A Lesson on Pete Seeger

We lost a very important person yesterday when Pete Seeger passed away.  He was the musical bridge between Woody Guthrie and so many artists, from Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary to Bruce Springsteen and Dan Zanes, who took the folk music that Seeger preserved and passed it on to future generations.  He was a humble champion of the poor and the environment, and a beloved entertainer of children.  He will be sorely missed, indeed.                                                                                                                                 

Though my kids are somewhat familiar with Pete Seeger, I wanted to make sure they had a firm idea of who he was, so we took advantage of all of the information crowding the internet today, and we read Mr. Seeger's obituary in the New York Times (click on all of the links, too!), watched numerous performances of some of his most famous tunes, and listened to him tell the tale of Abiyoyo (we have the book and cd, but you can watch Pete tell the tale himself on Reading Rainbow here).  We also watched the Scholastic video of The Foolish Frog - a tale that Seeger told his own children.  You can listen to The Foolish Frog here.

One of the best things about homeschooling is being able to take advantage of learning opportunities as they present themselves, and today was a perfect example of that.  We also discovered that Mr. Seeger was really the embodiment of our educational and life philosophy - to question authority, to discover the truth for yourselves and to be true to yourself and follow your passions wholeheartedly.  Take a moment to watch Mr. Seeger play the song What Did You Learn in School Today - it sums it all up nicely:)