Need-blind admissions could mean a better school for less money.
“Need-blind admissions” was a term our students did not recognize and yet it can be a major difference in where you go to school and how much you pay. Read on for a definition, description and a listing of colleges that profess to have need-blind admissions.
It is a Boarding School (students live on campus) near Boston
Established 1787
Some people who had ties to the school included George Washington, Paul Revere, and John Hancock.
There are 1154 students on a 500-acre campus with over 100 buildings/sites on their campus map
It is a high school, grades 9-12
Graduates include two Presidents Bush, Jeb Bush and one of the Facebook founders.
48% are students of color
44 states and 45 countries are represented
They have faculty from every Ivy League school. ⅓ of faculty have PhD’s
The “head of school” has a Harvard Law Degree
Every student must be on an athletic team
They have NO AP classes
Harvard calls them a “feeder school”.
They have a student/teacher ratio of 7:1. (Harvard has 7:1, Yale has 6:1, Public Schools avg 28:1)
For the past three years, more than 20 Andover students have gotten into each of the following top schools: Brown, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale.
What does this have to do with getting into a better college for less money?
As you can see from the last bullet point above, going to a prestigious high school can be a ticket (or at least a significant advantage) to getting into a top university. Similarly, graduating from a top-tier university can be huge when it comes to getting into a graduate school, medical school, law school or a high-level job.
But top-tier universities have top-tier, seemingly unaffordable prices.
Schools like Notre Dame, Duke, MIT and most of the Ivy League schools cost $70,000+ per year. And because we mid-westerners focus so much on the big state schools and lower prices, the downside can be that we get what we pay for.
If you and I are competing for a spot at graduate school at Harvard, or to get into Yale Law School, will your [Big State School] degree get the same consideration as one from Duke, Notre Dame or MIT?
If I have an engineering degree from [Big State School] and you have one from MIT and we both apply for a position at NASA, your chances are better than mine.
But we don’t consider many schools because of the ‘retail price tag’ we see. That is a huge mistake. In some cases, you can go to a top-tier school for less money than you would pay a state-school.
Increasingly, universities are finding out that accepting students “need-blind” increases both diversity and the overall quality of a student body.
Some top-tier universities (and we had assumed all) consider both your credentials AND your financial ability to pay as part of the admissions process. Not so.
A “need-blind” policy means that they consider ONLY your academic and personal credentials when making a decision to accept you. Then, AFTER they accept you, they consider your finances. And at that point, if you cannot pay the full price, they will use other resources (their endowment, government financial aid, etc) to “get you there”.
THIS PAGE from Notre Dame’s site shows that they meet “100% of every student’s demonstrated financial need”. That means you have to prove it. If you have available funds, they will require that first. And part of your “package” may include loans — but from the amount of loan on the Notre Dame page is manageable.
THIS PAGE is a 2-yr old listing of colleges with need-blind admissions policies. I do not know if it is exhaustive, so check with schools you’re considering. And, as Mr. Petek suggested,
If your first choice does NOT offer need-blind admissions, but your second choice does, that could be a determining factor in where you go to school.
Music students from the local schoola participate in ISSMA (Indiana State School Music Association) sanctioned solo and ensemble district and state level competitions. ISSMA copyrights their judging forms so I can’t show those.
Many categories for solo contests are fairly universal, and as a template for the categories I will use here, I have selected categories posted on a high school site outside Indiana. For each category; the title and considerations are copied, the comments are mine.
INTONATION:
Accuracy to printed pitches.
In Solo performance, are you in tune with the piano (or the recorded accompaniment)? You should tune carefully before you begin, both to check intonation and to ensure the instrument is ready to go, especially if you have been waiting for a while. No instrument is completely “in tune”, i.e. tuning one note is not enough. You need to know what notes or octaves have what tendencies on your instrument and adjust accordingly. Flutes can roll in/out to help, trumpets have a 3rd valve slide and all brass instruments have alternate fingerings to compensate for typically out of tune notes (especially 1 & 3 valve combinations). Trombones are almost without excuse, right? Otherwise, you can bend your pitch up or down by adjusting your embouchure — or by using alternate key combinations. Practice with a tuner to determine which notes are in/out of tune. If you study privately, hopefully your teacher is helping you with the lesser-known key combinations and techniques as you strive for a higher level performance.
