Serving Teachers, Students, Parents and Professionals Virtually Anywhere
John Gardner
19 yrs experience as a high school band director. 14 yrs as college adjunct faculty. 30+ yrs in the fundraising industry and 24 yrs as a small business owner. (Don't add all those up.). Experience in both the fundraising sales and education worlds give me a unique combination of perspectives in both. I love working with the youthful enthusiasm of today's teenage achievers and with those who work with them.
Also 6yrs as proprietor of VirtualMusicOffice.com, which offers a wide variety of virtual services including web/blog design/hosting/managing, social media management (scheduling posts/tweets for maximum impact and brand enhancement) and small business consulting - specializing in school product fundraising.
I promised multiple stories. Here is Story #2. The first story is HERE.
I was a music teacher in the system from 2005-2020 (retired). This happened during that time…not sure the year.
$ $ $ $ $
Word came to the instrumental dept that one of our two contracted summer sessions would be cut from the budget and band parents could take over funding to keep both sessions functioning.
I was tasked with making our case before the board. The “conversation” went something like this…..
Me: Our FIRST summer session starts before the end of the Spring semester when we start integrating incoming students and preparing for the local June parade. Do you want the band to represent the school in the HD parade?
Board: Of course, the band MUST march in the parade.
Me: Our SECOND summer session starts a few weeks before the Fall semester and is when the band learns music, marching fundamentals, and the performance show for football games and band competitions. Do you want the band at the football games?
Board: Absolutely, the band MUST be at the football games.
Result: Funding continued for both summer sessions.
I am so angry about the gift card stories we’re learning about that I’m going to, in multiple posts, share some of my stories that happened before, during, and after…
I was a music teacher for HCCSC from 2005-2020 (retired).
Story #1: At a time when hundreds of thousands were misused, the music teachers were mandated to submit time sheets for summer hours worked, so the corporation could ensure we were putting in the hours contracted for. (Guess what the time sheets proved.) Each sheet had to be signed, and approved by the department head, the principal….and then they went on to the corporate office for additional approvals. Sometimes, once we documented the contracted hours, we stopped submitting the sheets as it was clear we were not going to get paid for any additional. Gotta watch those teachers, ya know.
March is both “Women’s History” and “Disabilities Awareness” month. My hero, in both those categories, was my polio-inflicted mother.
Beulah McCormick was born in 1922 in a house (not a hospital) with an outside toilet. Her dad was a mean, verbally and physically abusive Irishman (McCormick) who was in the trenches of France during World War I. Growing up during the great depression, one of Mom’s journal entries stated, “There were no toys”.
At 12 yrs old, she was inflicted with one of the most cruel diseases ever…..polio.
In a 1935 pic taken 1 year after her infection, you can see that her legs are different sizes. She is likely bracing herself with her left arm (good arm).
Iron lungs enabling many polio survivors to breathe
She wasn’t as bad as some, who had to spend the rest of their lives in “iron lungs“, but her body was infected as if there were a vertical divide between left and right. Her right arm and leg were smaller, shorter, and weaker than her left. She had to buy two pairs of shoes because her feet were different sizes. She could write right-handed but picked things up with her left.
She refused to allow her disability to handicap life, evidenced by her high school class of 1940 1/2 voting her “most athletic”.
Hobbies included hunting, fishing, horseback riding, swimming, and gardening. She was a proficient typist and avid reader. She walked with a significant limp until her last four years when her back and knees just couldn’t do it anymore.
Her teenage friendship with Betty Swindler was so strong the Swindler family wanted to pay Mom’s way to go to college, but the proud papa wouldn’t allow it.
She thrived despite her parents.
Her childhood included going with parents (no choice) to area saloons to watch them drink and dance.
Somehow she got involved in a local church where she met her future husband. They had 5 children before divorcing affecting siblings from age 1 to 12.
So how does a divorced, polio survivor without a car, find a job and raise five children?
