Thursday, May 26, 2011

Aren't band kids supposed to be smart?!?

So, I'm sure we all know about how the world was supposed to end this past Saturday at exactly 6 pm. I actually thought about blogging about this, but decided against it, as it is a touchy subject, as I've seen this week with many of my coworkers.

Having said that, whatever your belief is, one crackpot (who is probably just using the day the doctor's have told him he's going to die) isn't going to dictate when the world ends.

Now, the world is experiencing tornadoes, random rising river water (that I have to cross everyday to get to work), and other natural disasters, but if ever there was a sign of the Apocalypse, this it...8th grade band kids who can't pass a final.

Let me explain what the final was. The front office needed something on paper to say there was a final, so I figured, why not watch the movie Drumline during their final time and they had to put their name and the name of the movie on a piece of paper. Doesn't get much easier than that, does it?

On top of that, I left the DVD case out in plain view, wrote the title on the board, and there is a giant poster on the wall.

Somehow, though, 6 of them failed. Do you realize how pathetic it is to fail a band final?!? Don't even get me started on how easy this was.

Oy! Maybe I should've given them an actual final with music question and some playing tests and whatnot, but geesh!

6 failures?!? 2 of them didn't even turn anything in!

Aren't band kids supposed to be smart? Well, one way or the other, these kids won't be my problem next year. Except for seeing them when I'm helping at the high school, I'll have a new batch of 8th graders.

I'm still dumbfounded by this. Wouldn't you be?!?

4 comments:

Lin said...

Nope, I'm not surprised. There are a lot of band kids in band because their parents MAKE them stay in band thinking that is going to make them good kids. Yeah/no. They are still that....kids. And kids will pull crap no matter what class it is.

We are getting rid of some losers in band this year through graduation, thank god. No, they are not smart--they are druggies whose parents think band is going to straighten them out. And when the band director calls in the parents because their kid is high, they ream the band director a new one. And then they go to the principal and school board about how the band director is picking on their kid.Hence the problem.

Our band director makes our kids EARN their grade. There are no movies or easy papers to write. I can give you a list of requirements for their grades that is pages long. And it doesn't include just showing up and wearing black socks and shoes. These kids work HARD for their "A". He also started Smart Music, which is an online requirement of scales and music that they must complete each semester.

Our school and our band director demands nothing less than a huge commitment lots of work for their grades. If you hand them something easy, they are still going to take the easy way out and not do it all. There are just some kids like that. But there are also those kids that will work their butts off.

Band is no different than any other class in the school. You have to EARN your grade. And yes, there will be the idiots who do nothing and get a zero.

It's tough to accept, isn't it? Yeah, me too.

Mystery Man said...

wow! did i touch a nerve? lol

fact is, the school i'm at is the "forgotten" school, if you know what i mean. most of them will be lucky if they even made it that far.

i never had a band final when i was in school, so i wasn't about to have my kids take one. i may be rethinking that policy after this year, though.

i will say, though, that these kids work hard when it comes to performance...mainly becus they know how OCD i am about attendance and participation, and what will happen to them if they miss something...lol

they just can't seem to be able to write their name and "Drumline" on a piece of paper. Can you belive somone wrote "Casablanca" as the movie? WTF?!?

Classic NYer said...

I didn't know band kids were supposed to be smarter than other kids (and I was a band kid, so I think I know) but I would expect at least that they'd know their name and could at least copy from somebody's paper what the name of the movie was... kids these days just don't know how to cheat anymore, haha!

Lin said...

I think everyone automatically assumes band is an easy A--which it is not in our school. Make those kids work for their good grades, Mystery Man!!! :)