A Balancing Act

Sometimes, you find yourself stuck between two worlds…and it’s beautiful. Like seeing Cirque du Soleil. Sometimes, you find yourself in just the right place at the right time. I had one of those experiences recently. It just hit home this weekend when I traveled north.

When the weather gets hot in Texas, it’s always a nice break to travel to Minnesota to see family.  I attended a wedding. I got to experience both rain and cooler temperatures.  It was a nice break.

As the weekend was winding down, I stopped by my brother’s house. Our talk shifted to the upcoming graduation ceremony for my niece. She will be wearing several medals when she walks. One they really wanted me to see was the choir medal.

My niece is a special needs child. She has flourished in the Minnesota public education system. She has two parents that act effectively as her advocates. That is necessary in any case, but it became crucial when it came to the choir. Her older sister was musically and intellectually gifted. She experienced the spoils of singing in the top choir. The biggest reward was singing at the end of the year in the high school’s “Moment in Time” concert. The concert was presented by the top two choirs each year. Both were open to juniors and seniors. Both were open-audition choirs.

After three years, my niece was in the 9^th grade Treble Choir as a senior. That presents two major issues. First, there is an obvious stigma being the only senior in a 9^th grade choir. Second, it meant that my niece would never get to sing at that one, special concert. My brother’s frustration (and my sister-in-law’s frustration) was that she would not be placed in the second-tier choir, even as a senior who stuck with the program for over three years. The choir directors had no intention of putting my niece in a “select” choir. It was amazing the lengths they were willing to go to ensure the “safety” of that second choir.

Over the next four months, I received phone calls soliciting my advice. I’m in a unique position. I was a music teacher for seven years and a music professor for four. I also knew a lot about federal education law because of my position at TSTA. I drafted letters and recorded testimonies. I consulted. At times, it seemed I counseled. At one point, she was pulled out of a class with no notice for an audition. Her parents were beside themselves. I got to play the good-news guy. I knew we had won the battle. You’d never do that to a special needs kid unless she was going to make it in.

She did. With the understanding that she would not be participating during the “contest” part of the school year. Fine. Whatever.

Then the contest part of the calendar passed, and she still had not been reinstated. Phone calls. Pressure. Principal and assistant principal are gone. Choir directors say it’s too late to bring her back in at this point. New battle. Practically a war. Eventually, we won that one, as well. Never sure how my niece will look back on all of this, but the end result was pretty special. They really wanted me to see that particular medal. That was me (in part). I helped make that happen. They started to talk about that concert, and they trailed off mid-sentence…

You get misty-eyed when you are the parent of a graduating senior. I didn’t see the concert, but I can tell that night will now be forever history in our family. Those two parents would have traded tickets to Springsteen, U2, Lady Gaga, Kanye, and the 1987 Twins World Series victory in Game 7 to see their daughter in that one high school concert. It was a big battle and a bigger victory.

The frustration is still there. When he regained his composure, he told me, “I’m still going to write it out.” The question, he rightly noted, is how schools should mesh the requirements and intents of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act with the intentions and advantages that come from a pure, open-audition choir.

The question is easy to ask. It’s miserable to answer. This particular situation illustrates it so perfectly. Both of my nieces deserved this incredible concert experience. The music education community needs to find ways to make these opportunities--the real opportunities--available to everyone. And do this while keeping those qualities that make such experiences so special.

That takes a balancing act similar to Cirque du Soleil. I’m glad that the acrobats who were in play were able to keep everything balanced.

A dad should be able to feel misty-eyed.

Brown, brown, BROWN...

If  a picture is worth 1000 words, this is going to be a very long post. On Friday, my daughter's school had diversity night.  I've seen other such events in the past, and most of them are pretty contrived. However, this particular evening was one I won't forget. Some of the pictures come from the school's website. The other pictures were taken on my phone, so the quality isn't as high as I would like. My apologies for that.



This is the school's Step Team, which opened the festival in the cafeteria.



Here, two boys from Ghana are eating papusas from Honduras.



Israel was across the hall from Lebanon and down the hall from Bulgaria. Across from Israel is a woman showing a child where her country is on a globe.  Another hall had Pakistan right next to Afghanistan. Although there are no Afghani students in the school, there are children of soldiers. One soldier brought food, pictures and artifacts from Afghanistan. He spoke highly of the Afghan people, and his experiences during his tour were surprisingly positive. He was a fine ambassador for the army to young people.

The end of the night brought a world fashion show, followed by these children from Ballet Folklorico. They were followed by a group from Asia, who were getting ready outside:



That's the great thing about America. Maybe the greatest thing. I'm always proud and excited to see the U.S. Olympic team at the opening ceremonies. Not because of the enormous number of medals we have won over the years, but because of the color brown.

Nobody is really black or white or red or yellow. We're all a different shade of the color brown. When, say, Ireland marches through, it's all the same brown. Same with Kenya. Same with Japan.

The U.S. arrives with a hundred different shades of brown. Celebrating under the flag. Happy to be representing the United States of America. It's not some sort of quiet pride. It's more like a pure joy. My belief is that the joy comes from the idea that we are bound together by ideas and ideals, not skin color and heritage.

I had the good fortune to see a great many of those shades of brown interacting with each other Friday night. Each interested in the others' stories (and food). Seeing each other as some see the cover of an interesting novel.

Truly a blessing to be here.

18 Years

Today is an academic holiday in childrens’ lives: Field Day.  It’s one of the things you lose once you pass through the elementary grades.  I still have one, and she’s getting wet today.  My son had a late band practice yesterday to prepare for their concert next week, and my oldest daughter has a banquet that seems to look more like a prom than a dinner.

As the academic year closes, you tend to look back on what really made a difference.  Students may or may not do this, but most teachers do.  It’s a kind of wistfulness that most people feel on New Year’s Eve or a landmark birthday.

I read a blog from a young woman graduating from college this weekend.  She had a professor that had thought things through.  He told them that the first 18 years of “work” for them was school.  School gave them structure, a series of assignments, people all around to help and a general idea of what the next day, week, month and year would look like.  This soon-to-be graduate is facing a big moment in her life.

When we talk about P-16 alignment in political terms, we forget that the hardest part of college is the loose structure.  You don’t go to detention for skipping class.  Your free time is your own.  That seems to be an area where most students flail a little…or a lot.  Now a young woman has little or no idea what will be coming next for her.  There really is no structure.

As we prepare students…and prepare teachers…for P-16 alignment, we would do well to look at the real causes of “academia adrift.”  I think the biggest cause is the weaker structure of each phase of the transition from P to 16 (or beyond).  Preschoolers have very rigid schedules; college students do not.  Adult work varies too widely to address structure.

Harder tests aren’t the answer. Treating young people with more respect, preparing them for adulthood as people would serve us better. Perhaps a good resolution for next year would be to “loosen up.”