Knowledge Matters, Spending Time With Kids, Edgar Allan Poe

Why Knowledge Matters Guest: E.D. Hirsch, Jr., PhD, Professor Emeritus of Education and Humanities at the University of Virginia, Acclaimed Literary Critic, Founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation, Author of “Why Knowledge Matters” More than half of Americans – 55% - tell Gallup polls they are not satisfied with kindergarten-through-high school education in the U.S. They blame politicians, federal laws like No Child Left Behind, state-based Common Core Standards, and teachers’ unions. But, it is possible that the real culprit is the curriculum teachers are expected to teach. NaNoWriMo Guest: Grant Faulkner, Executive Director of NaNoWriMo November 1st could mark a new chapter in your life. Literally.  It’s the first day of NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month. Every November, thousands of people pound out 50,000-word-novels. That’s about 200 pages in 31 days. Does that sound like something you could never do? Our next guest would like to convince you otherwise. Altruism Guest: Ulrich Mayr, PhD, Head of the Psychology Department at the University of Oregon Generosity can have many motives. You might give money to a charity because you believe giving is good and you enjoy seeing others benefit. But maybe, deep down, you wouldn’t be making that gift if there weren’t a tax write-off in it for you or some measure of social prestige.  Apple Seed Guest: Sam Payne, Host of BYUradio’s “The Apple Seed” Same Payne joins us in the studio to share tales of tellers and stories. Spending Time With Kids Guest: Judy Treas, PhD, Chancellor's Professor of Sociology, University of California, Irvine If you, like many parents, feel guilty for not spending enough time with your kids, take comfort in this new study coming out of the University of California, Irvine. It finds parents today are spending a lot more time with their children thant parents did in the 1960s. Tell-Tale Heart Guest: Carl Sederholm, PhD, Department Chair for Comparative Arts and Letters at BYU; Dennis Perry, PhD, Associate Professor of Humanities at BYU; Dane Allred, Adjunct Professor of Public Speaking in Student Development at BYU If you search Amazon.com for Edgar Allan Poe’s famous refrain “Nevermore” from his dark poem “The Raven,” you’re likely to turn up wall art, Halloween wreaths, mugs, even fabric to design your own American gothic creations.  So we’ve chosen to look at Edgar Allan Poe for this month’s installment of “From the Vaults,” where we explore the holdings of BYU Special Collections, which houses an 1845 edition of American Review, where Poe first published “The Raven.” Why does this old poem feel so modern?