She was qualified, but never accepted welfare. Eventually, she took a job and spent about 25 yrs as an Activities Director at the Nursing Home she would retire from, move in to, and die in …. only two blocks from our house so she (and we) could walk to and from. I used to tease her for getting paid to play games all day.
My sisters had to experience daycare in a home nearby. Mom cried about that.
Life was plain, but she didn’t complain.
She paid her debts. Thankfully, the pediatrician allowed her to make $5/month payments.
We walked two blocks to a small neighborhood church my father’s parents helped start. She put a dollar in the plate and, when someone complained about the six of us for her dollar a week, swallowed her pride so we could have a better upbringing than she did. Kudos to the church for installing a handrail on the two steps going into the sanctuary. They did try.
She encouraged us to sell lemonade to the golfers at the course down the street. Those lemonade sales paid for a bicycle I wanted and then for my part of a new clarinet.
Sometimes she got some extra sugar for her lemonade. Mom’s Aunt Georgia passed away and I distinctly remember walking with her and her uncle to the kitchen door that went into their garage.
“Beulah. Georgia wanted you to have her car. Here are the keys.”
Chores were a reality. She organized us in rotations for dish washing, providing a step stool until we were each tall enough to reach into the sink. Until I left for college, it was mostly my job to push the non-motorized mower, and I was not always the compliant, cooperative teen.
There was one episode where she was following me back and forth over the lawn convincing me with her belt that I should continue.
Another job I loathed was cleaning the dog pen. Grass and hedge trimming, leaf raking, and garbage taking were regular chores. The Christmas decorations weren’t so bad and I liked putting the flag out….but had to take it down at night.
As much as we didn’t have, Mom always helped us understand that there were other people worse off and that they needed our help. At Christmastime, she would ask us to give up a toy to be donated to a “needy” family.
When someone would knock at our back door asking for food, she would fix a fried egg or peanut butter sandwich.
Both parents were hunters, and when dad left, she kept her little (she couldn’t hold a full-sized rifle) “over/under” gun; a combination 22 rifle and 410 shotgun. I got to watch her use it once. There was a bad flood and the water from the river about a mile away covered the golf course, came up over the 4-foot wall at the end of our street and stopped about two houses from ours. In the aftermath, there was a terrible, thankfully temporary neighborhood rat infestation. She instructed us to get into the house when she saw a huge rat on our side yard sidewalk. From the bedroom window, we heard the ‘pop’ and saw the rat briefly stand up on its hind legs before tottering over.
Good shot, Mom.
I’m not sure how I got started in 5th-grade band. With all the other bills, I have no idea how Mom managed to pay off that rent-to-own clarinet that I played at Tenth District School. Seems the band teacher, James Copenhaver, in his very first year of teaching, convinced her that my aural testing was so high that she really needed to get me involved in band.
Another of her favorite stories was during my high school band time. Watching the end of a rehearsal, she heard Mr. Copenhaver say, “Gardner, you march like a cow.” She went up to him afterward and went, “Moooooo” and then identified herself with, “I’m the cow’s mother.”
Mom who taught me to drive, to shave, to do my laundry (for college), to polish my shoes, and to type. She made me take piano lessons, allowed me to take clarinet lessons and somehow managed to be there for most major events. She taught me conservation techniques; the thermostat seldom went above 60 in the winter. There was no air conditioning and the summer window fan had to be turned off before bedtime.
I learned the difference between a need and a want. She took care of my needs.
She wasn’t able to buy many gifts. One year, I had asked for a clock-radio. To make the gift opening last longer, she hid it and placed clues all around the property to help me find it. Like most teens, I wanted a car….so on my 16th birthday, she gave me a little battery operated VW bug and made it clear that would be the only car she would ever buy me.
There was an extended episode where her back was really messed up from her years of walking with legs of different lengths. There was a really hard-core brace that she had to wear for a while and I had to help her get it on and off every day. By the grace of God, she improved and was able to get rid of it. She confessed years later that she was afraid she was losing her ability to walk, which would have cost her the job she had….and she feared not being able to raise us.
