Freakonomics Radio - 237. Ask Not What Your Podcast Can Do for You

Episode Date: February 25, 2016

Now and again, Freakonomics Radio puts hat in hand and asks listeners to donate to the public-radio station that produces the show. Why on earth should anyone pay good money for something that can be had for free? Here are a few reasons.

Hello, this is Stephen Dubner, host of Freakonomics Radio. A couple times a year, we put hat in hand and ask you to join the 200,000 people who already donate to New York Public Radio and WNYC, the station that produces this show. Now, I can hear you thinking, why should I pay for something I can get for free? That, my friend, is a great question. You may also be thinking, but what about those ads I hear on your show? Another great question. So here's a story. Even with the ads, or what public radio people call underwriting, the public radio business model is heavily reliant on listener donations. All you have to do is go to Freakonomics.com and click the Donate button.

You'll see all kinds of Freakonomics Radio swag there, t-shirts and mugs and whatnot that are only available to donors. Now, let me admit, this whole setup is a bit awkward for me because by my asking you to pay for a podcast that can be gotten for free, I am implying that the podcast is pretty valuable, right?

Which puts me in the awkward position of trumpeting the value of my own podcast. So we thought, what if instead we asked you to say whether the podcast is valuable? A few episodes back, we asked you, our Freakonomics Radio listeners, to tell us whether this podcast has ever helped you accomplish anything worthwhile. In this episode, you'll hear some of those stories. Some of them are pretty trivial. The argument for suspenders was so strong that I took action and decided to only wear suspenders with slacks. Some of them are less trivial. When I heard Anne-Marie talk about raising our sons differently, it really sort of

put a light bulb on over my head. And some of your stories are not trivial at all. Now, had you ever considered giving a kidney before then? No. From WNYC Studios, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner. Today's episode of Freakonomics Radio is brought to you by you. It's Open Mic Week. We ask to hear your stories of things that you've done, changes you've made, ideas you've had that were inspired by something you heard on this podcast. Hey, guys. Brad Henderson here from Provo, Utah.

My name is Nicole, and I currently live in Columbus, Ohio. My name is Andrew. I'm a high school teacher from Sydney, Australia. My name is Cole Donaldson. I'm from St. Louis, Missouri. My name is Cookie Chandler. I live in Bend, Oregon, and I work for a big company that helps people lose weight. I was out jogging, I guess, late last summer, and I was listening to Freakonomics, and you had an episode called A Better Way to Eat, and it was about a competitive eater. And I thought, wow, this really would be great for me to use for my meetings. So I went home, and I listened to the episode a couple more times, and I made notes, and I designed my three meetings that week based on this episode

and I went to the meeting and I told the story of Kobe and how he became a competitive eater and I said and how do you think this applies to what we are going through trying to lose weight the room erupted they immediately got what I was talking about. They were talking over the top of each other. They were so excited about it. And I thought, wow, isn't it amazing and ironic that a skinny Japanese guy who smashed the world record for hot dog eating had something to say that would help a whole bunch of people who are trying to lose weight. My wife and I are actually kind of homeless right now because we are traveling around to all 59 national parks in the U.S. over the next year.

And one of the catalysts for actually jumping into this crazy adventure was the Upside of Quitting podcast. It just helped me realize that there are opportunity costs to everything and we wanted to take this adventure because there might not be a better opportunity for us to go out and live one of our dreams, which is visiting these parks. Over the course of a week in the middle of 2015, I played a section of the Thinking Like a Child broadcast to all of the students I teach.

As a teacher, I hear students talk about how they either don't know what to do or they are just going to university because their parents want them to. The message in your podcast was so important, I had to share it. I'm a mother of two children and a working mom at that. So I have a six-year-old daughter and I have thought long and hard and spoken to her about all kinds of feminist issues, even bought her a biography of Gloria Steinem. And again, she's six years old.

