SLJ Talks to Award-Winning Songwriter Tom Chapin about his Children's Music

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Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 4/11/2007

For those still recuperating from this winter's state-mandated tests, singer-songwriter Tom Chapin has the perfect remedy: a song. Make that a funny, satirical song called "Not on the Test." (For the lyrics, visit www.tomchapin.com/.) It was written by Chapin and John Forster and is performed by Chapin.

SLJ caught up with the Grammy Award-winning musician, entertainer, and songwriter to find out what inspired him to write about the stress of standardized test taking.

What made you write this song?

John Forster, who is my wonderful collaborator, and my other friend, Michael Mark, and I have written over the years for National Public Radio; so I got together with John Forster one day and said, "Let's come up with some ideas." We bounced around things; and one of them, we felt, was a hot item—both of us being parents and having had kids in public school: how testing has become this huge thing.

It's a "bedtime" song.

We did it as a lullaby because the idea John came up with was a parent talking to a kid the night before the test: "Don't worry, you'll get through this, because the only thing you've been taught is on the test."

What kind of reaction did you get from the song?

The feedback was just astonishing. I keep getting more and more [e-mails]. I had two today, from teachers saying, "Thank you! How can we get this song?" So we realized, it's not on a record and probably won't be for a while, so we decided to put it up on the Web site. And it's been roaring around the Internet from teacher to teacher and administrators and parents, and it's been fun to watch it in cyberspace.

I just got an e-mail from a teacher who is going to do a show with her kids for something in school, and they wanted to teach the kids this song. And I sing it a lot of times live at my concerts.

Do the kids get it?

The little kids don't, but the middle [school] kids get it. If a kid is in school, they know about tests. The great thing about doing kids' music is you're talking to adults as much as kids.

So what do you think of NCLB and all the attention on testing?

The real thing is how it's changed the experience of school. I know teachers who have stopped teaching because they just are no longer allowed to do what delights them and what delights the kids.

What's your message to the Bush administration?

[Testing] doesn't work. It's the corporatization of education.

Tell us about your music giveaway.

We have a roomful of cassettes. My assistant [Claudia Libowitz at Sundance Music] came up with the idea that, since we're not selling these anymore, and since a lot of schools still have cassette players, what better thing to do with them than get them to teachers. So, if you're a teacher or librarian and would like some free Tom Chapin cassettes, as long as they last, e-mail us. (Visit tomchapin.com for details).

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