We didn’t wear the latest fashions, but always had something respectable to wear.
My brothers always got my hand-me-downs. Sorry. We were all in band and had instruments and everything we needed for that. Three of us used my beginning clarinet and the pro-level horn I bought in high school.
Grandpa McCormick moved in for several of his later years. After living alone for several years (Grandma Mamie died my high school freshman year), he married a lady who stole nearly everything he owned. Terrified and trounced, he came to live with Mom.
So after all the terrible things she had endured over the years, she would be his care-provider.
I was off to college and then away, so I didn’t have to deal with him much. On visits, at least, he seemed to have mellowed, although he could still unleash a verbal barrage on occasion. I hope he paid some rent to help with the finances, but I never heard and never asked.
Mom did well raising the five of us. No one is rich, but all five are self-sufficient and raising (or raised) a pretty good next generation.
Mom paid for all of her wedding because her parents would not.
In a 2001, handwritten letter, she wrote,
“my life has been very fulfilling and rewarding. Sometimes I am confined to “cell 423” (house number), but this week I went to the Reds ballgame (via radio) and “watched a horse race (TV) at Churchill Downs, tearing at the playing of ‘My Old Kentucky Home and ended in a “musical production in Branson, Missouri, where I had no parking hassels and had the best seat in the house.”
That was Mom, always finding the best in everybody, finding good in her situations and being thankful for what she did have instead of complaining about what she didn’t.
She used life’s sour lemons to make the best, sweetest lemonade.
Love you and miss you Mom…..and will see you soon.
PS Over the last several years, Mom always accused me of bringing the cold, nasty weather of Northern Indiana with me when I would come to visit. She would have said that again about her own funeral with the dismal driving rain that prevented the graveside ceremony.
“I know, Mom….. but I wanted you to know I was there.”
Beulah celebrating her 85th birthday, the last she would celebrate at her Baltimore Ave home.
Musicians auditioning for acceptance or for music scholarships are working on prepared pieces — likely the same piece he/she is using for solo contest. An aspect of many auditions that are a challenge is the demonstration of sight-reading proficiency. Colleges want to know how quickly you can learn their music.
In most sight-reading circumstances, there will be time for you to preview what you are about to play. In a concert band festival, the sight-reading session involves 10 minutes to look over a piece (counting/clapping rhythms, checking out different aspects, before time is up and the judge is ready. Whatever amount you get, gage the time to get through the following:
Key signature. What key are you in? Finger through the scale. Look throughout and see if or how many times it changes during the piece.
Notes. Check range. If possible, sing or sound what you see…. Can you hear and sound what you see? Some people refer to those aural skills as “seeing ears” and “hearing eyes”.
Time signature. Does it stay the same or change?
Tempo. If marked, this should give you a general guideline, but keep in mind that is a performance tempo. For sight-reading, look for the most difficult passage that you will play, get a quick idea of how fast you think you can play it accurately, and use that as your overall tempo. Once you start, you don’t want to change the pulse depending on difficulty.
Rhythms. Scan for anything that looks tricky and take a moment to count, clap, sing or whatever — to get that/those rhythm(s) in your head.
Dynamics. Scan for them and then be aware as you play.
Stylistic markings. Staccato, legato, articulation, accents, etc. The tendency in sight-reading is to concentrate on notes, which are primary but watch for the other signs as you go. Like driving the car, staying on the road (notes) is important, but watching the road signs (slow down, stop, cross-walk, etc) are equally important to getting to your destination safely.
Once you start – DON’T STOP! If you miss a note, that one is history, you can’t go back and fix it … part of practicing for sight-reading (or for any performance) is to force yourself to continue.
Finding music to sight-read. Get books from other similar-range instruments. Pick random hymns in a church hymnal. Check the band director’s office. Go to the music library and pull out random pieces. For sight-reading practice, however, don’t keep playing the same piece(s), unless it is to prepare them for performance or to see how quickly you can perfect them.