But I have a two-year-old son and I had never really thought about how to talk to him or that I needed to talk to him any differently than perhaps would be natural to my husband and I about it. And when I heard Anne-Marie Slaughter talk about raising our sons differently, it really sort of put a light bulb on over my head. And so now I've been thinking quite a bit about how to talk to my son about becoming a good family person, a real participant in family life. Because of Freakonomics, I quit my job and started my own company. So just about a year ago, I graduated with my master's degree in accounting. I was working for a big firm out in D.C. when I realized I didn't really like the work I was doing. But fortunately, around the same time, I became a pretty avid Freakonomics listener

where I realized that what I was really passionate about was understanding and influencing human behavior. So I took the obvious next step, which was to quit my job and start my own business where my livelihood depends on understanding people's behavior. And really, I love it. So I guess you could say how you want, Steve. No problem, Brad. And Nicole, Andrew, Cole, and Cookie. I also like that the weight loss person is named Cookie. Let me introduce you now to Ned Brooks. Okay. Hello, Ned. Steven, how are you? Hey, great. How are you? Nice to meet you. Nice to hear you.

Thanks so much for doing this. I mean, doing the interview, but doing the actual deed. That was a very easy thing to do. Ned Brooks is 65 years old. I live in Norwalk, Connecticut. I'm semi-retired after a couple of careers on Wall Street and in real estate. He's been married for 34 years, three grown children. One day last year, Brooks was in his car. And we were listening to your podcast about Alvin Roth, the Nobel Prize winner in economics, who created a model to trade indivisible items without the use of money.

And I think he was talking about houses at the time, but it seems to work very well for the kidney chain as well. The episode was called Make Me a Match. Al Roth was describing how he and others had created a series of algorithms that helped match people in need of a kidney transplant with potential donors. This is about exchange. We call it kidney exchanges. We don't have enough supply of kidneys available. The list is ever-growing.

The number of kidneys available for transplant is pretty stagnant. If you're healthy enough, you can remain healthy with just one, and that means if someone you love is dying of kidney disease, you could give him a kidney and save his life. If you happen to be a match. If you happen to be a match. And that's where kidney exchange comes in. And I listened to the podcast with growing interest

because what came through to me about the power of the kidney chain as somebody with a business background is the concept of leverage. That one altruistic donor and an altruistic donor is someone who gives a kidney without having anybody particular in mind to receive it. And it provides a lot of options for the people who put these things together to start a kidney chain. And that results in a sequence of transplants that can affect a lot of people. Now, had you ever considered giving a kidney before then? No, no, I did not. And what was it about the message from Al Roth in that podcast

that either kind of alerted you? What did you learn or what changed your mind that made you start to think about that then? Well, the concept that we have two kidneys and we only need one. Now, did you know that ahead of time or not really? Yes, I did know that much. What I did not know is all the benefits that accrues to one who donates a kidney. The process is lengthy in terms of the amount of testing that you go through to do so. Wait, you're saying that the medical tests were the benefits? Oh, absolutely. I just want to clarify here. Really?

Absolutely. Look, you get many thousands of dollars of testing for free. Can I just say something? Ned, I think you and I are fundamentally different people, because if I were going to get several thousand dollars worth of something free, I would want it to be, you know, golf or something, fishing boat, not medical tests. But tell me more about your great desire for this. Well, you're not 65, and knowing that all your organs are free of any contaminants is a very reassuring thing, actually. Let me be clear. It wasn't really all the free medical testing that made Brooks want to become a kidney donor?

I think this is something I have to do. It required some thought, discussion with my wife that day in the car. I spent one restless night, probably about three hours, trying to understand what my own motivations were and if they were the right ones to be doing this. And once I put that to rest, then it was a very easy thing to do. Did you decide immediately to become a non-directed donor, meaning that your kidney would be available for anyone who needed it? Or did you think about trying to help someone in particular? As great as it would be to help someone in particular, I didn't know anyone

who needed a kidney. And in fact, the leverage comes from being an altruistic donor. You can't start a kidney chain unless you're altruistic about it. Let's say I need a kidney and my wife is willing to donate or someone else in my family is willing to donate, but they're not a match. They're not a physiological match for me. But they would donate a kidney of theirs to someone else who is a match. They then enter the chain, correct? So call them couple A. And couple B is in the same situation as is couple C, D down the line.

