It's kind of hard to write a book set in an elementary school without having education as a main theme, so this theme's pretty obvious in this respect. But what's not obvious is that there's also a lot of sly commentary here about how traditional education can be kind of silly, in addition to hidden messages about how kids learn and the best ways to teach them. Sideways Stories wants us to know that all kids are individuals, and because of this they learn differently. It also wants to remind us that humor pretty much always helps.
Questions About Education
- Mrs. Jewls tries to help her students in all kinds of ways. What are some of her strategies for accommodating different learning styles?
- Why does Mrs. Jewls think school is useful?
- How is education different at Wayside than at an ordinary school? Is it different? How is it the same?
- Why do you think Mrs. Jewls mixes up arithmetic and spelling while talking to Allison? Why does Sachar show us that the teacher sometimes gets mixed up?
Chew on This
At Wayside School, the students learn just as much on the playground as they do in the classroom.
Joe can only count in the wrong order, and John can only read upside down, but both of them overcome their problems almost by accident instead of through hard work.