The drum is helpful if you see a mushroom and can't find a kid.

I use it also when I just open the game and I want not to see the little kids playing on the skeletons!

Me too! especially with the Golden Child. He starts parties when the dead are still lying around. It's so annoying. So I send him to school till they've cleared up.

I rest my case as well a my drum finger! All that time spent beating on a drum, -for nothing.

How do you beat the drum? I realize that sounds like a stupid question, but none of my villagers even seem to see it. They look at the building (after it's been converted) and think, "this building could be converted." But when I set them down anywhere around the drum, they totally ignore it, and go back to what they were doing. Does it take a village elder, or a Master in some particular skill?

I have tried it, dozens of times! What I'm saying is, the adult villagers totally ignore it. How do I make them see it??

It isn't for the adult villagers. There is absolutely no way to get the adults to pay the drum any attention whatsoever.

Clicking the drum calls the children to school; they gain no obvious benefit from this, as discussed earlier. I'm not sure where the misunderstanding lies.

The misunderstanding was, I always thought an adult had to be dropped on the drum to make it work; that the adult was calling the children to school. I didn't realize it was just The Hand by Itself that made it work. Now I understand. Thanks!!

I would like it if they actually went IN the school....