Klarinet Archive - Posting 000256.txt from 2000/12

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Legere Reeds
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 10:45:01 -0500

Nancy Buckman wrote,
>This instructor had the nerve to suggest that the child would be better off
>with another private teacher. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have no time to spend
>trying to educate someone with this mindset. This child has been accepted
>into the clinic orchestra of our local training orchestra, plastic reed and
>all. If she chooses to end participation in this man's class, it won't be
>any great loss to her. He is the one who loses out.

This power stuggle gives you and the band teacher such a perfect opportunity
to help this child learn, at an early age, an important lesson in how to deal
with being powerless and trapped between two authority figures who force her
to choose between them. This sort of thing will happen to her again and
again in life. Better she should learn early. No doubt she will be grateful
to both of you later.

Your student now has at least five equally attractive options:

1. She can learn to play, "Oh, Poor Little Helpless Me," by passively
leaving the decision up to her parents. Then anything that goes wrong will
be their fault, not hers. Blaming other people will no doubt prove a
comforting strategy in the future, whenever things go wrong.
2. She can bravely take sides and prepare to justify her decision against
either the band teacher's partisans or your partisans, who will villify the
child for her disloyalty no matter which of you she chooses. Standing up
against heavy pressure from adults and her peers will be a character-building
experience for her.
3. She can take responsibility, blame herself for everybody's anger, and
suffer an injury, get sick, go crazy, or maybe even try to kill herself.
That way, she avoids making a bad decision, while she inspires pity.
Everyone knows the old saying, "Pity is akin to love." Learning how to wish
disability on herself in order to do penance or escape a no-win situation is
such a useful skill!
4. The simplest solution: Quit the clarinet. Of course, that would make her
a quitter, but who cares? Even if she does care, she can always decide that
she has no talent anyway (or else she would have played much too well to have
gotten herself into this mess, right?), and therefore quitting now is nobler
than wasting more of her parents' money, isn't it?
5. She may be clever enough and mature enough to figure out which side is
stronger, then side with the winner. It's never too early to learn hypocrisy
and cynicism, the foundation blocks of the win-at-any-cost personality so
covetted in today's business world.

Which do you think she will do?

Lelia

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