In Ensemble performance, try to tune before going into the performance room, but take the necessary time to get it right before you start. If the last sound the judge hears before you start is noticeably out of tune, you are in trouble in this category.
Tone is influenced and affected by many factors; instrument, mouthpiece, reed, and performer. If you have a step-up instrument and/or a better mouthpiece than the one that came with your 6th grade year instrument, then you should have some equipment help in tone production. But a good musician can make even lesser quality equipment sound good, while a poor musician can fail to produce what the equipment will allow. In other words, it is more than just the equipment — the judge is judging YOU!
Vibrato will likely be considered here for those instruments that are, at least at the higher levels, expected to play longer tones and melodic sections with a warm, controlled vibrato, typically oboes, bassoons, flutes, saxes, trumpets, trombones and baritones. French horns and clarinets generally are not expected to use vibrato.
Resonance, control, clarity, focus, consistency, warmth….all go to the currently accepted tone for your instrument. The best way, even if you are studying privately but especially if you are not, is to LISTEN to professional recordings. Online videos can be helpful, but some of those are posted by people not better trained or farther advanced than you. Resonance implies a deep, full, reverberating sound vs one that is weak and tentative. Is yours controlled or does it change drastically per octave or when you have skips of large intervals? When I think of clarity, I want to hear the instrument and not the reed, tone without fuzziness or buzziness. Consistency requires control. When someone talks of warmth, I think of a full flavored soft-drink or coffee vs something watered down. Warmth implies some emotional involvement (more below) in your sound.
RHYTHM:
Accuracy of Note Values, Rest Values, Duration, Pulse, Steadiness, Correctness of Meter.
Note values covers a lot. When a quarter note is followed by a rest, do you go all the way to the rest? When you have a dotted eighth-sixteenth pattern, do you sub-divide to ensure the dotted 8th gets 3/4 of the beat….and not 2/3? A common rest mistake is similar; not giving it enough value or rushing to the next note, which gets into Pulse. If it were possible to hook up a heart monitor to the way you play, you don’t want the screen to look spastic, or as if you are having a heart attack. You should have a clear, easy to read (hear) ‘beat’.
Is your tempo Steady, i.e., you don’t slow down during the faster parts and increase tempo in the easy sections?
Your heart rate increases when you run, but your tempo should not change when you play runs.
Practice with a metronome. If it feels like the metronome is pushing you, you’re dragging. If it seems like it is slowing you down, you’re rushing. If possible for 8th note meters (5/8, 6/8, etc), set the metronome so the 8th note gets the click. Obviously that becomes more difficult the faster the tempo.
TECHNIQUE (facility/accuracy):
Artistry, attacks, releases, control of ranges, musical/mechanical skill.
A question I’m often asked in a playing test setting where the student is going to be graded on how he/she plays something is; “How fast should I play it?” My answer is always,
As fast as you can play it accurately.
Facility speaks to how quickly or effortlessly you can play something, to your mechanical skill. Are you up to tempo on a technical passage or are you slowing it down so you can get all the notes. Balanced with facility is accuracy. If you slow it down and get it right, the judge might ding you a little on facility but should credit you on accuracy. The opposite is not true, however. If you play at tempo and miss lots of notes, you have demonstrated a lower level of both facility and accuracy. For the highest credit, practice it slowly, get it right, the gradually speed it up (with a metronome) to tempo. Accurately at tempo is the goal.
Is it better to play it slower and accurately, or at tempo and miss some notes?
Judge response: If you want MY highest rating, play it correctly at tempo.
Two terms above go together; artistry and musical skill. Have you interacted with Siri on the iPhone? That is a mechanical voice. Failure to demonstrate artistry or musicianship (musical skill) would be like listening to someone who speaks in a monotone, or someone who writes without any capitalization or punctuation. Similarly to the impact of a well-delivered preacher’s sermon, politician’s speech or orator’s dramatic reading, your artistry will affect your audience…and the judge.