Another important aspect to sight-reading is evaluation. If possible, have someone else listen to you and critique what you played. You may be playing a rhythm wrong that you will continue to play wrong.
Hope this helps. Add your comments or send questions.
Online banking is convenient, easy, and problem-free….most of the time. I use it to pay credit cards, utilities, insurances, and a list of other local and long-distance service providers. We seldom write a check and enjoy excellent online record-keeping.
Never had an issue. …. well, until now.
Two (maybe one) innocent mistakes, but neither were the bank’s. The bank did the right thing and worked with me to fix everything, which is why I’ve been with them +40yrs.
I used online bill-pay to set up a new vendor and issue a significant (to me) 4-digit check as a deposit for some contractor work. I had a problem entering the address and took the blame for the delay. I thought I had it right. Apparently, I did.
After 7 days, vendor calls me asking about the check. Called the bank, they said it was mailed to ME! I didn’t have it either. So….. I handwrote a replacement check to the vendor and put it in his hand. Asked him not to cash both if the other happened to show up.
Called the bank and stopped payment on their bill-pay check, since we didn’t know where it went. No charge.
The bank’s bill-pay check eventually arrived at vendor’s addr and the totally innocent wife did what she normally does and deposited all the checks received…..including both the bank’s printed and the hand-written duplicate. YIKES!
I check online. BOTH checks were deposited and BOTH were rejected.
Called again. Rejection was because of the duplicate of a check that size.
Fixed.
This vendor will probably not allow me to use Bill-Pay for the balances of the two (soon to be three) projects on his schedule.
Civil Rights ===> Affirmative Action ===> DEI vs Meritocracy
There were injustices, such as Segregation among other things, that needed to change. The Civil Rights movement introduced well-meaning programs and policies such as Affirmative Action (AA), which was to help minorities, females, the disabled and others.
All positive.
Bussing for School Integration was also a good thing in many respects. For equality at the college level, Quotas became popular. According to the US Department of Labor, AA was mostly about numbers. Now mostly ended, the Supreme Court struck down AA as a tool for college admissions because, among other things, AA was discriminating against qualified whites and Asians (mostly) to satisfy quotas without regard to merit.
The current emphasis pits DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) against merit-based Meritocracy.
Diversity: The presence and participation of individuals with varying backgrounds and perspectives, including those who have been traditionally underrepresented
Gender
Race
Age
Sexual orientation
Equity: Equal access to opportunities and fair, just, and impartial treatment
Equal opportunities
Fair compensation
Balanced training and educational opportunities
Inclusion: A sense of belonging in an environment where all feel welcomed, accepted, and respected
The opposite of DEI seems to be Meritocracy (is that like Aristocracy??). The Cambridge Dictionary defines Meritocracy as
“DEI is a gun pointed directly at the heart of the meritocracy”.
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) sounds great. Diversity IS a good thing. Equity (feeling of belonging) IS a good thing. And, of course, we want Inclusion vs Exclusion. All components of DEI sound (and are) good, until they are used to inflict the bias they are supposed to end.
I am completely in favor of meritocracy, i.e. “merit” based vs anything else; race, gender, ethnicity, financial….).
My mother, a polio survivor raising 5 kids as a single mom and no car, never utilized government assistance based on her handicap or income. She did use a ‘handicapped’ placard in her car. Her graduating class voted her “most athletic” because she did not let her handicap hold her back. I learned from my mama.
My band director pulled me aside freshman year when he understood I wanted to be a band director. His advice went something like this,
“If you want to be a band director, you’re going to have to go to college. You’re intelligent, but you’re not going to get academic scholarships. You’re not athletic. You ARE decent on that clarinet…. so I want to tell you that your best chance of getting to college to become a band director will be to use these next four years to become good enough on that clarinet that colleges will pay you to come.”
I did. They did. That was meritocracy.
When I needed a new clarinet, my Dad said, “You raise the first 50% of the cost of that new clarinet, and I’ll pay the rest.” I don’t consider that welfare. It was assistance, but the goal required work and commitment. The music store would not give me that clarinet so I could experience equity and inclusion.
