Why We Homeschool

A post over at Shakes Explains it All reminded me of a small series of essays I wrote last year on why our family does homeschool. I don't think homeschooling is the right choice for everybody, but our family enjoys it.

Anyway, I was quite proud of the essays, and they were based on a song from the Broadway musical You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. I was listening to the song the other day, and thought I'd repost the essays. The good news is this time around I've found the song. So, kick back, listen to this song, and then if you've got a spare 30 minutes, feel free to click on the links.



Lucy
Schroeder
Linus
Charlie Brown

Lucy

So, I was listening to my iPod while driving down to SLC the other day. I currently have 3214 songs, and one of them happens to be a song called “The Book Report”. It’s from the Braodway Musical, “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.”

I realized that the lyrics of the song describe some of the concerns that I have with public education. Not with the teachers, not with administrators, but with the system that inherently is bad for kids.

Let’s look at the song. The cast of characters includes Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, and Charlie Brown. They all start singing about a book report that they have to do on Peter Rabbit. After a brief intro Lucy breaks into a solo.

“Peter Rabbit is this stupid book
About this stupid rabbit who steals
Vegetables from other peoples' gardens”

She then proceeds to count the words (there are 17), and says, “hmmmm, 83 to go.”

Clearly Lucy doesn’t much care for the story. Why? We don’t know. Maybe the book is too hard, maybe it’s too easy, maybe she has a bad attitude; it’s hard to tell. But Lucy has learned how to beat the system. She is supposed to write a 100 word book report, and by golly she is going to write a 100 word book report. She very likely won’t get anything out of the experience, but she will meet the minimum requirements.

We hear more singing from other characters, but I want to keep focused on Lucy. Later in the song she comes back with more of her report. She uses a whole lot of adjectives and filler words to ‘stretch out' her report.

“The other people's name was Macgregor.
(::counts to 23::)
Ohh!

“The name of the rabbit was Peter
(::counts to 30::)
Yes!

“There were vegetables
In the garden

“Such as carrots and spinach
And onions and lettuce
And turnips and parsley
And okra and cabbage
And string beans and parsnips
Tomatoes, potatoes, asparagus
Cauliflower, rhubarb and chives.

“And they were very, very, very, very, very, very
Happy to be home.

Finally, at the end she counts up and realized she’s only at 97. So she finishes her report with:

“The very, very, very end.”

Clearly Lucy isn’t learning, she’s only trying to meet the stated goal. And the ‘goal’ (100 words) is an arbitrary goal set up by the teacher. Who is to say that a 100 word essay will prove that students understand Peter Rabbit? Why not 80? Why not 200? Some students might be able to encapsulate the story in less, others might need more space. Lucy doesn’t care, she meets the technical requirements, and calls it good. And the sad thing is that since she met the technical requirements, she will likely get a passing grade.

Lucy’s probable grade – B+

Tomorrow, we’ll look at Schroeder.

Charlie Brown - An Essay on Education

Last night I wrote an exceedingly long post, and have decided to divide it up into five parts. An introductory part (the part you're reading right now), and then an analysis of four students.

It's very rare that I ever pass out an assignment. In fact I've never done it before on this blog; but I'm doing it now. I want you to track down a song called, "The Book Report". It's from the Broadway musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie brown." You can buy the song for 99 cents on iTunes, or 12 cents over at allofmp3. Or, if you want to contribute to the RIAA 'help pay for our campaign to sue everybody including your dead grandma' legal fund, you can buy the CD on amazon.

If you just don't want to mess with it all, you can read the lyrics here, but you really should listen to the song, as it's a lot of fun.

Once you've tracked down the song, listen to it a few times. Over the next few days I'll be making some comments.

Grading

I'm a big fan of the musical You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. I've written about the musical before on this blog.

Usually I just listen to the music--I haven't seen the musical itself in years. But today I went to a high school rendition of it (they did a great job, nicely done) and was struck by the truthfulness of Sally Brown's monologue. It captures the struggle I deal with when I'm grading my students. Sally can say it better than I can, so...take it away Sally.

"A 'C'? A 'C'? I got a 'C' on my coat hanger sculpture? How could anyone get a 'C' in coathanger sculpture? May I ask a question? Was I judged on the piece of sculpture itself? If so, is it not true that time alone can judge a work of art? Or was I judged on my talent? If so, is it fair that I be judged on a part of my life over which I have no control? If I was judged on my effort, then I was judged unfairly, for I tried as hard as I could! Was I judged on what I had learned about this project? If so, then were not you, my teacher, also being judged on your ability to transmit your knowledge to me? Are you willing to share my 'C'? Perhaps I was being judged on the quality of coat hanger itself out of which my creation was made...now is this not also unfair? Am I to be judged by the quality of coat hangers that are used by the dry-cleaning establishment that returns our garments? Is that not the responsibility of my parents? Should they not share my 'C'?"