 2013

Prologue

Fred Armisen worked up an imitation of Ira and put it into a sketch on Saturday Night Live a couple of years ago. But when they rehearsed it with an audience, there was not a roar of recognition; it seemed like Ira might not be famous enough to be mocked on network TV.
481: This Week
Dec. 7, 2012

Act Three: Washington, D.C.

Ira asks Washington-insider Norman Ornstein if we actually need to be paying attention to all of the Fiscal Cliff political news. Or can it wait until next week? Ornstein is the author of the book It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism.
480: Animal Sacrifice
Nov. 30, 2012

Prologue

Ira admits there is a question he’s wanted to know the answer to since he was a kid in Hebrew school: Why is it that Jews don’t sacrifice animals anymore? Especially since the Old Testament is so clear that God wants it? Ira talks to religious studies scholar Jonathan Klawans to find out. Jonathan is the author of a book covering this subject, Purity, Sacrifice and the Temple.
474: Back to School
Sept. 14, 2012

Prologue

Host Ira Glass talks about his experiences reporting on education and theunending question of how we can make schools better. He discusses theChicago Teachers strike and an essay by writer Alex Kotlowitz that talksabout how the strike raises questions about the severity of this challenge.

Act One: No These Things Will Not Be on the Final Exam

Ira talks with Paul Tough, author of the book How Children Succeed, about the traditional ways we measure ability and intelligence in American schools. They talk about the focus on cognitive abilities and conventional "book smarts." They discuss the current emphasis on these kinds of skills in American education, and the emphasis on standardized testing, and then turn our attention to a growing body of research that suggests we may be on the verge of a new approach to some of the biggest challenges facing American schools today.

Act Two

Our story picks back up with the question of how non-cognitive skills can be taught to older kids who have gone much longer without learning things like self-control, conscientiousness and resilience. Ira returns to the story of Kewauna, the Chicago teenager, who talks about the dramatic ways in which she changed her life.
467: Americans in China
June 22, 2012

Prologue

In preparing for this show, we started reaching out to Americans living in China and asking for their stories. A shocking amount of the expats came back with stories about different times they were on Chinese television.
466: Blackjack
June 8, 2012

Prologue

Host Ira Glass and producer Robyn Semien get a blackjack lesson from Andy Bloch, who played for the MIT blackjack team. He teaches them the basics of card-counting, the technique that gives players an advantage against the house — enough of an advantage that most casinos will ask you to leave if they catch you doing it.

Part Two

Ira and Robyn go to the casino to try out their newfound card counting skills.
465: What Happened at Dos Erres
May 25, 2012

Prologue

Ira tells the story of how Oscar Ramirez, a Guatemalan immigrant living near Boston, got a phone call with some very strange news about his past. A public prosecutor from Guatemala told Oscar that when he was three years old, he may have been abducted from a massacre at a village called Dos Erres.