When it comes to attacks and releases, most attack better than they release. Work at both. In a slower, melodic passage, can you start the note on pure air minus the tongue, or at least get the sound started without the sound of the articulation? Sometimes thinking of a football can work with a picture of how sound (or phrases) begin and end. Don’t start with a thud and don’t end with a chop off. Sometimes you need the tongue to stop the sound, but ending with the air is preferred.
Do you struggle with low notes on a saxophone or high notes on a trumpet or clarinet? Or any instrument? That is about consistency and control. It is more than just blowing and wiggling fingers. Can you maintain a dynamic level as you change octaves? A clarinet descending from high to low actually needs more air at the lower levels to maintain the same volume. Do you have some notes that pop out? That demonstrates a lack of control.
Record yourself using a computer device (such as iPad free app “Recorder Plus HD”) that shows your recording level. When you review, look for sudden peaks or valleys in volume… Sometimes you can get a visual of control issue.
And notice that, with this judging sheet category, “note accuracy” is assumed rather than mentioned. Playing right notes is the minimum of any performance and if that is all you do, you should expect a mediocre rating or result. In a previous article, I likened this minimal notes-only approach to driving a car and staying on the road while avoiding the other signs along the way.
There is a lot of overlap in these categories. Interpretation involves HOW you play WHAT you play. Are you in the style of the piece. Trills and grace notes in a Mozart piece are different from those from more recent composers. The style of a rondo is different from that of an intermezzo. When it comes to phrasing, are you adding fluctuation to the sound? Is it going somewhere? Is there a beginning, a peak and an end to a phrase? Do you play the way you speak? Phrasing can also include articulation (next category) and dynamics. Just as tempo was a part of fluency and accuracy described earlier, it is also part of interpretation. If you play a technical concerto by Mozart or Weber and you take the allegro section at half tempo to get the notes right, you have mis-interpreted the tempo.
Articulation
Few things are more obvious to a trained musician than to hear the errors of sloppy articulation; slurring everything, constant tonguing or a random combination.
Music performance can include articulation interpretations, but if you are changing what is marked on the paper, you need to mark your changes on the judge’s copy. Make sure the judge knows that what you played was what you intended.
If you have an extended 16th note run that is market all staccato, and you struggle with playing that, and you don’t want to reduce the tempo, then you might want to slur two, tongue two in a grouping of 4 sixteenth notes, for example. Mark the judge’s copy. He/she could still ding you a little for your articulation interpretation, but less than if you made the change without marking the original.
The other main weakness in articulation is the technique, i.e. HOW you articulate. Have you ever heard someone with a speech impediment? The challenge in fixing those is that most of what is happening is going on inside the mouth. Speech therapists are trained to do that. Do you need a specialist?
For a reed player, are you touching the reed, the roof of the mouth, or are you making some sort of ‘k’ or other throat sound to stop the air? Not all articulations are created equal. If you make the judge spend time trying to figure out what is going on inside your mouth (articulation technique), you are hindering your success.
Performance Factors
Choice of literature, appropriate appearance, poise, posture, general conduct, manerisms, facial expression.
Choice of literature: Demonstrate your strengths, hide your weaknesses. If you struggle some with rhythms, have trouble with fast passages, perhaps you should choose a slower piece. If you struggle with vibrato, don’t select the slow, melodic romantic-style ballad.
Appropriate appearance has nothing to do with your beauty or your weight. If you go to a job interview that would require you working in a business office and you arrive in jeans with holes and a t-shirt advertising an alcoholic beverage, you start with the wrong impression. Most solo/ensemble festivals will accept clean casual. Understand that most of the judges are college professors, where their performers are often required to wear tuxes and formals. Don’t shock them. If you come to the performance room looking like you have dressed for success, that you are showing respect for the judge, the audience and the event, you will earn credit in this area.
Poise and posture. Look like a performer. If standing, consider having both feet flat on the floor. If sitting, move forward on the chair with both feet on the floor. Poise includes the idea of selling both yourself and what you are doing. A college professor was advising a modest, yet talented musician and explained it this way:
Humility is a virtue. It is okay to be meek and mild….UNTIL you put that [instrument] in your hands and walk out onto that stage. THEN I want you to be an arrogant, confident, mean son-of-a-[band parent]. Take the stage. Command and control the audience.
