<p>Interesting article in the Times about young lady making decision not to pursue music past high school. The comments following the article are also interesting.</p>
<p>great comment:
"Tiffany, go for the music scholarship and major in anything you want. Where’s Oberlin, again. A college of arts and sciences with a great conservatory. Oh yeah, Ohio. Now, someone help her come up with a few more colleges. She could be pre-med thanks to her musicianship.</p>
<p>This is not a deadend story."</p>
<p>I think it’s interesting to find that there is room for yet another doom and gloom story in newspapers that are already dying for lack of readership. Please, don’t get me wrong and think that I am mean and heartless, but the news seems to delight in making everyone feel bad and that is exactly what this country does not need any more of.
I wish I knew what we were supposed to “get” from this story. Are we supposed to hope that someone comes forward and gives the young woman a scholarship to a music school? That doesn’t seem a great idea since she has already written off the idea of going into a field which can’t offer her guaranteed security. She admits that “spending four years studying music theory doesn’t interest her”- OK then, she has made her choice and that is to go for a job which tops out at about 42K (LPN top salary in Ohio after 10 years experience) and offers little chance for advancement. That’s if she even beats the odds and stats for dropping out of school or teenage pregnancy- she has already made a poor choice in hitching herself to a boy who is sitting there letting her support him while she is still trying to finish high school. How come the reporter didn’t find out why he doesn’t feel the need to get up and get a job cooking those Sonic Burgers that his girlfriend has to spend hours serving? I would lay odds that there are jobs available in that town for him, but why should he work when the system will provide a safety net if he doesn’t like the money his young girlfriend brings in? Or why didn’t someone look into why the Social Service system was so overburdened that Tiffany slipped through the cracks when her parents couldn’t look after her? By what we have read, she has been in need of help for quite some time but it seemed that none was forthcoming.
This is where I really start to wonder why the public is content to be taken for a ride on the " Media Misery Express"?
I can’t say that my D is thrilled with the thought of taking 4 more years of Music Theory, or of the thought that she may have to regroup and move to another part of the world in order to pursue a career in her passion, but that’s what it needs to be, a “passion”. Music is not that for Tiffany Clay. My D has worked two jobs for the last year in order to help out as her father has turned his back on her because she won’t listen to him and spend the rest of her life, miserable like him, staring at a computer screen 10 hours/day and then going home to obsess over the “perfect lawn”, or what what kind of wine 'fridge gets the best rating. I have sustained two major injuries and a life-altering progressive illness, so things aren’t always easy here, but yet my D is also at the top of her class, with those same AP courses (and getting 5’s on all the exams too!). She found her jobs on her own, using skills learned in school and even managed to find one of them that allowed her to sing in front of a congregation each Sunday and get paid to do so! She’s just gotten her first raise after a year at her other job in the mall. Sure, she sees her friends stopping by the store to buy expensive clothing without even a second thought- Sometimes her teachers even bring their daughters in for a shopping sprees. My D has to wear the company’s clothing to work, but rather than spend time thinking that she is being done a disservice by not being able to purchase what others do, she plans and waits to buy her favorites when they are on sale and she can use her employee discount.
