It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate, report, explore, from WB, EZ.

One, two, start on D, ready, go.

Hey, I'm Curious City reporter Monica Eng, and you're listening to fifth graders at

Bai Elementary School in Oak Park, Illinois.

They're diving into what's become an American educational rite of passage.

Yep, they're learning how to play their recorder.

In case you didn't know, that's a little flute with roots in European Baroque music.

Maybe you remember it from your school.

Question asker George Saman sure does.

See, he was raised in the Middle East and came to the U.S. via Canada as a fifth grader.

So when he arrived and his whole class had to learn this thing called the recorder,

he thought it was some big American tradition, like baseball and eating hot dogs.

And nobody had explained to me, right, that this is not something that all kids just automatically

does, but some form of entry into the music world.

Which he eventually figured out this was just a way to teach kids' music. kids just automatically does let some form of entry into the music world.

Which he eventually figured out this was just a way to teach kids music.

But he still couldn't understand why so many schools chose this high-pitched flute to do it.

So he wrote into Curious City and asked,

Why do we have to do that?

Like, what is the purpose of the recorder?

And why do we all have to learn the recorder?

These are fair questions.

...