But then there's this wild card X that's you, this guy who comes in who doesn't have anyone who needs one, who just wants to give. Does that make you much more valuable? That makes me valuable because it allows the algorithm to maximize the length of the chain and kick it off. If you didn't have the altruistic donor to start, you'd have to have a perfect match. I'm working with my hands as I'm doing this, which is a lot of arrows pointing to people who all work out exactly the same. Talk about the procedure, working with the hospital, and talk about how the relationship works so that you are not made to feel that you're being pressured sure in my case I had the

operation done at New York Presbyterian and I chose New York Presbyterian because they do a lot of these operations and I think with any surgery like this you want to go to a place that does a lot of them operations. And I think with any surgery like this, you want to go to a place that does a lot of them. And so I was very comfortable with their record. They've never lost a donor yet. They provide you with two advocates, and those advocates are there to protect your interests throughout the process. And you go in for testing, you do it through your advocate, you go in for psychological testing, physical testing. They want to make sure you're financially able to do this because, of course, you cannot be compensated for a kidney donation.

To what degree did they push back? In other words, to what degree did they try actively to discourage you or at least make you take a step back and think it through a little bit more? They didn't actively discourage me. The psychiatrist probed quite a bit, but after I seemed to have satisfied her on the answers, that was the end of it. What they will not do is they will not come after you to keep you coming to the hospital for every procedure that needs to be done. In other words, they set the time and the date for your next appointment, and they won't call you. It's up to you to make sure you're there. Well, that's interesting. Yeah. And at no point did they catch on to the

fact that you were just in it for the free medical testing? Actually, yes. The doctor I spoke with there said this is a little-known secret, but the testing is so good that everybody should at least start out to be a kidney donor and find out how their tests go. That is a secret that I'm guessing they really don't want broadcast because I can see an army of senior citizens flooding in there for their tests only to say, you know, I think I'm going to hang on to the other kidney. And then talk to me about your family's response. Was everybody on board? My wife was supportive. As I said, I have three children. One was very supportive, one was skeptical, and one was opposed. And I guess that's what you get when you get three children. But the skeptical one and the one who was opposed turned around once they felt like they got a lot more facts about it. It's a very safe procedure relative to surgery in general.

And once they understood that, then I think their reservations went away. I understand you wrote a letter to your family when you had gotten pretty far along in the process. By then, you'd undergone some of the testing? Yes, yes. Do you happen to have that letter handy? Actually, I do have it here. If you don't mind giving that a read, that'd be great. Sure, okay. This is a letter that I wrote to my family when I realized this is what I wanted to do, and I wanted to inform them all at the same time. So I sent them an email, and it goes like this. All, as you've commented upon, I've had a number of medical tests over the summer.

I did not fully answer your questions about those because I wanted to wait until I cleared all the tests. I'm happy to report that I'm about as healthy as is possible for a 65-year-old male to be. Back in the spring, I was listening to a Freakonomics podcast about a man who won the Nobel Prize in economics for constructing a model of a market to trade indivisible objects without the use of money. He was thinking about houses, but it turns out that the model works very well for other things. His work had been used to create an extensive network for the matching of kidney donors and recipients. The more I listened to the podcast, the more Thank you. more about the process. I registered as a potential donor and began an extensive series of tests at New York Presbyterian, which have now concluded with me being accepted as a kidney donor.

So why am I doing this? Many of our friends and acquaintances have had their share of health challenges in recent years. It is mightily frustrating to watch the pain and suffering and be unable to give any help. I, on the other hand, am in perfect health. I have no need for my second kidney, and I appreciate that my actions may greatly benefit the lives of not just the recipients of those kidneys, but their entire families. Without it being too much of a stretch, my one wholly redundant organ can potentially change and improve the lives of hundreds of people. There were 5,355 kidney transplants from living donors last year, and there are over 100,000 people on the wait list right now for kidney. The operation is

several hours. They start about 3 a.m. in order to catch the morning flights around the country, particularly Los Angeles. L.A. does more transplants than any place in the country, and New York Presbyterian does the most east of the Mississippi. They will have me walking that same day, and I should stay two days in the hospital. I will be uncomfortable for two weeks and fully recovered after four weeks. The operation is laparoscopic with a single incision in the abdomen. I've been working hard with my trainer on my abs. My advocate tells me that because I am blood type O, a universal donor, and an altruistic donor, I will light up computer screens across the country when they list me tomorrow. I'm happy to report that mom is fully on board with this.

