It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

I'm Manoush Zomorodi.

In Northern California in the '50s and early '60s, all fourth graders had to write their first research paper.

And you have a whole semester to do it.

One semester was about Sacramento, our capital, and one semester was about birds.

This is bestselling author Anne Lamott.

So my older brother, who did not like school and was very bitter about any homework he was asked to do, had not started it.

He'd had the whole semester, and it was due that Monday.

So we were out at this one-room cabin we had on the coast, and my dad was trying to help him.

And they had photos of birds.