Why I don't teach math, or some other useful nonsense

[4011]

I can add and subtract. But I can't carry a tune in a number two wash tub. You go Capt. Wrench.

 

[johngalt]

That's great! One of my regrets was dropping out of band in high school. I despised marching band, but liked concert band. The school cut back on hours, eliminating a class, so I dropped band. I picked up my sax again recently, but I wonder how good I could have been.

 

[DeathGrip]

Congratulations, except reading and playing 1/6ths and triplets is math and very much the useful kind. Please don't sell yourself short on that.

I have a few theories about that. Music Theory being one. I see fractional not metric.

Cap, I bet if you looked at your school average in math and then looked at your bands average you'd see something.

Any how, music is a gift from God. The universal language.

 

[okiegtrider]

FWIW here. My two kids are both band members at our local high school. Band is a big deal at our school. Way more successful than the football team year in and year out.

Their participation in, and the teachers they have had in band have been powerful positive influences on my kids and many others. I'm thankful for the program and the people who run it.

 

[zzzippper]

I did not get a picture. I was on a road on the dam where no stopping allowed.

Before I'd only seen pictures. It was lovely.

I had to google what one looked like. Very pretty bird. Their territory covers all of TX.

http://sdakotabirds.com/species/maps/scissor_tailed_flycatcher_map_small.jpg

 

[Engineer1911]

Capt -- my hat is off to you and your students. My member name says it all -- Zero musical or artistic talent is over rating me. I can hold my own with pencil, straight edge, and a calculator. I was told, "Do Not come to choir practice ! ! ! "

 

[captorquewrench]

Someone asked about video.
This 2013 state marching contest. Before I got there, but hey...
It's a state year this year again. No pressure. Lol.
https://youtu.be/9IxakYd5Cn0

 

[Arik]

My 4 kids went to a small Christian school. It was the best in the county for Science, Math, and English. It didn't have a Football team so no Marching band. I really feel my kids missed something! They were all in concert band (which stunk), but the feeling of marching a half-time show, riding home on the band bus after a championship football win, or winning a high score in you bands division at a marching contest, Those are sensations my kids will never know (maybe the grandkids will get to) but I think their lives are less fulfilled for missing them. Ivan (former first chair Tuba, class of "74)

I know I'm a little late to this but.....

Not that I had much interest in marching band or school football but had I enrolled in it my dad would have beat me up and down our zip code. To him these were things you did during summer on your time off. School should teach useful subjects. Not that that helped me any, I was always a C+ student

 

[Coldshooter]

Some day you will be walking along and a 30 year old is going to bring a child up and start telling them about how you were one of their teachers and how great that was. Happens to my wife a few times per month. She taught 33 years 1st & 2nd grade then special ed with progressively harder students up through her being autism coordinator. She retired and is now a job coach part time which is helping kids find and be prepared for getting and holding jobs. Now we can't go shopping with out someone in one of the stores telling her how happy they are. So those are the delayed rewards for teachers.

 

[shouldazagged]

I'm a lucky old man. I grew up listening to music, good music including classical, on radio and at home on thick old 78rpm records. Music appreciation was taught in junior high school and despite having no talent to speak of and never having had a private lesson I played in my hhigh school orchestra. I was a boy soprano in our church's children's choir until I was fourteen, when I began singing bass in the adult choir. And so on.

It was never a profession for me, but it was always something I loved doing, something that fed an important part of me. Music is still food and joy in my life. I'm a far richer, better-rounded, more thoughtful man because I was exposed to so much beautiful music so young.

Cap, I rarely say this kind of thing because it seems presumptuous of me, but you are doing the Creator's work. You're attuning young spirits, developing youthful personalities, teaching discipline and critical listening, and giving your students massive transfusions of joy that will be part of them always.

I salute you, ma'am. I admire teachers (my first wife was one), but very few can give their students what you do.

 

[captorquewrench]

Thank you.