More about Thinking's Not Important

Guest Blogger Ardie Roddy from North Carolina wrote a response to my post from Wed. Feb. 17. "Thinking's not Important."

Tom Chapin's song reminded me of Harry Chapin's "Flowers are Red".  -- The music may be downloaded free HERE.
 
I heard this first in the 80's in a class I was taking to certify to teach gifted kids.  I started tearing up and professor told my to explain my reaction.  As a mother of two kids who were marching to different drummers in their school career, it really hit home.  (I had been asked to certify in gifted because "I understood what made these kids tick.")  I found a copy of the song and played it for my daughter who started to cry - "that's me, that's me."  What is happening to kids in education today is even more cruel than the climate Harry sang about in 1978. 
 
Kids are being totally turned off by 4th grade.  They're sick of school - so different from 50 years ago when we were so excited about school and doing some very interesting things.  I don't remember the reading and math tests.  I remember making my own book, stitching and all, about clouds - I researched, illustrated, planned, carefully printed by hand, and stitched up that book.  I remember reading aloud to first graders after lunch each day, great for a shy small girl who needed some confidence.  I remember accessioning books for the new school library, carefully listing all the information in a book, stamping a certain page, pasting on labels and pockets.  I learned work skills, communication skills, and so much - and I loved school.  What a different world today. 
 
When I taught gifted kids for a large chunk of my career I taught all kinds of exciting thinking skills and processes.  I taught kids to really read a book and think about what they read, to discuss books in a literature circle, and to dig far beneath the surface of the written word, to react personally, to use their THOUGHTS as a launching point.  Then I embraced music once again in the last years of my active teaching career - and taught it somewhat unlike my predecessors - using Orff processing, creativity, thinking about what we were doing.  My last three years I taught in a district that valued THINKING - used the Padeia philosophy and had kids doing seminars from K up.  They didn't teach to the test, they taught for thinking, and their scores were up there.  I hope that district doesn't lose that focus because it was an exciting place to be in the classroom as student and as teacher.  Kids wanted to be in school.  I cry at what is happening all around us and I think I would be forced to homeschool my kids in today's climate.  Flowers can be any color!!
 
Didn't mean to write an essay but that's what has evolved I guess.  Don't have any answers.....
 
Flowers are Red
by Harry Chapin

The little boy went first day of school

He got some crayons and started to draw

He put colors all over the paper

For colors was what he saw

And the teacher said.. What you doin' young man

I'm paintin' flowers he said

She said... It's not the time for art young man

And anyway flowers are green and red

There's a time for everything young man

And a way it should be done

You've got to show concern for everyone else

For you're not the only one


And she said...

Flowers are red young man

Green leaves are green

There's no need to see flowers any other way

Than they way they always have been seen


But the little boy said...

There are so many colors in the rainbow

So many colors in the morning sun

So many colors in the flower and I see every one


Well the teacher said.. You're sassy

There's ways that things should be

And you'll paint flowers the way they are

So repeat after me.....


And she said...

Flowers are red young man

Green leaves are green

There's no need to see flowers any other way

Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow

So many colors in the morning sun

So many colors in the flower and I see every one


The teacher put him in a corner

She said.. It's for your own good..

And you won't come out 'til you get it right

And are responding like you should

Well finally he got lonely

Frightened thoughts filled his head

And he went up to the teacher

And this is what he said.. and he said


Flowers are red, green leaves are green

There's no need to see flowers any other way

Than the way they always have been seen


Time went by like it always does

And they moved to another town

And the little boy went to another school

And this is what he found

The teacher there was smilin'

She said...Painting should be fun

And there are so many colors in a flower

So let's use every one


But that little boy painted flowers

In neat rows of green and red

And when the teacher asked him why

This is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green

There's no need to see flowers any other way

Than the way they always have been seen.


Ardie Roddy
Littleton, NC