Did You Learn That in School?

Tommy was a precocious little boy. That’s what everyone said.

“What does precocious mean?” Tommy asked his mother the first time he heard the word.

“It means you’re very curious about things,” she told him.

Tommy agreed that this was true and from then on any time someone told him he was precocious he smiled and nodded and the grown-ups always laughed.

One thing Tommy was curious about was school. He was four-years-old and had not yet been to school. The little boy next door was five and had started this year, but Tommy had not been able to get many satisfactory answers from him.

One day every week, Tommy’s mother packed a lunch and bundled up Tommy’s baby sister Maria in her stroller, and they all went for an adventure. They had been many places and everywhere they went, Tommy asked people the same question.

Once they went to see a glassblower. “Did you learn to do that in school?” Tommy had asked. The man had laughed, “No, not this, not this.”

Another time they visited a portrait artist who sketched pictures of Tommy and Maria. “Did you learn to do that in school?” Tommy asked the lady. She had laughed much like the glassblower and said, “No sweetie, I didn’t learn this in school. I taught it to myself.”

The manager of the soda shop where they stopped for ice cream cones had not learned her skills in school, and neither had the gymnast who was working to qualify for the Olympics. The sculptor who carved carousel horses, the bricklayer, the house painter, the hot dog vendor, the car salesman, and the young man who created video games and the one who fixed computers all told the same story -- no, they had not learned their skills in school.

Tommy felt confused. Just what did you learn in school, he wondered.

One day, Tommy and his mother and Maria took a bus into the country and visited a dairy farm. They watched a farmer hook milking machines up to cows, and he showed them where the milk went and how it was processed. “Did you learn to do this in school?” Tommy asked him. As with so many of the others, the man laughed. “No sonny, I learned this the hard way – by trial and error – and a little help from my neighbors.”

It was a cool, breezy day in October when Tommy finally discovered something that was taught in school. He and his mother and sister had trudged to the library to hear a children’s author read her poetry out loud. Her poems were funny and Tommy laughed till tears rolled down his cheeks. Afterward, his mother asked him if he’d like a copy of the lady’s book.

They stood in line for a long time, and finally it was Tommy’s turn. The lady lifted a book from the pile on her table. “Did you enjoy my poems?” she asked. Tommy nodded. “Especially the one about little sisters,” he said. Then he asked, “Did you learn to write your poems in school?” The lady laughed. “No,” she said, “I learned to write by reading Dr. Seuss and lots of other poets.” She saw that Tommy looked disappointed. “But I did learn to read in school,” she added.

This was more than Tommy could bear. He already knew how to read. He’d finally found something that was taught in school, but he already knew it.

When Tommy’s family was settled down at home that night, he asked his father, “Daddy, what did you learn in school?” His dad gave the question some thought, wrinkling up his face in funny shapes. “I learned to do that,” he laughed, “but not from my teachers. And I learned to read and do math. And I learned that George Washington was our first president.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “I already know how to read. And I can add and subtract and I have a book about times tables. And I already know George Washington was our first president. What did you learn to help you with your job?”

Tommy’s dad was a stock broker. “Well,” he told Tommy. “I’m sure the math I learned helped, though I did have to teach myself business math. My job skills I learned from people I worked with. I guess you could say I apprenticed when I was young – I learned from people who already knew the business. And I did a lot of reading. And I went to seminars and workshops.”

“So why do people go to school?” Tommy asked.

“Well,” his dad said, “so they can get into college if they want to or so they’ll have a diploma to help them get a job.”

“What’s a diploma?” Tommy wanted to know.

His dad rubbed his chin, glanced at Tommy’s mom, then said, “It’s a piece of paper that says you did everything the school wanted you to and you are now approved to go on to the next stage of your life.”

“What if you don’t want to be approved?” Tommy asked.

Tommy’s mother answered this time. “It would make your life harder. You might want a job, but the boss would see you don’t have a diploma and he might not want to hire you.”

“Who approves you?” Tommy wouldn’t give up.

“The government,” his dad said.

Tommy was quiet for a while. He chewed on his lip and turned a toy car over and over in his little hands. Finally, he asked his mom, “Did you have to get approved to be a mommy?”

A lump formed in her throat and a tear slipped down her cheek. “No,” she said, “it hasn’t gotten quite that bad yet.”

Tommy never found out what people learned in school. Instead, he kept going on adventures with his mom and sister and he read and studied things he found fascinating and he grew into a fine young man who ran his own business and approved himself.