Little guy, big questions: 'Tai Asks Why'
Despite all of the discoveries and inventions made over time, the world is still full of so many phenomena that we don’t understand and challenges we have yet to overcome.
That’s where Tai comes in.
Tai Poole is trying to find answers to life’s biggest questions — what happens after we die? what is love? how can we fix climate change? — on the CBC original podcast, “Tai Asks Why.” He may not solve them all, but give him a break…he’s only 13 years old!
TRAX checked in with the production team to learn more about the show:
What’s the origin story of “Tai Asks Why”?
Tai Poole was originally a guest on another CBC Podcast (creative brain and sonic sorceress) Veronica Simmonds produced called Sleepover, with Sook-Yin Lee. The show was a sort of social experiment where we brought three very different guests together for 24 hours to see if they could help each other. Tai was only 9 years old at the time but the insight he was able to offer the other guests was astounding. He really blew us all away with his sensitivity but also his incredible knowledge of math. After his appearance we kept thinking about him so invited him in for a meeting to see if he would want a show of his own. Turns out he did!
Tai is a well-accomplished young person. What makes him the perfect host?
In so many ways Tai is just a regular kid, he goes to school, he fights with his little brother, he does his homework, but what makes him such a great podcast host is that he loves to talk to people about big ideas. He wants to go deep and really get to the root of things. From a really young age he’s had a scientific inclination to figure out the rules and processes of the known world and he brings this passionate curiosity to his role as a host. He’s also really good at breaking things down in ways that young people can understand, always quick with a handy analogy to clarify a tricky point.
Who is “Tai Asks Why” made for? What can listeners expect to hear?
“Tai Asks Why” is a show made by and for young people. We’re hoping it connects with kids ranging from age 9-13 but we like to think that the whole family would be interested to hear what Tai is uncovering. Listeners can expect each episode to start with a simple question that maybe they themselves have wondered about and then end up learning all kinds of interesting information they didn’t even know they needed to know, like how the microbiome is like a second brain in your gut or how deja vu looks in the brain.
How is Tai involved in the production of the show?
Before we start to produce a new season of the show Tai sits down and writes out a big long list of all the questions he has on his mind, then together with our production team we help whittle down that list to pick the themes for each show. It’s really important that they are questions he’s really interested in. Our producers then do research, book guests, and provide Tai with some notes and potential questions to ask in his interviews and he likes to look those over and always add his own questions. He’s an excellent interviewer and always finds a way to make his guests feel heard but also keeps the tone light. It’s rare that he’ll have an interview where he doesn’t crack a great little joke. Also for every episode, Tai co-writes and produces an original song, he’s an incredibly musical guy and the songs are a great way for him to distill what he’s learned.
What’s your favorite story from the process of recording?
Well one of the things we’re always trying to do on the show is help explain complicated concepts. This one time we were doing an episode on infinity and Tai was talking about this paradox where you can cut a cake in half and cut that in half and cut that in half and you could go on indefinitely. So we actually brought a cake in to the studio and as he cut it us producers ate whatever he cut, by the time we were done there was actually no cake left for him...he’s still a bit mad about it. But we do provide him with lots of chips!
What are some challenges you faced while creating the show?
It’s really important for us that Tai’s school work and personal life aren’t being impacted by the show so we’re always trying to create a schedule that works well for him and his family. We don’t want to overload him with work!
What makes “Tai Asks Why” different from other podcasts you’ve worked on?
Because Tai started this show as such a young person, working with Tai also means working with his family. His parents Nicky and Minh are incredibly supportive and his little brother Kien is a secret star of the show. It was really important for me that his family felt connected and involved with the show and it’s made it such a rich experience to have their guidance and feedback on what we’re doing. And personally, it’s been such a rare and incredible experience to watch Tai grow up in this role, when we started working together he was 9 and now he’s about to be 13. Sometimes he jokes that Veronica and producer Amanda Buckiewicz are like his Podmoms <3
Why do you think audio is a good vehicle to tell these stories?
The beauty of audio is that it is a medium of the imagination. When you’re listening you can close your eyes and create your own images around what you’re hearing. This is a really fun space to play with when you’re working on stories about scientific or philosophical concepts because we can use sound design and music to help people really visualize how the hormone oxytocin makes love work in the brain, or we can help someone feel like they are walking in to a hotel with infinite rooms.
The Podcasts in Class initiative from the CBC provide teaching guides for two “Tai Asks Why” episodes. How have these been used so far?
These guides were developed and produced by teachers and curriculum experts from across Canada. They consist of custom-made slideshows, homework assignments, illustrations, videos, ad-free audio and episode transcripts. Each guide was uniformly formatted for turn-key use, uploaded to Google Drive (making it easily accessible to the tens of thousands of teachers who use Google Classroom) and made available free of charge across Canada - and around the world. Since September, digital guides produced through this project have been accessed over 40,000 times. Here's a collection of some of the feedback we've received to-date.
What makes TRAX a good network for “Tai Asks Why”?
The short answer is that TRAX is a network of premium quality, carefully curated, tween and family-oriented podcasts, and “Tai Asks Why” is the best of the genre, having won a Webby in 2019, and in 2020, a Gold for Best Education Podcast at the New York Festivals. So it’s a natural fit. The slightly longer answer is that CBC Podcasts and the Tai production team feel that we can reach new listeners through TRAX, listeners that will grow to love Tai's unique take on the universe and everything in it. It would be amazing if Tai could use his skills to inspire the curiosity and wonder of a whole new audience!