I could go on for a while, but I think you have the picture. If you have interest in hearing the podcast that inspired me, you can find it here, and then I note the Freakonomics page and the short Freakonomics blog on the subject here. Let me know if you have any questions. Love y' all. Dad. The left kidney that Brooks donated wound up launching a three-recipient chain. I knew nothing about my recipient until the day of the surgery when I was told that it was a 37-year-old female in Denver area and that she was very, very sick and unlikely to find a donor anytime soon and that this was a real one-in-a-million match. Did you know anything about the cause of her illness and would that have mattered to you if you did know?

No, I had no idea. Look, you're not getting paid. You might get thanked. You might not get thanked. You're doing this for your own set of reasons. Was it important to you that that person appreciate those reasons or appreciate you? Or did it not really work that way for you? This is where the leverage comes in. They ask that same question in the initial stages in a little bit different way. What they ask is, if something happens to your recipient, how upset are you going to be? Quite frankly, my answer was, this is multiple people who are getting a transplant because of what I'm doing. And if one of them doesn't work out, I'm terribly sorry, but it's going to change the lives for all the others. So, Ned, you learned a little bit

about your recipient. And from what I understand, you've been in contact, you received a letter from her. Is that right? Expressing her thanks? The way this works is I go through my advocate at the hospital, writing a letter to the recipient that goes to the advocate at her hospital to her. Then if she chooses to do so, she comes back to me with whatever she wants to say. And then through the advocates, I go back and disclose my identification. Then she does that back to me if she wants to. And that's the way it say. And then through the advocates, I go back and disclose my identification. Then she does that back to me if she wants to. And that's the way it worked. And we've exchanged emails, and I've gotten Christmas cards from her family and so forth. So you haven't met with her or spoken with her by phone?

I have not met or spoken with her, no. Okay, so here's the story. I believe that if technology has served us well, that she's on the other line right now, Danielle from Centennial, Colorado. Oh my God. I've not spoken to her yet. Oh, this would be great. Danielle, can you hear us? This is Stephen Dubner. Hi, I can hear you guys. It's Ned. Hi, Ned. Hi. How are you doing? I'm doing great.

Good, good. This is exciting. This is very exciting. It's great to hear your voice. How are you feeling? I'm feeling good, feeling real good. Lately, it's been a struggle since the surgery, but I'm doing good, a lot better than I was. Are you on lots of meds?

Yeah. Unfortunately, I'll have to be on a ton of meds for probably the rest of my life. Hey, Danielle, this is Steven. Can you tell us a little bit about what led to your need for the kidney? Sure, sure. It all started October 8th, 2014. I had received a call from my doctor saying that my blood work had come back. I'd gone to my regular doctor just because I was having a severe headache that wouldn't go away. And so they did some blood work. They called me the next day and said, you need to get to the hospital immediately. And they were telling me my creatinine was at a 12 and I had no idea what that was. And so I went to the hospital and I was immediately hospitalized for the next 15 days

getting biopsies and MRIs and plasmapheresis and dialysis and getting all these tubes put in my neck and chest. And it just all happened so fast. And to this day, they still don't have any reason. I happened three weeks after I had my son, but they don't want to associate it to that. So they really have no answers of why this all happened to me. And what was your, A, I guess, prognosis? Did they think that you would survive?

And what was your prognosis for getting a donated kidney? Well, when they were hospitalized and they had no answers, they were functioning a small part. But they said that they were failing. But they had hope, since they really had no idea what was going on with me, that they would kind of kick back in and restart themselves. So we kind of just waited and I started dialysis and everything. And while we were waiting for those next couple of months, I actually tried acupuncture for organ treatment specifically for that. I was trying everything.

And I said, you know what, I'm not going to wait any longer for them to restart. I better get on the transplant list now. So come January of 2015, I started the process of getting on the transplant list and starting there. And what were you told about how long that would likely take you to get a donated kidney? Well, it came back that I had antibodies in my blood from blood transfusions that I had during the hospitalization. And since from having children, they said I created all these antibodies. So it made me a very rare match for, I wasn't a match to any of my family. And so they said, because of my rare antibodies, I could possibly be on the

list five to six years. So that's the kind of range they gave me back in January of 2015. Then I was looking at five to six years being on dialysis. Wow. How long was it before you heard that there was a donor? Well, it was probably come May of 2015 that I started getting word. Me and my father, we decided since I was having such a hard time and nobody in my family matched with me, my father really wanted to donate on my behalf. So we heard about the paired donor program through the hospital, and he wanted to donate his kidney on my behalf. So it was probably around May of 2015 that we started the chain process. And I had several chains lined up throughout the summer of 2015, but they kept falling through due to scheduling and with some part

