also this weekend a look at the smartest kids in the world with amanda ripley. at 11:00 p.m., john lot talks about his book visit booktv.org for this weekend's television schedule. >> from the 13th annual national book festival on the national mall in washington d.c. , her book the liberals of atomic city. the untold story of the women who helped win world war ii. this program is about 45 minutes. [applause] >> hi. thank you for coming. and going to take a picture of everybody. okay. on account of three everybody say uranium. one, two, three. >> uranium. [laughter] >> that's a good one. thank you so much for coming. thank you, jamie, thank you to the library of congress for organizing and maintaining what i consider to be a very, very important festival. it is so lovely when we'll get a chance to take a few minutes and celebrate how

when you fail, picking yourself back up and getting help and working harder. >> amanda ripley, authorf "the smartest kids in the world and how they got that way." that was you earlier at our summit education nation at the new york public library. how do you define rigor and what are the ingredients that go into rigor. why are other countries doing it better than we do. you track american kids going to other countries and being simulated in their education system so it's a unique approach. >> i surveyed hundreds of exchange students nine out of ten said classes were easier in the u.s. than back home. seven out of ten american students agreed. that raises the question, what does easier mean, rigor mean. we throw these words around. for our economy it seems to me rigor means the ability to think, learn, make an argument, those kind of critical thinking skills that require doing challenging work in math, reading and science and other things but also teach kids to think for themselves. >> so are we making a mistake when we focus on the common core curriculum? are we being too rigid in what

. >> i want to bring in author amanda ripley. a book called "the smartest kids in the world and how they got that way." a. amanda, what are the headline force you about this study? >> i think it's partly very depressing as you said. but partly there is some hope in here. one of the things that struck me is how much our adult skills mirror our kids skills. it's particularly true in math. we have a real challenge, a real deficiency in math. less so in literacy particularly among 15-year-olds. but we only have two countries that performed worse than we did in this test in math. this is a big problem. but it's not that we're going backwards, not that we're getting dumber, but it's that our younger generation, our 25 to 34-year-olds is not keeping up with 25 to 34-year-olds in other countries. so you're seeing a real surge in skills in countries -- >> so what should we be doing? >> one of the things that we know that's actually hopeful about this is that the u.s. population is pretty young compared to other countries around the world.

at 4:45 eastern, a look at the smartest kids in the world with amanda ripley. at 11:00 p.m. dumbing down accords:how politics keep the smartest judges off the bench tomorrow at 5:00 eastern, we bring you a collection of programs about the federal reserve chairman and at 6:45 from the recent southern festival of books linda barnacle gives a history of the civil war battle. visit booktv.org for this weekend's television schedule. dr. james swanson is latest book is a history of the kennedy assassination for young adults is next on booktv. >> i am here to welcome you to this session of the southern festival of books and introduce you to our author for this evening's session. as you know our writer for this session is james swanson who is the edgar award winning author of the new york times best-seller manhunt:the 12 a case for lincoln's killer, as well as chasing lincoln's chemical and the best-selling adaptation of manhunt for young adults. he held a number of government think-tank posts in washington d.c. including at the u.s. department of justice. is two recent books are a

business week, delighted to be here leading the conversation and this celebration of my friend, amanda ripley, and her book, "the smartest kids in the world," and we have the added fortune of having two other experts in education, two people with deep experience and insight into education, how not just here, but around the world. let me briefly introduce both of them, and then i'll start the conversation with amanda, and we'll spend time talking about her book and then bring wendy and ben into the conversation, but wendy 1, of course, the founder and chairwoman of teach for meek, doing more, in my view, to transform teaching and education in the country of any organization in the last couple decades. she is also the ceo and co-founder of teach for all, which is an organization that's helping social entrepreneurs around the world set up organizations models on teach for america, and they are not working in 29 countries and more to come. we're thrilled, honored to have wendy here, and an educator with almost 15 years of experience working in the new york city public school system. he was part o

the search for answers, journalist amanda ripley followed three american high school students as theyhe smartest kids in the world and how they got that way." and joining us now are two of the students who are featured in that book, eric covon and kim pate. thank you for being here. kim, where did you study during your year abroad? >> i spent ten months in finland. >> and what was your experience in finland and in the schools there like? >> it was very, very different. it was very lecture-based as far as classes were. also, all the teachers were very engaged with the students. there was a much more effective back and forth than i saw in american classrooms. >> so on the one hand, you say it's lecture based, but then you tell me there is more effective back and forth. so how do those two things work together? >> it wasn't a lecture as if you're sitting in the back of the room and this dull teacher is just droning on about world war i. first of all, you address teachers by their first name, which threw me out of my chair, was it was asking questions, it was engagement, and also, it's ha

amanda has the story. >> welcome to ripley's believe it or not!rium in new york's times square. >> an odditorium is a museum, but like no museum you've ever seen before. when you walk in, you will be confronted with some of the strangest, most unusual artifacts that have ever been compiled in one place. so we felt that it was very important to differentiate ourselves from a typical museum, especially for kids, because, as they come in, they're gonna constantly be looking around and say, "i don't believe what i'm seeing." hence the name ripley's believe it or not! odditorium. >> so, who was robert ripley? >> he actually started as a newspaper journalist and, through his travels, became fascinated with the bizarre and the unusual -- was kind of like the real-life indiana jones and lived by (he adage that fact is stranger than fiction. >> the odditorium has hundreds of exhibits, from freaks of nature to medieval torture devices to some very strange customs. stephen ekstrom is our guide through this weird and wonderful place. there's so much to see th