Don't know much about history begins the great Sam Cook classic and the characters and

the stories on this show aren't hitting the books for the answers to their questions either.

Join me in the school yard at recess for moments of misplaced optimism, a madcap curriculum

and loving the wrong boy. I'm your host Meg Wallitzer and you're listening to selected

shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short

story at a time. What is an education without following rules? Raise your hand, sit up straight,

fill in the bubble with a number two pencil. The school rule I personally hated was being

made to change into a gym suit before gym class. First of all, very few people look good

in fire engine red. Second of all, clothing with snaps all over it resembles an infant's

one Z. Third of all, 12-year-olds are not exactly comfortable undressing in front of

each other. Flash forward a million years and you're going to find some women happily

chatting away in the locker room of a gym that they actually pay to attend. But back

then, while everyone else changed into those gym suits, I would have paid good money to

be left behind for an hour in a corner of the classroom fully dressed, definitely not

in red and reading a book by Madeleine Langel. Rules, I guess they're necessary, trying

to disseminate information to a classroom of rambunctious kids would never work without

certain guidelines to maintain order. Pay attention students are told and you just

might learn something. But what's fun about doing exactly as you're told?

For the next hour, forget what you know about proper education as we put our feet up on

the desks and replace history books with comic books and coloring books and freedom from

books of any kind. We're going to hear stories about students and schools that abandon the

usual rules to follow their own unusual codes of behavior. And we'll look for new and different

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