My college professor told me to…
…make them stand up.
General conduct / manerisms, facial expression. Avoid toe tapping. Don’t grimace when you make a mistake. You’re in the spotlight and everything is important.
This is generally a catch all category and judges can use it to give you a higher rating here than maybe they were able to on other areas. This should be the category in which everyone can do well.
UPDATE: This pic is from @2016. I retired in 2020, but I still like this pic and believe the point I am making.
I worked with teens for years. I thrive on their youthful enthusiasm. I have always believed that if you show them that you really care about them as an individual, and treat them with dignity and respect, that they will give it to you in return. Can you see that in this pic?
Sent from Semi-State warmup. There is a story behind the pic….
Two years ago, I was following the band. About 30 minutes into the trip, I got a message that the percussion forgot their mallet bag. So Joan & I drove 30 min back to Huntington, got the mallet bag, and raced to Indy. By the time we got there and found them, they were in THIS visual warm-up area, last stop before going on the field.
As I handed the mallet bag out the window, I told them,
“This is not over.”
When everything was done and we were loading to leave, I called them over and reinforced for them how that was NOT a small mistake. When I told them I was disappointed, I started some tears. They knew I loved them, but also that I would hold them accountable. We were good by Monday class.
I also told them they would NEVER again forget their stuff. So….this is their telling me they remembered this time — holding out their mallets.
Cheer for first half, band for halftime, back to cheer for 2nd half
One of my all time favorites because it shows commitment and dedication. This girl is a cheerleader during the first half of the game, then, while the other cheerleaders have a break, she runs to the band, grabs her drum and marches halftime…..and then back to cheer for the rest of the game.
In the high school where I taught, we were just beginning to work on Africa: Ceremony, Song and Ritual. It was an incredible piece of music written to display some of the beauty and complexity of African music and drumming.
I have two “racist”-related stories to go with our preparation of this piece. The first happened several years ago when I invited (and then had to un-invite) an area African drumming group to come to our school to lead a Master Class for our students and open our concert. That will be for another post.
More recently, as part of our discussion and preparation, I spoke with the class about how African drums are considered “sacred” and that we would treat this music and our performance of it with that type of respect.
As part of that discussion, I spoke a little of my son’s study abroad experience during his undergraduate work at Duke University, when he spent a summer in Ghana. He was one source of telling me how reverently the Gananians treated the drumming instruments. He also told me the exceptional level of respect they gave “white people”, especially men.
He stepped over some local cultural norms when he insisted on helping with the food preparation and in washing his own clothes. It should be noted that the home where he stayed was considered one of a “nobleman” from the area.
Not comfortable with the female servants doing his laudry, David tried to do his own. The best he could get was for them to let him help them.
“Everyone wanted their picture taken with the white guy, and they wanted hugs. When I went to church, they would always set me on the front row, if not on the platform itself.” -David Gardner
What really sparked the shocked response was when I told this class (mostly white with a small hispanic component) about my son’s experience in a Drumming Circle, where several of the students from his trip participated. The comment that the drumming leader made (multiple times) was that….
“You all are playing like a bunch of WHITE PEOPLE.”
I got a noticeable gasp of disbelief and shock when I shared that quote. I explained that this was not something a white person said, but rather was a critical statement made by a Gananian African about how non-Africans were playing his instruments.
I was not trying to be or show any form of racial disrespect, but rather, to use a quote from someone who should know the instrument….. Incident averted.
In 7th grade, attending a band clinic at Morehead State University, I made the definite decision that I wanted to be a band director. No one on either side of my family had been to college, so I was clueless in many aspects of what it would take.
My band director, James Copenhaver, pulled me aside one day to explain:
You want to be a band director. That means you’re going to need to go to college, but your family can’t pay for you to go (My parents were divorced and my polio-surviving mother was raising five children.)
Your grades are okay, but not good enough for academic scholarships. You’re not athletic, so that is out.
The best chance for you to get to college is to become good enough on that clarinet that by the time you graduate, a college will pay for you to come. You’ve got four years.