of the chain, it kept falling through. So I had many chains lined up throughout the summer, and it was finally in August that we found, I guess, Ned was matched to me, and we got the surgery date of September 22nd, and it kind of just happened really quickly from there. Way to go, Ned. Thanks. What's it feel like for you, Ned, hearing Danielle talk now? She's obviously in a much better situation today with your kidney in her than she would be without. So what's that

feel like to hear her on the other end of the line? It's emotionally very powerful. It means a lot, a great deal. Yeah, it was a real struggle going through dialysis in the last year. I had to do four hours of treatment three days a week. So basically it took 15 hours out of my time every week, and I would go into a dialysis center, and the first thing you do is you get checked in and they do your blood pressure, your weight, your temperature. They go through all your symptoms that you're feeling. And there's really no privacy when they're doing

that. I mean, the next patient's five feet from you in their chair and you're talking about all your bodily functions that are not going well for you with all the medications you're taking and everything. And it takes away a little bit of your integrity having to do that so publicly. And then just to sit there for four hours doing nothing, I can't get up, I can't move, my blood is just sitting there, you're watching your blood go through this machine, and it's really, really depressing. And it was hard for me. I mean, I cried the first couple times just because I would sit there and I'd look around. And I was the youngest, you know, obviously, in the whole building at 37 years old. And I was the only one driving myself there. And, you know, it's just a really hard and depressing time to spend, you know, in your day. So it was really hard for me to do because I had two small children as well. It's remarkable.

You say you were crying then. Now you sound so strong. You know, Ned's on the other line blubbering there. I'm on the border holding it together. It's emotional every time I talk about my story, too. I'm curious. You said that your dad had entered the donor chain. Did he end up giving a kidney? And if so, does he know who the recipient was? He ended up giving his kidney. All we really know is that it went to Connecticut, over there where Ned is, and we have not heard from the recipient on that end.

I have a copy of the letter that you wrote to your donor. It's unclear to me whether you knew exactly who Ned was at this time. It begins, to my wonderful kidney donor, I don't even know where to begin. And I've already started to cry. Sorry. Okay. I have nothing to do with either of you and I'm crying. Okay. So, but then toward the end, you write, just to let you know, your kidney is doing awesome. And I'm already getting my energy back. Danielle, what's it like to have this guy, Ned's kidney, inside of you? Do you feel whole again? Do you feel different?

You know, it was amazing because the very next day after surgery, I felt incredible. I felt 100% different. I didn't feel any of the symptoms that I was having before with the illness and the nausea and the anxiety and everything I was going through. I immediately felt better. My body felt better. And yeah, I was eating and drinking the foods and liquids I was restricted to for so long. And it's just, I do have the energy again. And it's amazing how much better I feel. And, you know, I don't know if he had any, you know, food habits that I've picked up, but.

How do you feel about single malt scotch? You know, I haven't had the craving for any scotch. And it's funny because we joke about that with my dad because he's a single malt scotch drinker, too. And we say, oh, that person's probably craving it now. Well, Danielle, I'm glad you're doing better. And I hope you continue to do even better. Yes. Yes.

Thank you so much. And, Ned, thank you so much for everything you've done for me and my family. And no need to thank me anymore. Thank you for being such a great recipient, and we'll be in touch. Yes, we will. Thank you. Okay. Danielle, thanks for jumping on the phone with us.

Bye-bye. All right. Bye-bye, guys. Bye. Well, Ned, how do you feel now? You can see what you've done now? Boy, I was shaking in here. This is really something.

She's a great person. Well, I know you didn't do it for the thanks. Right. But thanks. My pleasure. Ned Brooks, inspired by his own experience and the huge need for more kidney donations, he's starting an organization to help build more altruistic kidney donor chains. It's called Donor to Donor.

Coming up after the break, you'll hear from more people who've put Freakonomics Radio to good use. But you don't have to be an altruist. I am totally fine with you using our show to help yourself. Nor do you have to give up a kidney to help our cause. Just some money. So please show your support for Freakonomics Radio by making a donation to WNYC. Just go to Freakonomics.com and hit the donate button. You can also text the word FREAK to 69866. We will respond with a link and you can make your donation in a matter of seconds. Again, text the word FREAK to 69866. Wherever you donate, you can give a one-time donation or even better, become a sustaining member with a recurring monthly donation of as little as $5 or $10 a month. Thanks. Today we're hearing stories from Freakonomics Radio listeners who've applied something that they've heard on one of our episodes.