My high school clarinet teacher, who I couldn’t afford, made a deal with me that allowed me to do yard work for him in return for lessons. He said he would provide me those 1-1 clarinet lessons….
“until the day you show up here unprepared.”
That deal had nothing to do with DEI, it was all about merit.
I did get some financial aid for summer camps and college, offered because they wanted me.
I’m okay with programs that help everyone have a chance. I experienced poverty.
My “Tenth District” Elementary School (two blocks from the city line opposite downtown) was 100% white while “Third District” (Downtown) was nearly all non-white. Because there was only one high school in the city, diversity was automatic.
I am in favor of helping those with genuine need or who are disadvantaged in a real way. I’m in the “help-those-who-are-willing-to-work-to-help-themselves” camp.
But when it comes to getting the job or the position, I favor merit-based decisions. The world works on meritocracy.
Professional athletes aren’t chosen to satisfy a quota — if you’re good enough, you can earn the spot. Also, professional musicians (especially in orchestral settings) are chosen by audition and the best person gets the job.
A recent podcaster interviewed a DEI advocate for pilots who was pushing a “from the tarmac to the cockpit” program. I watch (too many) video shorts of plane take-offs and landings….many with all female and/or ethnic crews from around the world. Recently I watched an Arab airline with a hijab-wearing female working with a male co-pilot. I would like to think that each of them studied and earned their way. Would you want your pilot to be a DEI (‘Affirmative Action’ is out of style now) or “from the tarmac to the cockpit” placement?
Show me a MLB, NBA, or NFL team put together with DEI and, if I gambled, I’d bet against them.
It gets trickier in business where historical biases can harm or prevent merit-based success. Yes. Fix that….. but not by quotas, AA, or DEI.
It was in one of my early years of fundraising on my own. I was working with an area elementary school and using a program that included chocolates manufactured in Wisconsin. The order taking and product delivery went fine. It was a day or two after I delivered the student-packaged orders that I took a tense call from the principal.
[Mr. S] was a hard man to work with. When I started in fundraising, he was one of the many loyal customers of a long-entrenched and very successful competitor. I kept calling on him, however, and when things started changing with the company and rep he had been using, he asked me to stop by. I was probably one of the few who kept calling on him, so persistence paid in this case.
The phone call was that we had a problem and I needed to come to the school immediately. I did.
Someone [suspect] had called the school saying he bit into a chocolate and found a staple inside. Mr. S was ready to put the word out to return all the product and notify the newspaper. That would have been devastating to my young business and the fall out from something like that could ruin me. I would have had to pay for the product and the school’s profit loss from the returned product.
While I was sitting at his desk, I called the candy vendor and asked for the highest-ranking person I knew. I was told, “He’s in a meeting.” I think I used the words potential injury and lawsuit in the same sentence when I demanded they get him out of his meeting. They did.
When I explained the situation, he said I would get another call momentarily.
That call was from the in-house corporate attorney, who, as it turned out, had partial ownership in the company. He was terrific as he had been through stuff like this before and kept Mr. S and me informed and one step ahead of the situation all the way through.
He explained to us the near impossibility of such a happening — that there are multiple metal detectors on each candy line, including one at the very end. He mentioned that staplers are not allowed in the candy rooms and that the detectors are mostly for any potential metal fragments from the machinery itself.
From the product shipment and candy type, he was able to get a report of the manufacturing process on that line for that day and there had been no problem.
He wanted us to call the person making the complaint and find out:
Is he ok? (Yes)
Was he injured? (No)
Did he go to a doctor? (No)
We suggested he go to the doctor. (Would not)
Where was he when he bit into the chocolate….including a detailed description of what happened? He was in a band rehearsal at a local golf club. Claimed he opened a box of caramel pecan chocolates and shared them with his friends.
Did anyone else find a staple in their chocolate? (No)
Did he still have the piece of candy with the staple in it? (Yes — instructed to bring it to the school).
