Klarinet Archive - Posting 000236.txt from 2002/09

From: w8wright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: Re: [kl] Music/Academics studies?
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 14:33:10 -0400

<><> Richard and Forest wrote:
[about time abuse and overemphasis]

It can (and does, on occasion) happen in all branches of education. A
few years ago, my youngest daughter chose a drama class. Parents were
invited to attend an organizational meeting for the class, to bring some
'optional' money, and, as I sat there, this is what the teacher said,
several times, in firm and demanding voice, to the assembled children
and parents:

"Children, you and your parents need to understand something. For the
next nine months, this class is the single most important thing in your
life !!!" My daughter stuck it out, and I played the role of my
daughter's 'time policeman', but it was not a healthy situation.

This problem is not limited to the arts. Teaching in any subject can
(but doesn't need to) lend itself to authoritarianism. In my senior
math class in high school, one day about halfway through the semester,
my teacher slammed her book down on the table because one kid hadn't
constructed a dodecahedron successfully, and she announced to the class
(not tothe individual child) that the kid was "going to learn this no
matter what", and then she told all of us that she had been placed on
earth by God in order to save children from ignorance, and so forth.
We had to listen to 20 minutes of this before the bell finally rang and
we could escape.

Fortunately, the music programs in my town are well balanced. My
daughter does chorus now, and the chorus teacher is the school hero
(especially jazz, he *does* swing, and his tales of his old jazz days
are as fascinating as his rhythms). But he does not gobble up
everyone's resources.

Forest or Richard also talked about 'exclusion of certain
children/instruments. One of the children that Tony Pay met in my town
plays clarinet, but she has an oral problem such that she cannot tongue.
As with any child, she got tired of listening to adults talk about
Mozart and such, and she and my daughter went to the car to listen to
'their kind of music'. However this girl is accepted into the band
without any negativity whatsoever, and she brings her clarinet to our
house occasionally just 'to have some fun'.

So once again, band and organized music do not *have* to be a bad
situation. It's just that certain personalities shouldn't be teaching.

....enough 'testimony'.

Cheers,
Bill

---------------------------------------------------------------------