My name is Phoebe Gavin. I'm a veteran. I joined the military right out of high school in 2004. And shortly after I got to my unit, we were slated to go to Iraq. I ended up being in Iraq from 2007 to 2008 for 15 months during the surge strategy. I wrote in because the suicide paradox episode had certainly stuck with me over the years that I'd listened to it. And as I've worked in the veterans community for quite a while, it's affected the way that I've communicated about suicide and how I have convinced other people to talk about suicide. I think that over the course of all of the campaigns

that I've used the suicide paradox to illustrate how important it is to talk about suicide responsibly. We've certainly reached millions of people combined, and it seems reasonable to expect that someone out of those millions of people decided not to take their life that day because we did our campaigns responsibly. When we asked for your help in putting together this episode, we heard from all sorts of people from all over the world doing all sorts of things. Hi, I'm Jill Donnelly from Los Angeles, California.

My name's Chris, and I'm from Britain, but I currently live in China. Hey there, Freakonomics. This is Jennifer Tomei, and my husband and I own a small, authentic Chinese restaurant in Boulder, Colorado. My name is John Flume, and I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I am Rachel Lewis. I teach fifth grade in Jacksonville, Florida.

Hi, my name is Corey Strzok, and I am from Mountain House, California. I'm Christina Lang, and I'm from Fort Collins, Colorado. I have the best job in the world because I'm Christina Lang, and I'm from Fort Collins, Colorado. I have the best job in the world because I'm a busy primary care doctor practicing internal medicine and pediatrics. We also heard from a lot of people who quit something, a job, a relationship, a habit, because of our episode called The Upside of Quitting. And we heard from a lot of people who

are in the teaching profession. These two, for instance. My name is Lynn Waldron, L-Y-N-N-W-A-L-D-R-E-N. I am the social studies department chair at Springdale High School. And my name is Scotty Person. This is my 17th year at Springdale High School. Person teaches world history. This is in Springdale, Arkansas. Springdale is a town of about 70,000 approximately. If you have ever eaten any Tyson food products, their headquarters is in Springdale. Our school is one of two high schools currently in the city. We have about 2,200 students in grades 10th, 11th, and 12th. And we are a minority-majority school. We have a fairly large Hispanic population that is a fairly recent thing within about the last 10 or 12 years or so. Scotty Person heard our call out for listeners who'd used Freakonomics Radio to good effect.

Your program recently that asked for information about how your podcast has changed lives really spoke with me. Several years ago, I listened to the podcast. I believe it was called What Do Public Schools Have in Common with Bad Radio Stations or something to that effect. Very close. It was actually How Is a Bad Radio Station Like Our Public School System. It was about a pilot program in New York that would let a school customize the learning program for every kid in the classroom. And of course, I got a little bit defensive. I love the story about the pilot program in New York and what they were doing to give kids more freedom. And of course, I looked at it from a

teacher with 30 kids in a classroom, relatively small classroom, 48 minutes. You know, how can I do this with the limitations that I have, which is to give kids more freedom? And so I tried something, you know, without really knowing it. Lynn and I were both listening to a lot of the same podcasts. So we started using these podcasts to add a little bit to our class, but it didn't have the same effect that we hoped. We would bring in interesting facts and tell them a little bit, but a lot of the kids, whether we found it on the internet or found it in a podcast, they were not as engaged with it as we had hoped. And so one day, Lynn just said, why don't we just start a class specifically using podcasts?

I think from when we first decided to give it a shot, and I made that first phone call to the Arkansas Department of Education in November of 2012, until we got it actually finally approved by the state in April of 2013, and then finally our own school district in June of 2013. That's about an eight-month process. The state asked for roughly six revisions to get it to where they wanted it. And once we got that, then we had to figure out how to get it into the classroom. And we knew that we could, once we got it in, that there are so many interesting podcasts that we could find the ones that would hook them, that get them interested

and get them thinking about stuff. As one of my students just the other day said, she said that this class makes you think about things you normally wouldn't think of or things that you had never even heard of before. And that's really what our goal was, I think, initially was to just expose them to things that they would not have normally come across. Some of the podcasts they picked for their students. Freakonomics was one of them. Radiolab, those were probably the first two. Planet Money, Memory Palace.