The lawyer advised me to go to the golf club rehearsal area to look for staples. Mr. S went with me. Not surprising for a reception room, there were staples on every post from where banners and streamers had been hung. We pulled a few from different areas and of differing varieties and sent those, as well as our “damaged” chocolate, NDA to Wisconsin.
At this point, he told us his suspicion and advised how to proceed. The purpose of the “are you hurt” and “did you go to the doctor” questions would prevent the guy from claiming harm later. Collecting staples, including the one in the piece of chocolate, would enable analysis to determine several things.
After the staples were analyzed, the lawyer called and confirmed that:
Even though there are already no staplers in the candy making facility, none of the staples matched the types of staplers they had in the office areas.
The staple in the piece of chocolate was a match to some of the staples we sent, meaning it came from the golf course and not the chocolate maker.
I was to call the man and ask what I could do to make it right for him, i.e. free chocolate and/or his money back. And, the manufacturer would pay for a trip to the doctor to have everything checked out. He refused to do that.
The lawyer said,
“As soon as anything comes out of his mouth that sounds like he wants anything more than that — tell him he will hear next from the corporate attorney, who has already been in touch with federal authorities…and hang up immediately.”
Federal authorities were involved because of the multiple states involved.
During the conversation, in response to my asking how to make it right, the suspect said….
“A big screen TV would be good.”
Boom.
By this time Mr. S was convinced this was not a staple in the candy issue and was extremely appreciative of the way both I and the attorney handled the situation.
The attorney told us that we would hear back from someone about resolution within a day.
It was just a couple hours.
The next call I got was from a man who identified himself as a federal agent. He confirmed that this was fraud and extortion and asked if we wanted to press charges.
No. The negative publicity would still have been harmful and the type of attention that could encourage school officials to ban product fundraising.
The case was closed. And I did earn additional business at that school and with that principal.
All of this happened over a two day period with the second day only because of the transport time to get the staples to Wisconsin for immediate analysis.
Unlike many teachers, a high school band director can have a student for four years or more. Sometimes, the high school director is also the middle school teacher, so those students can have the same teacher for seven years. They come to the high school as curious freshmen and develop exciting dreams. Sophomores are excited about the colleges they will attend and what they will do. They want to go to the higher level, name brand universities for law school, med school, music school.
But then, sometime during Junior year, it seems, the realities of less than stellar grades and parents balking at the published prices of the dream schools begin to crush and shatter that earlier enthusiasm and optimism.
A quote I hear too often, and the main motivation for writing this book, goes something like:
“I really wanted to go to [Name Brand] University, but I’m going to have to go to [Community] College and commute from home – because it is what we can afford.”
What Crushes Their Dreams?
They are not stupid, but might be ignorant
When Middle School 8th graders become high school freshmen, they can have a glazed-eye look about them. They are coming from a smaller setting where they had pods and teams of teachers who spent significant time helping them not only get through the educational process, but also to smooth their often traumatic entrance into the teen years. Suddenly, they get to the high school where the building is bigger (easier to get lost), there are more people, more classes, they have more teachers who have less time to hold their hands and who will hold them to a higher level of accountability. They’ve been the big-dogs on the middle school campus and now are at the bottom of the high school heap. The good news is that most successfully navigate the transition and are set for success.
As they experience the increasingly specialized high school classes, they get excited about topics or classes they like. They develop big dreams. Often, by the end of freshman or sophomore year, they are going to go to the name brand school; Law School, Music School, Medical School. These are exciting times.
Unfortunately, factors can dampen their spirits and dash their hopes:
Classes are harder, expectations higher and grading is less forgiving. Students who have always gotten all “A’s” can encounter some grades they’ve never seen before. Most make the adjustment, but some become discouraged and give up.
They are negatively influenced by the mediocrity of the general student population. There is intense peer pressure to do as little as possible. Unless highly self-motivated, positively influenced by strong teachers or from home, the slide to do as little as possible progresses.
