Did Charlie Brown Get It Right?

I went to see the Peanuts movie with my kids. I found the movie enjoyable. However, there was a part of the movie that really bothered me. I could not figure out the intent of the Standardized Testing theme of the story.

This bizarre part of the story is as follows: Charlie Brown achieves notoriety finally but earning the highest score on a standardized test in his class. For this reason, he is given an awards ceremony for his accomplishment. It is actually a large part of the Peanuts story.

The critics felt like this would be Charles Schultz's view on standardized testing. However, I am not sure he would have put this as a part of the storyline. I think many kids, who are burden with test taking anxiety would see the scenario in the movie as quiet normal. In fact, they might not have seen it through an adult's eyes as irony. They might have seen it as an ordinary part of their life.

For this reason, I think the movie validates the culture of testing. Whether it was the intent to do no harm, millions of children went to see a children's movie only to have their test taking environments validated as normal. For this reason, I think Charles Schultz would have never agreed to make this part of the story line without carefully considering how to correlate to a young child's life. Context is very important, and the movie lacked any context as to why a standardized test would make you the most popular kid in your school.