7 C’s Students Deserve from Teachers has nothing to do with mediocre grades.
Students are worth fighting (advocating) for and deserve teachers who CAN (proficient, competent), who CARE (compassionate, empathetic), who CONNECT (communicate with, not at), who COLLABORATE and COMMUNICATE with colleagues and parents, who COORDINATE all that goes into providing an organized, informed and inspiring atmosphere, and who CHALLENGE what constrictstheir enthusiasm. I want to be one of those.
–John Gardner
I used a portion of the above as a facebook status and received a significant response from students, parents and others. One assumed I had just returned from a professional seminar…I took that as a compliment.
Have you ever heard comments like these from students? I have.
He is a terrible teacher. He can’t do anything outside his teacher textbook or PowerPoint presentation that he got from the textbook website.
If I am going to learn this, I’m going to have to do it myself.
I used to like [insert subject].
She doesn’t care about me, doesn’t know who I am or anything about me and probably doesn’t even know my name….’cause she never calls me by name.
That was probably up to date information a decade ago.
Students deserve teachers who CAN. In a music setting, students deserve teachers who are proficient musicians. Whether you call it modeling or some other name, they need to know that you know what you’re talking about. Vocal students probably get to hear their choir teacher sing more often than instrumental students hear the teacher play or perform on their main instrument.
I was working with a group of freshmen students on a combination of scale, finger technique and breathing skills by playing a scale multiple times on one breath. At one point, a clarinet student interrupted me with, “C’mon, these instruments can’t go any faster than that.” I got my clarinet out and zipped through a 3-octave chromatic scale multiple times in a breath. The next question; “How did you do that?”
That provided an amazing teaching moment.
Students deserve teachers who CARE. Yes, there are lines, boundaries and appropriate behaviors and otherwise…but one of the problems with teens is that they feel they are nothing more than educational fodder into which we professionals are to dump vast amounts of useless (their perception) information.
At what age are students no longer touchable or hug-able? I have had students in my office (even on the side of the marching rehearsal field) break down with emotion as they tell me about heavy duty drama at home, with job, boy/girl friend, or when they can’t get that marching set or flag toss. I don’t make a habit of hugging everybody (and shouldn’t), opting more often for high fives, hand shakes and shoulder taps….but sometimes ….sometimes, that student, boy or girl, needs a hug or an arm around the back onto a shoulder. Sometimes a proper touch is a powerful force for which there is no equal substitute.
Students deserve teachers who CONNECT. It is difficult to connect with a student unless they perceive that you know your stuff and that you care about them as an individual.
He talks at me, not with me.
She’s up there and I’m down here.
My grandma/grandpa died, but if I cry in class I’ll be in trouble.
I got this in a thank you note following a graduation open house visit:
Thanks for being there for me during my troubled teenage years. When family and parents are so totally dysfunctional, it is good to know that I could go to someone and share my burden and get encouragement and advice. I don’t know why (well, yes I kinda do) so many teachers are afraid of students…. but thanks for not being one of them.
Students deserve teachers who COLLABORATE and COMMUNICATE with other teachers, parents, and others on their behalf. Have you ever had a student who is stressed about another class because he/she is convinced the teacher has mis-understood (or mis-judged) him and is afraid to say anything….and you help out? Or how about a student who has zero support from home and trying to get through the FAFSA/Financial Aid jungle alone….and you help or make a call to the college FinAid department? Or what about students applying for jobs and scholarships. Do you make a call or write a letter on her behalf?
Students deserve teachers who plan, organize and COORDINATE all that goes into providing an organized, informed and inspiring atmosphere. The student’s locker and probably their home bedroom are likely disaster areas. Their home life might be a total wreck. They deserve structure and to know that they are important enough that you have spent some time getting ready for them. Some teachers may think they can “wing it”, but students can detect that. When they want improvisation, they will go to a jazz/rock concert. They need structured freedom to explore and learn, not disorganized chaos.
Students deserve teachers who will CHALLENGE what constricts them.
It was about one of my own sons that I sat several years ago in a middle school principal’s office enduring a fist banging on the desk accusation of “pushing” my kid.