They struggle with seeing the long-term. When I talk to band freshmen about an award they can receive senior year, but that requires some things that they must do freshman year, one of the challenges is to get them to see that far ahead. If you want to see some rolled eyes and crossed arms, just try telling freshmen about the super high standards of top-tier colleges.
Some smart students will coast along – because they can. Students won’t get in trouble in a public high school for getting a B or C grade. No. The emphasis is on RTI, on intervening on behalf of failing students. Teachers are pressured to have a rigorous class and to do everything they can to pass everybody. The goals tend to center around aiming for that 80% mark. Teachers can be punished for having too many low grades, but are not rewarded for high grades, so by default, the idea of average and mediocrity, if not encouraged, are at least tolerated – and become the norm.
By the time students reach junior and senior years and begin to see the next level, their grades and past practices can knock them out of consideration. The problem is less that they couldn’t have done it than that they didn’t know. They’re not stupid, just ignorant.
They treat college prep the same way they treat high school homework
Just a few weeks into freshman year at his top-tier university, my son called to tell me about his first English class paper.
“Dad, I’ve got a grade on this paper that I’ve never seen before.”
When I asked him what he had done differently, the response was….
“I did what I always did in high school. I waited until the night before it was due and then wrote the paper.”
He discovered that the bar was set higher there.
I hear students discussing (or watch some of their social-media posts) about a paper they are writing for another class. Here are typical statements:
200 words down – 300 to go.
Half a page to go – if I increase the font and adjust the margins very slightly, maybe [teacher] won’t notice.
Does anyone have a paragraph I can borrow about…
The goal is not excellence, but average. Students demonstrate realization that the system’s goal is not to get an ‘A’, but to meet the assignment. We unintentionally encourage the problem by emphasizing meeting minimum standards or expectations. We don’t strive for excellence, but to meet or slightly exceed the standard, the minimum, the average. Administrators praise teachers when they can display on the big screen a graph showing their school ever so slightly ahead of the state average. The school where I teach celebrated receipt of a ‘B’ (one step up from average) rating from the state. No one talks about becoming the best school in the state. That kind of talk seems reserved for athletics and the arts, not so much for academics.
The GOOD NEWS is, that if the goal is to get into the community college or the big state university, that approach will probably work. But for these freshmen and sophomores with those big dreams of becoming the lawyer, the doctor, the engineer or the professional musician, those are not the “standards” that make it in the top tier schools – or in life.
They take what comes and go with the flow
Given their life history, why are we surprised? Teens coming into high school have had almost no control in their life story. They didn’t choose their parents, or where they live, or what economic condition they would endure. They have moved away from their friends as the parents get jobs or flee bill collectors. They are the unintended wounded in divorces and then have to “learn” to get along with parental “friends” or to have to go back and forth between parents. They have to learn to become brothers and sisters to someone else’s children. They have two and three bedrooms in different homes. Some jump from home to home weekly while others make a long summer move every year. The reality of single-parent households often includes a poverty component, or an absent parent working multiple jobs to try to make it. And what choice does the teen have?
By the time they get to high school, they are numb to relationship building. When they apply some of the standards and practices they’ve witnessed in their homes to their first boy/girlfriends, they experience similar traumatic results. Hearts are broken, and many erect shields of protection as a defense to both students and adults – including teachers.
So when the realities of their short-sighted focuses, crushed dreams and dashed hopes come to bear as they approach time for college decisions, they default into the same mode they already know so well. They just take it. They go with the flow.
I was working for the national fundraising company and in my first few years as a full-time product fundraiser. I spent most of my time calling on larger groups such as total elementary and middle schools, bands, choirs, leagues.
It was a time when you could still walk into an elementary school, go to the office and ask the secretary if you can see the principal — and have at least some chance that you might. No security cameras, buzzing in, showing id and such.
It was almost always okay to leave product samples. I would often leave something in the office for the secretary because everyone knows secretaries know everything about what is going on and have the power to get you (or prevent you from) the decision-makers. When I had chocolates available, those were especially appreciated. Principals and group decision-makers would usually accept chocolate samples.