99% Invisible. History of the World and 100 Objects is one that I like to listen to. And the students really enjoy the idea that this is the only class at Springdale High School and probably the only class in the state of Arkansas that you have to have earbuds. You'd get in trouble if you don't bring your earbuds that day. And the students really get a kick out of that. And so with no textbooks, just earbuds, the teachers created a new class aimed at engaging students in a new way. They call this class Pod Class Omni. O-M-N-I. Just using Freakonomics as the example, the recent episode, The Cheeseburger Diet. We

might be talking about cheeseburgers and the best cheeseburger in Louisville, Kentucky on one day. And then another day, also from Freakonomics, we might find the health benefits that derive from the power of poop. So it's all over the place. And it's really, really been really great for us. And if I could teach this all day, I would probably teach another 10 years. One of the most exciting podcasts we listen to each year is after we finish the episode of how to think about guns. Generally, we'll have some kids in there who have been shooting a gun since they could stand, been trained right, and they know how to use them. We also have some students who have never touched a

gun. So we have some really, really good debates in there, but it's very respectful. And so the kids are learning how to express their opinion, but to do it respectfully. And then when they leave that podcast, generally they have a good understanding of both sides. If I can piggyback a little bit off what Scotty just said, one of the really high points in this class for me was, I guess, the third group that came through, which was the fall of 2014. I had a young lady, a senior girl, that came in one day. We had listened to a podcast. She had gone home that night, told her family about it, and she told me that next day that for the first time in my life I felt so smart.

And it gave me chills, and it still does here talking to you today. And she said that when she got home each day, the first thing her family would want to know was, what did you do in pod class today? And what we really are hoping to do with this, what we tell the kids is take this out into the world. Take it out there. Like Scotty said, you can really get into any conversation and speak intelligently about all kinds of topics. And that's really, I guess, if we've learned anything, that's pretty much the

bottom line goal that we're really looking for. If I teach world history for the rest of my career, I will be very happy with my career. But having this class based on your podcast has made my life as a teacher so enjoyable. And I love all my classes. I love all my students. But this class in particular, to be able to have the ownership to say that we started it and then to see in our students the same kind of reactions

that we had the first time we listened to a podcast, that's probably been the most exciting thing for me as a teacher. And it's because of the production value, the topics,

the things that you produce. So really, thank you to all of you, because without your podcast, I'm just another boring teacher standing in front of the class trying to get them to understand why guns are dangerous, but swimming pools are more dangerous. We have talked about the idea of, at the end of the year, taking up some small collection and sending it to Freakonomics in hopes that we would get some kind of autographed picture or some kind of Freakonomics something to put on the wall so that the kids could come back and see it.

Actually, I just want a Stephen Dutton or cheeseburger. Hey, Lynn and Scotty, I would be happy to make you guys a cheeseburger next time you're in New York. Until then, we will send some autographed Freakonomics stuff your way. I'm very happy to hear that Freakonomics Radio is useful in your classroom. And on behalf of all of us here who produce the show and especially WNYC, thanks for listening. And to everyone listening today, thanks for your support. It would mean a lot to us if you made a donation to help us keep making this show. You just go to Freakonomics.com, click the Donate button.

You never know what we'll turn your money into. It could be a story about guns or kidney donations or maybe just cheeseburgers. And don't forget, we've got some nice Freakonomics Radio swag for you to choose from. Thanks for listening. And next week on the show, U.S. Senator Cory Booker is an optimist, partly because he knows how far we've already come. My parents never hesitated to show me the wretchedness, the bigotry, the darkness of American life. And Booker takes on the rumors of whether he is in line to be named Hillary Clinton's VP choice. Yes, I will be Hillary Clinton's vegan practitioner.

That's next time on Freakonomics Radio. Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC Studios and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Irva Gunja. Our staff also includes Jay Cowett, Merit Jacob, Christopher Wirth, Greg Rosalski, Kasia Mihailovic, Alison Hockenberry, and Caroline English. You can find all our previous episodes at Freakonomics.com. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.