Bluff The Listener
NPR
Saturday, March 21, 2015
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Our panelists tell three stories about continuing education for people who have no business continuing their education, only one of which is true.
Transcript
BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We're playing this week with Mo Rocca, Faith Salie and Gabe Liedman. Here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
(APPLAUSE)
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Right now it's time for the WAIT WAIT.. DON'T TELL ME Bluff The Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
ADAM BORDEN: Hi, this is Adam from Baltimore.
SAGAL: Hey, Adam from Baltimore, how are you?
BORDEN: I'm great. Thanks for having me on.
SAGAL: It's a pleasure. What do you do there in the charm city?
BORDEN: I work for a small chocolate company in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
SAGAL: I see.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: What do you do for them?
BORDEN: I market Kisses.
SAGAL: You market Kisses?
MO ROCCA: Aw, that's so sweet.
SAGAL: I have a question. Who needs to be convinced to buy Hershey's Kisses?
BORDEN: There are many more people who could be convinced.
SAGAL: Really?
BORDEN: That's what we're in the job of doing.
SAGAL: You know, it's funny. Now that we're talking about it, I realize I've never bought Hershey's Kisses. They just are always there.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You know, Marge down at the office always has a little bowl of Hershey's Kisses. They just seem to appear. It's nice to have you with us. You're going to play the game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Adam's topic?
KURTIS: I'm a lifelong learner.
SAGAL: Continuing education is a great way for older people to keep their brains active and stay young, denying the reality that death's scaly claws are waiting...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: To grab them. This week, we read a story about continuing education for people who don't have any business continuing their education that way. Guess the real story, and you'll win Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
BORDEN: You bet.
SAGAL: First, let's hear from Gabe Liedman.
GABE LIEDMAN: Jeannie Hyer (ph) is a woman with two callings, education and talking to dead people. But it wasn't until the financial crisis of '09 hit her hometown of Milawa (ph), Kentucky that Jeannie decided to combine her two passions. According to her website, Jeannie is a quote, "educator to the spirit world and a teacher of souls." Since she began, Jeannie has taught some of the greatest minds of all time, Plato, Magellan, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., just to name a few. But she ran into a problem almost immediately. In her own words, quote, "so many of them were so much smarter than I am." So she adjusted her curriculum to only offer one subject to the dead, 21st century American life.
(LAUGHTER)
LIEDMAN: The results have been fascinating. Mark Twain took to Twitter almost immediately. Flannery O'Connor loves "Broad City." And Cleopatra is now rocking a smoky eye as opposed to her once signature thick, black liner, after taking Jeannie's most popular class, the Bachelorette and What Love Means to Idiots.
(LAUGHTER)
LIEDMAN: Quote, "sure, to most people, I'm just a brown-haired lady, standing alone in a cemetery with my eyes rolled back in my head. But to my students, I'm a freaking genius from the future."
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: A teacher for the dead. Your next story of education for the olds comes from Faith Salie.
FAITH SALIE: If you've lost your inner child lately somewhere under tax returns and conversations about race over coffee, you might want to head back to preschool. A new preschool for adults has opened in - wait for it - Brooklyn...
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: Called Preschool Mastermind. According to founder Michelle Joni, the one-month adventure is magical and offers nursery school standbys such as snack time, naptime and musical chairs. There's vegan Play-Doh and finger-painting with glitter glue. And you can sell your arts and crafts on Etsy to help afford the tuition because it turns out, your inner child is one expensive kid. Tuition's on a sliding scale, so you shell out anywhere from $333 to $999 to surround yourself with grown-ups who, like you, enjoy paying for things they could do it home.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Adult preschool - in Brooklyn, of course. Your last story of somebody trying to teach old dogs new tricks comes from Mo Rocca.
ROCCA: With shark attack season upon us, communities across America are preparing with defense classes taking place in towns along Cape Cod, Florida's Gulf Coast and, of course, landlocked southern Illinois.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: When the tiny town of Brussels, Ill. announced that it would teach locals how to defend themselves should a local shark attack, the class filled immediately. Said instructor Mark Howg (ph), we may not be close to an actual ocean, but the Mississippi River runs awfully close to here. We can't know for certain what's swimming in there. The water, as you may know, is very muddy. Class is held in a local high school swimming pool. And playing the predator in this class, none other than Left Shark from Katy Perry's Super Bowl halftime show. Students learn to jab Left Shark in the eye and gill. Says Left Shark, I never expected to move to Brussels, Ill. and make a living at this. And the best part is I get to bite back this time.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: So somewhere, somebody is giving one of these courses. Is it, from Gabe Liedman, education for the dead, teaching dead people all about the modern world, from Faith Salie, preschool for adults in Brooklyn, so you can, you know, find your inner preschooler, or from Mo Rocca, courses in fighting off sharks in Illinois with the help of the famous Left Shark from the Katy Perry concert? Which one is the real story of continuing education in the news?
BORDEN: I would say when you mentioned that this preschool was in Brooklyn, I think you almost had me sold there. It sounds like the right place for one of these. I'm going to go with Faith's story.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: You're going to go with Faith's story of the preschool for adults in Brooklyn. Well, we are very pleased to tell you that to bring you the real story, we spoke to the actual teacher of the course.
CANDICE KILPATRICK: We do traditional preschool activities to help them to approach their real-world adult problems.
SAGAL: That was, in fact, Candice Kilpatrick, also known as teacher CanCan, from Preschool Mastermind in Brooklyn. She teaches preschool classes for adults. Congratulations, you got it right. You earned a point for Faith Salie for being honest.
SALIE: Thanks, Adam.
SAGAL: You won our prize. Carl Kasell will record the greeting on your voicemail. Well done. Thank you so much for playing.
BORDEN: Thanks for having me.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW")
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN: (Singing) You're a big boy now. Come on and take a bow 'cause you're a big boy now. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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