<p>Good. I hope your director is better than ours. She took it out on DD when DD did not audition for honor choir because of college audition conflicts. No solos, no leadership roles, etc. Her professional status in the system depended on how many got into honors choir, not if anyone got accepted at college.</p>
<p>DD learned to look past her HS experience to where she was headed. This is the same person who was doing teaching as a “fall back” from a performance career.</p>
<p>Singersmom07 my D had a similar experience with her director in senior year. A bit of shuffling within the staff had left the director apathetic and disinterested in technique and the things needed to keep voices healthy and safe. Combine that with a heavy academic course load (as she’d always had) and the upcoming audition season and the decision to bow out of the Show Choir was a necessary one (Yes, the director/dept.chair was yet another one of those “I could have been a performer”- if she had taken care of her voice and hadn’t pushed too hard and developed nodes). Cantor masses, even though D was the only one experienced ? No way. Solo at the special Mass before Christmas? Nope, give pop singer-types a shot. The musical? D had leads the previous 3 years, so they chose a “rock musical” knowing she wouldn’t take part in such a thing during audition season. As if all of that wasn’t petty enough, BOTH women spent the entire school year ignoring D as if she didn’t exist, talking to girls standing with her and then passing right over her. Both of the teachers had gone into teaching because they couldn’t make it in their " chosen" fields, one in opera and the other in musical theatre, and, private prep schools don’t require teachers to be certified in our state, so not only were they wash outs the performance field, they had no experience in teaching until they were hired there (one about 4 years earlier and one at mid-year the year before).I don’t think that education courses would have taught them manners but one would hope they might have at least gained experience during student teaching assignments.
So, D went on with her auditions and developed the same outlook at Singersmom’s daughter, look ahead, not back and when spring came, planning began for the May Day celebration- the May Queen and the faculty advisor for the event select the girl to sing the Ave Maria at the big Mass and their choice was D! She also sang at graduation, and the only ones with dry eyes were the two sulking teachers.
I know some of your kids will end up going through something similar- just remind them that there is life beyond high school!
GottaSing- congrats to your D! Way to go!</p>
<p>Mezzo-
Now you know why our son homeschools, besides the flexibility to be able to practice the number of hours, it also allows going to performances, open orchestra rehearsals, sitting in on master classes, and so forth. </p>
<p>And what you write about it not an uncommon experience I am afraid, a lot of school music teachers and directors when they get kids who are talented, have this attitude, not what is best for the student, but for them and the school,and we ran into that. You get the attitude like "your child owes the school to ‘give back’ what they have given them’ which translates to “you are good enough to help make the program go from mediocre to at least sounding like music”, and a lot of the times the kids end up being all twisted around to accomodate the needs of the director/school rather then for their sake. </p>
<p>I realize that having the school music director on your side can come in handy with recommendations and such, but better to get them from an outside teacher and do what is best for the child…</p>
<p>BTW, if anyone wants to read about a music director from hell story, take a look at Mark O’Connors website, about his days in high school and the idiot who was the music director of the school (I believe it is [Mark</a> O’Connor](<a href=“http://www.markoconnor.com%5DMark”>http://www.markoconnor.com), and he has a link to his story). Things like he had been chosen out of a lot of contestants to play with Stephane Grapelli to perform at Carnegie Hall with him when he was 15, and the school threatened to expel him if he went, and the music director spent a lot of time denigrating Mark, who was already performing and writing jazz music (as well as being an accomplished fiddler; he went on to become one of the highest paid session players in nashville, and today is a well known composer/performer and teacher), and such. Lot of narrow minded people with dreams of glory that faded, sadly, and they grasp at anything they can.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, none of these stories are rare, or even isolated cases. Schools seem to have lost perspective and kids are being hurt. Our city as one “magnet peforming arts” high school and the foolishness on the part of their administration made headlines a few years ago. Note, it is a PA school, but a fr cry from what one sees in “Fame”, where they at least mention academics!This school is an academic nightmare, with a 60-70% graduation rate (which does put it a the top of the urban high schools here), and only a 40% retension rate for those who do attend college. There was a student there, a young man who was making a name for himself in the hip-hop world, and he was invited to perform at the Grammy Awards. Naturally, he accepted but the school ruled it an “illegal absence” and he returned to face a week of detention!! What WERE they thinking??
In the same vein, D was called and invited to perform in a Master Class given by a touring company of MT actors. She had done this several times before and was known b the director and it was he who issued the invitation. Again, she accepted and performed and there was even a mention of the school she attended- again, for missing the last class of the day and a soccer practice, she faced disciplinary action and was penalized severely by the soccer coach.
I home schooled my eldest, but it wouldn’t have been the right move for my D, so I did the best I could- all of this is just ridiculous when you consider the school missed by athletes being recruited! Those “luncheon” meetings can last for 5 hours and no one cares about them missing classes.</p>