73 pages • 2 hours read
Gordon KormanSchooled
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Idealism Versus Realism
In the novel, Garland Farm can be seen as representing idealism while Claverage Middle School represents realism. Flora Donnelly, especially, talks about how the farm had left her ill-prepared for the “real world.” This dynamic is also apparent in Rain, who is an idealist, whereas, by the end of the novel, Capricorn is a realist.
Rain has spent the last 40 years creating an environment in which she never has to compromise on any of her values and is guided more by ideals than by practicality. According to her, the world outside Garland Farm is “not a nice place” (21), and to move off of the farm is to abandon “the lifestyle and value system” (23) of the commune. The people in mainstream society are “spiritually handicapped” (90), and interaction with them should be eliminated, or at least limited, because of the risk of “contamination” (181). Rain seems to need her surroundings to exactly match her values because, at least in the beginning, her values do not seem to withstand contact with the outside world. For example, Rain teaches Capricorn that “when people are negative, they’re trying to put duct tape on their own damaged souls” (90). Once off of the farm, Rain quickly descends into a “negativity trip” (90), as her idealism can’t thrive in any setting but the farm.
Capricorn, on the other hand, seems more able to accept a situation as it is and deal with it as needed. Unlike Rain, he does not need the perfect environment to live out his ideals, is able to take the good with the bad, and does not feel like someone else’s choices are a threat to his way of life. While Capricorn, having grown up on the farm, is naïve about how much of the rest of the world functions—for example, social hierarchies, laws, and currency—he nonetheless learns to adapt, something that Rain is largely unable to do.
Authoritarian Versus Experiential Education
While both Mrs. Donnelly and Rain would agree that it is a parent’s responsibility to prepare their child to be a productive member of society, their approaches are wildly different. As loving as she is, Rain exhibits an authoritarian style of parenting while Mrs. Donnelly seems more flexible in her approach.
Rain is motivated by an absolute standard to which she expects everyone on Garland Farm to adhere. Although it is never explicitly explained why, it is telling that Rain and Capricorn are the only ones left in the once-bustling commune. Perhaps Rain’s uncompromising standards were not in everyone’s reach or to everyone’s liking. Mrs. Donnelly remembers Rain from her time on the farm:
[Rain] had always been the teacher at Garland. For someone who rejected all forms of authority, she was a major tyrant in the classroom. If she hadn’t adopted the hippie lifestyle, she would have made a terrific Marine drill sergeant (44).
Before Rain’s accident, Capricorn is never given the opportunity to receive instruction or exposure that challenges Rain’s worldview. Rain gives him the information, and Capricorn is expected to integrate that information into his belief system unquestioningly. To Rain’s credit, she does not use threats or punishment to instill her beliefs, but she does deny him any other sources of information, thereby restricting his personal freedom.
Mrs. Donnelly, on the other hand, is much more likely to have her daughter, Sophie, learn experientially and through both natural and logical consequences. Rather than telling Sophie how to think, she allows her daughter a reasonable amount of freedom to learn from her mistakes. When Mr. Donnelly continually disappoints Sophie, Mrs. Donnelly does not try to shelter her daughter from the pain. She tells Capricorn that while her husband’s unreliableness taught her to get “off the roller coaster” (101) of false expectations, Sophie hasn’t figured it out yet. Mrs. Donnelly realizes that this is not a lesson that she can teach her daughter; rather, it’s a realization that Sophie will have to come to on her own. Sophie’s behavior, which often seems brazen, is reflective of her mother’s parenting style. She does not hesitate to criticize her mother because Mrs. Donnelly does not want Sophie to be afraid of questioning her. Instead, she wants Sophie to have the confidence to make her own judgments and the critical thinking skills to make her own decisions.
Spoken Versus Unspoken Rules
Schooled examines the different kinds of rules that exist in the “real world” as well as the rewards and penalties that come from following or transgressing them. Some of these rules are codified into law, such as that it’s illegal to drive without a driver’s license. Capricorn has the skills needed to operate a car, but because of his age, he lacks the authorization. On the farm, where Rain has no use for licenses and credentials, it is only the skill that matters, and Capricorn suffers no penalties for underage driving.
Capricorn struggles to conceptualize the need for institutional rules like those at Claverage Middle School. For example, Capricorn cannot get over the bell system. He tells Rain, “[A]n alarm goes off and you’re supposed to drop what you’re doing and rush off to a different room with a different teacher to do something completely different! How can anybody learn like that?” (22). For the students who have always attended a regular school, following periods makes sense and is status quo.
There are also unspoken rules, which are universally understood though never explicitly conveyed. Understanding such rules facilitates an individual’s integration into a new environment or in a society that has defined but unspoken expectations. Some people pick up on these rules while others struggle. For instance, Zach tells Hugh, “My whole life, it’s been obvious what sports to play, what bands to listen to, what people to hang out with. It’s as if I was born with a natural guidance system inside my head, showing me how to be cool” (169). But for Hugh, “the whole planet didn’t come with a book of instructions” (169). This makes it more difficult for Hugh’s peers to accept him; his behavior doesn’t reflect what is normalized and therefore expected.
Rain is scornful of rules: “What’s a license? A piece of paper. That’s the real story, Cap—that we’ve allowed ourselves to be enslaved by our own laws” (90). However, Rain has the luxury of disregarding certain laws because of her privilege: She is self-sufficient and shares a huge piece of land with one other person. Since she is the final authority in her world, she does not need to accommodate others. A society tries to meet the needs of a large population, and laws maintain order and facilitate complex interactions. Since Rain does not have to organize a society on Garland Farm, her rules are more philosophical than practical. For example, Capricorn is not allowed to enter his Foucault pendulum into the county science fair because Rain does not believe in competition. Once Capricorn leaves the farm, he learns that he can choose which rules to follow and which to reject.
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