Other gifts were sometimes problematic. There was a choir director I had worked with for several years. At the time, I was working with a prize vendor who offered novelty phones (land-line, of course). I especially liked the coke phone as a student/seller prize. But I wanted to give this director a piano phone and he wouldn’t accept it — until he was in his last year ready to retire. It wasn’t a matter of “buying” his business (the phone cost @$20) but of genuinely showing appreciation to a long-loyal customer.
Samples and small gifts were one thing. This story is about something else. I am not including the name of the town, school corporation, school, or individual. I want to emphasize that school teachers, sponsors and administrators are overwhelmingly highly-ethical people with a real desire to help students.
This visit was at a medium-sized elementary school with a principal I had yet to meet. He invited me into his office, closed the door, and sat behind his desk. He was an older guy who appeared to have put in enough time to retire.
I was immediately shocked when he started telling me how he hated children, hated his faculty and staff….and, well, everything about his job. As a former teacher, I was simultaneously uncomfortable and angry as he continued. But then it got worse.
After what was supposed to be ice-breaking information gathering prior to giving me details to include or address in my “sales presentation”, he asked me a bizarre question that caught me totally off guard;
“If I sign up to do a fundraiser with you, what is in it for me?”
He couldn’t be asking what I thought he was, and I didn’t want to assume, so I implemented my excellent sales training by asking questions.
“You mean what is in it for your school? [Immediately continuing]….your school should earn about $xxx which will help fund some of the needs you already mentioned.”
“Well, yes…..but what about ME? This is going to be a sizable sale with a good amount of commission for you and I want to know what you would provide me in appreciation.”
At that point, I started putting my materials away, stood up, thanked him for his time, and told him I couldn’t work with him.
As I made my way to open the office door, he mentioned something about confidentiality, and when I glanced back his facial expression was something in between anger and fear.
According to the 4-digit serial number, my Selmer/Paris Series 10 clarinet was manufactured in 1967. In 1968, my hs band director told my mother I had to get one. Not optional. He might as well have told her I needed a Mercedes for my first car. Dad made me a 50/50 deal, and after selling lemonade to golfers and hanging ad papers on doors … I got it.
I used it all through hs. It got me Solo/Ensemble medals, traveled with me and Holmes Band to KMEA and MENC, to Murfreesboro, TN and Virginia Beach, VA…. to All-State Orchestra, to band clinic and select bands, to summer music camps at Eastern Kentucky and Morehead State Universities, and followed me to Europe/U.S.S.R. with the United States Collegiate Wind Band in the summer between hs and college. I had to replace it at UK bc the clarinet prof kept saying things like,
“That was awful. I can’t tell if it was you or that crappy clarinet.”
Anyway, I just opened packages of cleaning supplies, including swabs, key and bore oil, silver polish, swabs, disinfectant and more….. I want to see if it still has all the notes and speed it once did. Students have heard me talk about instruments with “speed buttons”.
Oh, working on my 1973-ish Buffet R-13 also. Both are considered “vintage” at this point.
I was a music teacher in the system from 2005-2020 (retired). This happened during that time…not sure the year.
Online banking is convenient, easy, and problem-free….most of the time. I use it to pay credit cards, utilities, insurances, and a list of other local and long-distance service providers. We seldom write a check and enjoy excellent online record-keeping.
According to the 4-digit serial number, my Selmer/Paris Series 10 clarinet was manufactured in 1967. In 1968, my hs band director told my mother I had to get one. Not optional. He might as well have told her I needed a Mercedes for my first car. Dad made me a 50/50 deal, and after selling lemonade to golfers and hanging ad papers on doors … I got it.
Anyway, I just opened packages of cleaning supplies, including swabs, key and bore oil, silver polish, swabs, disinfectant and more….. I want to see if it still has all the notes and speed it once did. Students have heard me talk about instruments with “speed buttons”.