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"What Teachers Make" (Encore presentation.)

(Note: This program originally aired back in April.) We speak by phone with the noted performance poet, former middle-school teacher, and current teachers' advocate Taylor Mali. His new book --- "What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World" --- is based on a poem that he wrote several years ago, a spirited and encouraging defense of the teaching profession that has, by now, been seen and forwarded millions of times on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and elsewhere. It's a poem that gave heart to an entire movement --- and in this book we get the story of what drove Mali to compose that poem in the first place. Mali's book also offers an informed appreciation of teachers --- and a declaration of why our society needs them now more than ever. As a reviewer of "What Teachers Make" has noted in the pages of Kirkus Reviews: "Big, bright life-lessons in a pocket-sized package.... Delivers a powerfully positive message.... A valentine to teachers everywhere. Mali proves himself a dedicated, caring teacher within what he considers a hobbled American education system."

Rich Fisher passed through KWGS about thirty years ago, and just never left. Today, he is the general manager of Public Radio Tulsa, and the host of KWGS’s public affairs program, StudioTulsa, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in August 2012 . As host of StudioTulsa, Rich has conducted roughly four thousand long-form interviews with local, national, and international figures in the arts, humanities, sciences, and government. Very few interviews have gone smoothly. Despite this, he has been honored for his work by several organizations including the Governor's Arts Award for Media by the State Arts Council, a Harwelden Award from the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, and was named one of the “99 Great Things About Oklahoma” in 2000 by Oklahoma Today magazine.
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