Where the Red Fern Grows Education

For Billy, home and school are the one and the same. Clearly this is before the whole homeschooling revival, because the boys in town think this is stupid enough to pick a fight over.

Check it out: informal education, broadening minds. Billy is already beginning to revise his assumptions about town people, but he's not doing it through books—it's direct experience.

Well, gee whiz. That's just what Billy did: he went out into the world, met some people, and learned a few things. So maybe Billy's dad isn't necessarily talking about education in school.

Sure, like knowing how to play on a playground; being able to name your favorite kind of soda; and not being afraid of the cops. (Unless you really should be afraid of the cops, not that any of you Shmoopers would be.)

We can think of a few modern-day parents who would be thrilled if their kids grew up without ever knowing what soda pop was. But we get the point—these kids may have learned to read and write, but they don't know nearly enough to navigate a larger world.

Billy's life is full of teachers, even if none of them have degrees. Here, his grandfather passes on a little wisdom about how to catch raccoons.

Grandpa should write a book, because he seems to know everything about catching coons. And guess what? It works. He teaches Billy practical skills as well as moral lessons about not giving up. But we doubt Billy uses many of these lessons in his office these days.

What we have here is a classic "student becoming the teacher" moment. It looks like Billy might be able to teach a thing or two, these days.

Billy is learning something that you can't learn in fancy schools: what's really important in life. For all that his parents seem so obsessed with getting some book-learning in the kid, Where the Red Fern Grows really emphasizes the importance of life experience.

Obviously Billy is going to be totally thrilled about leaving the only home he's ever known to go to a town full of jerky boy and mean girls, where he gets to sit in a classroom all day. Right? Right??