My response as a parent, and now as a teacher, is to prevent walls from being erected in the path of student progress.
In the Fall of 1971, I received an invitation to participate in the United States Collegiate Wind Band, which would tour Europe and the USSR in the summer of 1972. Two from my school were invited. We both turned it down.
Word got to the local newspaper that I had been invited. A bank contributed half the amount and there was a drive to raise the other half. There was a picture of me in full Holmes MB uniform in the paper. Because I delivered newspapers, the headline was for a Newspaper Boy invited to travel to Europe and USSR.
It was a three-week tour. I flew out of the Cincinnati airport to New York, where I met the directors and staff. Professor Al G. Wright, Director of Bands at Purdue University, and his wife Gladys were the directors. The staff member responsible for woodwinds was Diana Hawkins, daughter of the Director of Bands at Morehead State University.
There were approximately 120 in the band, representing 26 states. Towards the beginning of the rehearsal process, we had auditions and I was appointed 1st Chair Clarinet.
Tour Stops
BRUSSELS and ANTWERP, Belgium
LONDON, England
PARIS, France
COPENHAGEN, Denmark
ZURICH and LUCERNE, Switzerland
MOSCOW, U.S.S.R.
Moscow, U.S.S.R.
1976 was in the “Detente” time between the US and USSR. We were a token of that effort.
It was a tense trip for us. Keep in mind that the Cuban missile crisis was only nine years old and the arms race was in full force (until the ’72 treaty).
We were to depart from a Swiss airport for the 4-hr flight to Moscow, arriving in the early evening. It wasn’t until we arrived at the Swiss airport that we learned the Soviets had decided we would fly in on one of their Aeroflot jets, which didn’t leave Moscow until they confirmed that we were waiting. That 4-hr wait plus the 4-hr flight ensured our arrival in the middle of the night, when no one would see us. Not an accident, I’m sure.
We did not pull up to the large, impressive airport terminal, stopping instead a fair distance from it. Our welcome included two busses, which pulled up alongside the planes, and two armed guards (rifles) standing at attention at the doors. We were instructed to deplane and get on the busses. “Your luggage will be taken to the hotel for you.” Not only did that prevent our entrance into the airport terminal for baggage claim, but it also gave them a few hours with our luggage.
The bus ride to the city was annoying and uncomfortable. Each time the manual transmission bus would get up to speed, the driver would shut off the engine and we would coast…. then as the speed decreased to a near stop, he would pop the clutch for a jerky engine restart and then repeat the cycle.
We were greeted warmly at the hotel and treated to some amazing food as they prepared us for our “orientation”, which also delayed our hotel check-in. Unlike our other stops, when we normally had at least half a day to ourselves and to explore the city we were visiting, the Soviet guides said we could not leave the hotel. The reason, “The Soviet people do not speak English and if you get lost, they won’t be able to help you get back.”
When we finally got our luggage, organized neatly and alphabetically for us, we discovered they had removed all the souvenir luggage stickers from the previously visited countries. There was no way to replace all that, and there was little doubt our luggage had been searched.
In most of the countries, we would get a “continental” breakfast (a roll and drink), were on our own for lunch, and then would get a good evening meal. In Moscow, we were fed multiple-course meals three times daily with some lasting two hours, leaving less time for sight-seeing. I tasted caviar for the first time there.
We never traveled by foot. As we bus toured the city, we kept seeing weird vending machines. Customers would take the community glass and put it over a nozzle for rinsing. Then they would dispense what looked like beer, stand there to drink it, then set the glass down for the next person standing in line. When we asked our guide we were told that “those are soft drink machines”. We concluded the machines were dispensing beer.
They took us to Moscow University, a huge, modern campus, and told us that college is free in the U.S.S.R.
We went to the pre-revolution section of “Old Moscow” to view poorly maintained buildings. “This is what Russia was like before the revolution“.
At a huge cathedral we heard, “Unlike what you hear in your country, there are 55 operating churches in Moscow“.
As we toured, we were constantly instructed when we could and could not take pictures.
