Klarinet Archive - Posting 000740.txt from 1998/04

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: Illinois Music Teachers
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 07:52:52 -0400

On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Suzi Crookshank wrote:

> Throughout elementary school we were familiar with the jr. high and high
> school band teachers because they all had to teach at at least one of
> the elementary schools too.

Then that means that your community had adopted either a "community unit
school district" or a "community consolidated district" or some such. In
many towns in southern Illinois, music teachers in high schools are
employed by the "high school district," and therefore are not allowed to
work in the elementary schools, which are under the jurisdiction of the
"elementary school district." In these cases, the so-called elementary
district administers education for all students up through grade 8, and
then the high schools consist of grades 9 12. Note that nowhere here is
there a mention of junior high schools or middle schools. While these
concepts for the education of pupils aged 11 - 13 or so have been widely
accepted in most of the US, they are largely ignored in many parts of
Illinois, although some of the towns with consolidated units may have
them.

But in many cases, the grade school music teachers tend not to feel that
one of their major functions is to "prepare" students for their
participation in the music programs at the high schools. Therefore, they
tend to want to have "self-contained" programs, with all the activities
often associated with them. Therefore, by the time music students
graduate from the 8th grade, they have already been to solo and ensemble
contests, they have already been in a marching band, they have already
been involved in a school production of a broadway musical (limited as
their resources might be), they have already been on band trips, they have
been in a school jazz band, etc. So, some of them tend to feel that they
have already had a fairly complete musical experience.

The high school directors in such cases are struggling to offer something
in their programs which can continue to interest these students who tend
to become blase about almost any activity which can be devised. In some
cases there actually is competition between the high school and elementary
programs in the same town. (Sometimes heard are statements such as, "The
grade school band I played in was much better than this high school
band.")

Well, I don't want to continue to come down too hard on the Illinois
educational system, because my two grandchildren now live in Illinois, and
some day soon they are going to have to deal with all this.

Ed Lacy
el2@-----.edu