To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Why do we have schools? To build a workforce? To create democratic citizens?  Guests: Caryn McKechnie,Tim Storm,Jose Gonzalez,Curtis Acosta,Mark Slouka,Daniel Mendelsohn Interviews: Why America's Teachers Are Burning Out,Is Teaching Mexican-American Studies Un-American?,What Happens When Math And Science Rule The School?,The Crankiest Student In Your Class? That's Your Dad.

If life is a play, what happens during the last act? What’s it like to live knowing you have a limited amount of time left? Guests: Sabrina Frey Daniel Pink Maureen "Ma Dukes" Yancey Martin Amis Segments: Prepared To Go, But Still Busy Living When Time Is The Best Motivator Preserving J. Dilla's Legacy With A Beat When Should An Author Call It Quits?

All over the world, nation states are splintering. Separatism is on the rise. What causes nation states to erode? And what happens when they do? Should we fight to hold on to our nation states...or let them go in favor of something new? Guests: John Feffer Haleema Shah Shannon Henry Kleiber Mohsin Hamid Segments: What Would a Free Catalonia Mean For Spain - and the World? If Nation States Rupture, What's Next? Shaping National Identity in Pakistan Love In A Time of Mass Migration

Milwaukee is a city on water, right on the shore of Lake Michigan, split by the historic Milwaukee River. How did it shape the city's history, politics, culture, and people? We find out in this live broadcast from Turner Hall in Milwaukee. Guests: John Gurda Dan Egan Jenny Kehl Chastity Washington Ben Barbera Russ Klisch David Dupee Tarik Moody Siobhan Marks Venice Williams Kim Blaeser Melanie Ariens Interviews: The Life, Death and Rebirth of the Milwaukee River Who Owns the Great Lakes? Fire, Hops and Beer Wagons: The Beer History of Milwaukee If Macro Lagers Are Milwaukee's Beer Past, What Does The Beer Future Look Like? How To Build Flow For A Water Show Tracing the Enormity of the Great Lakes. By Foot. The Garden as Parish, With Water as Prayer Benediction: "A Song for Giving Back" Building Bridges With Water-Themed Art

Trees talk to each other, and even form alliances with other trees or other species. Some are incredibly old — the root mass of aspens might live 100,000 years. In this hour, we explore the science and history of trees. Guests: Mark Hirsch Richard Powers Suzanne Simard Amos Clifford Daegan Miller Interviews: A Year In The Life Of A Tree Listening to the Mother Trees Writing the Inner Life of Trees Bathing in the Beauty of the Trees General Sherman, Karl Marx, and Other Aliases of Earth's Largest Tree

More than 38 million Americans knit or crochet. Not because they crave mittens and afghans, but because they like the way knitting feels. Handwork turns out be a powerful antidote for digital overload.  Guests: Betsan Corkhill, Colin McGinn, Lynda Barry, Richard Polt, Tyler Knott Gregson Interviews: Can Knitting Improve Your Health?, How Hands Have Shaped Humanity, Lynda Barry's Radio Drawing Lessons, The Magical Mechanical Typewriter, The Typewriter Poet

Hip hop created a sound that changed music, art, fashion, and politics. What's next? Diplomacy? Journalism? Education? Philosophy? Guests: Chris Emdin, Xuman,Toni Blackman, Jeff Chang, Colson Whitehead Segments: For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, Hip Hop as Diplomacy. Hip Hop as Journalism, Cultural Critic Jeff Chang On Art As A Political Possibility Space, Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad"

Can we ever get inside the mind of an animal? Can we really know how an octopus or a parrot thinks? Also, the fascinating story of Charles Foster's attempt to act like a badger, when he lived in a hole in the ground and ate worms. Guests: Helen MacDonald,Charles Foster,Peter Godfrey-Smith,Elena Passarello, Interviews: Living Like a Beast,B is for Birdle (the Parrot),The Tentacled Alien From Under The Sea,Why Do We Love to Watch Animals?

As terrible as it sounds, most of us will go through something traumatic at some point in our lives. The experience can be deeply isolating and crushing, but it doesn't have to be.  Guests: David Morris,Mac McClelland,Jim Rendon,Bessel van der Kolk,Juan Thompson Interviews: A Brief History of PTSD,Secondary Violence and PTSD,The Positive Side Of Pain,Feeling Through Trauma,Life With Hunter S. Thompson

Modern anti-depressants have saved a lot of minds. And lives. But what have they done to our bodies? And how do we navigate that trade-off between body and mind? Guests: Lauren Slater, Charles Raison, Anna Fels, Jaime Lowe Interviews: Your Body or Your Mind, A Pill That Saves Your Life But Destroys Your Body, Treating the Body To Treat The Mind, A Little Lithium for All Of Us?, The High Price of Breaking the Manic Cycle, The International Bipolar Foundation Recommends Stacks of Mental Health Reading