Lenin’s Tomb was impressive and unique. The line to get in was very long. A married couple, still in wedding garb, was escorted to the front of the line. What an honor. Inside the tomb was extremely cold, dimly lit, and had a soldier every few feet. No talking. No cameras. And the main attraction……the actual body in a glass casket.
We were in Red Square, a huge area somewhat like a brick version of the National Mall in Washington DC, when we saw someone fleeing a group of soldiers. The soldiers released a dog. We’ve all seen videos of well-trained police dogs taking down and “holding” a criminal. Nope. Not this dog. We were too scared to take a picture. I did get one of some soldiers who were unhappy to have a picture taken by a teenager with a US Flag patch on his touristy shirt.
This was a music tour and we gave concerts before huge crowds everywhere we went. There was one town in Switzerland where they built us a stage in the town square and literally shut the town down so everyone could come. People wanted to hear us, meet us, talk to us, touch us, get autographs and pictures…. we were treated like famous guests everywhere, except in Moscow.
The Moscow concert was in an old building with a stage so small part of the ensemble had to set up on the floor and a pathetic audience of about 50. The explanation: “Everyone in Moscow has a job and you are giving a concert on a workday.”
Even the departure was eventful. In every country, we would exchange currency and try to end up with souvenirs. Our guides emphatically told us it was illegal to “smuggle” Soviet currency out of the country. I put a Ruble inside a chewing gum wrapper inside a reed box inside my clarinet case. Things got interesting as we were in the lobby of the airport preparing to board our Aeroflot plane when a group of people arrived and started physically searching us. I heard coins hitting the floor. That process took an uncomfortably long time…..enough that the plane was late for departure.
They wouldn’t allow us to leave until our director signed a document that we were late arriving.
Switzerland: Zurich and Lucerne
We spent nearly an entire week in Switzerland, a beautiful country with mountainous views. And the town of Lucerne went all out for us, building a stage in the town square and basically shutting down so everyone could come to the concert. They were friendly and appreciative. I bought my mother a small swiss cuckoo clock.
Paris, France
Paris was one of our final stops and I was running out of money. Our concert jackets were pretty fancy and we would be approached by “artists” who would draw or cut a caricature and then try to sell it to us. They expected us to purchase and I recall one angry artist pointing to my jacket when I tried to explain I didn’t have the money for his art.
London, England
I enjoyed the history a lot. I’ve always loved British pomp and pageantry.
Seattle Schools are closing its “Highly Capable Cohort” (Gifted & Talented) program because the claim is that too many of the participants are white or Asian…. “in an effort to make the program more equitable and to better serve all students, the district is phasing out highly capable cohort schools. In their place, SPS is offering a whole-classroom model where all students are in the same classroom and the teacher individualizes learning plans for each student.” Think about what that means for each classroom teacher.
Our local schools had a GT program called “Project Challenge”, involving our sons …. until the system abruptly ended the program, leaving stranded students who were taking classes 2+yrs ahead of grade level. We fought the repercussions until we found an advocate who enabled one son to commute daily from middle to high school for math, to skip multiple years of Spanish and to take advanced classes at the university. Those programs are more common now, but they were not at the time we were involved. I wrote about it here: https://www.virtualmusicoffice.com/the-system-worked-for…/
We wrestled with teachers who wanted to use our sons as tutors (noble and helpful, but does not address their “special needs”) or to do individual study in the back of the classroom (like what could happen in a discipline situation).
We are seeing some of the results of closing most mental institutions and “mainstreaming”. How many tragedies are blamed on “mental health” issues? If people need help, let’s help.
And here’s another problem I have with the “too many whites and Asians” racist argument….. Which pro sports teams, such as NFL, NBA, MLB “mainstream” players to ensure they have a balance of ethnicities and abilities? No! We want to win, right? Olympic teams are not balanced per quotas. We want to win, right?
I won’t argue that DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion), which sounds wonderful is the new AA (Affirmative Action), but it all seems so similar, aka fad trend of the era.
Yes, let’s work to benefit those with “special needs”, but special needs at both ends. Let’s NOT label people ‘insane’, but also, let’s not ignore them. We NEED GT graduates coming into our society, even if they are white or Asian.