Tiffany had options open to her also, and perhaps her school Guidance Counselors could have done better by her and pointed her in other directions, but that’s not to say that thousands of other seniors (and ones in the past and in the future as well) have not had to make difficult choices also. Why can’t the reporters for the NY Times go out and find sucess stories for a change? There are plenty of them out there. Kids who have overcome all kinds of things and are willing to make the sacrificies necessary to do whatever is needed to get them where they want to be. There are no guarantees in life, no one is assured a job- everything is a risk and sucess belongs to those that are willing to sieze life by the scruff of the neck and go after what they want. It’s too bad that a reporter thought that writing another story about a dream that didn’t even exist was worth the time and effort. Unfortunately, it is a dead-end story, because that is precisely what the media wanted to leave us thinking- there is no hope for America. I disagree, because I hear about your children and I look into the faces of mine and I know there IS hope.</p>
<p>I read the article, and felt that it was not a commentary on music, nor economics. </p>
<p>Not music, because this girl has already said she doen’t want to spend four more years studying music theory. No matter how wealthy or talented she was, she would not be a music major unless she could get past this. Violinists are a dime a dozen, and only those with irrepresible, unquenchable passion have a chance. As is often quoted here, if you can see yourself doing something else, do it. This girl is making a wise decision.</p>
<p>Not economics, because she is employed. She is apparently even supporting herself and another. She isn’t wealthy, perhaps, because of some decisions she’s making or that have been made for her.</p>
<p>She moved out at 16. Still a minor, the state family services would have been required to help her out - perhaps they do. There are Independent Living programs set up for just this type of situation. These children who are wards of the state get money for college. They qualify for pell grants. I don’t mean to might light of her situation; only suggest that it isn’t quite as dire as it could be.</p>
<p>Choosing to support an unemployed drop-out boyfriend and a cat are choices she has made that are not society’s or her parents’ or the economy’s or music’s fault.</p>
<p>The same article could have been written about any number of teenagers abandoned by families and making poor choices who have to give up their dreams. The kid who forgoes college to support his siblings, or the one who drops out from lack of support. </p>
<p>This seems to be a variation on the excuse: I could have been as good as you if I’d practiced. That means, talent isn’t enough. There is drive, dedication, music-at-all-costs. This girl is deciding that she isn’t willing to go that route, and the NYTimes feels it’s newsworthy? Let me show you hundreds more.</p>
<p>The more valid point of the article is that many music programs are endangered right now. People see music as expendable.</p>
<p>There is a quote or story that I can’t find right now - will search later for it. It talks about the damage we have done to music because we define it as an art, whereas it has so much more to do with thought, emotion, and basic framework of our beings. It is not a frivolity; it is essential. In the meantime, here are a couple other quotes.</p>
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<p>Excellent post Binx! You are dead on!</p>
<p>This should be posted in every inner city High School as an example of how you can succeed if you work hard. She is working her butt off, and not relying on handouts. She has a plan to succeed by being a nurse, and hopefully she does.</p>
<p>I thought it seemed right for her that she pursuing nursing. How many times have people on this board said that no one should pursue music unless they absolutely can’t imagine doing anything else? I didn’t get a real sense from the article of what her level of talent is? Is she conservatory level? It seems from many of the comments of readers that many people think she should pursue music as a career, but it doesn’t seem that she wants that. With better guidance/family support, I think she would have more college options and might get rid of the deadbeat boyfriend. However, her decision not to pursue music as a career is one that many high school kids make, even if they’re from wealthy, stable families.</p>
<p>Binx- thanks for the other viewpoint; it has made me think about the article in another light. I just think it is such a shame when kids fall through the cracks in the system that is supposed to be there to help them. As a former urban public school teacher, I left the profession frustrated at watching one social worker try to handle over 600 students in a combined elementary/middle school- we made the referrals, but although the woman did her level best, is was near the end of the school year by the time she even got to the middle of the September pile! She spent so much time handling emergencies that day-to-day problems, such as housing and medical care were pushed to the back burner.<br>
prefect- you are right, the same thought pattern has been voiced, many times, on this board. I just get angry when kids get dragged down by decisions that, with guidance, should never have been made. It also bothers me (and this trait drives some of my friends wild!) when there are so many holes in a piece of writing and they are there so that we are forced to overlook necessary points. Off Mr. Barry goes about Tiffany working 35 hrs/week, which, legally, she could not do until she was 18, so it might have only been for a short time; she is to be lauded for her tenacity but again, better oversite in the school system might improve the dreadful drop-out rate and see who is signing the forms for kids that should be under the care of an adult and improved guidance would point out that she is making choices that are holding her back. All states have a requirement that able-bodied adults must seek employment as there is a limit to what Social Services will provide, yet the fact that Tiffany’s boyfriend isn’t even working at one of those McDonalds jobs Mr. Barry mentions is left dangling- she is doing the noble thing by giving this guy money to sit home all day. It’s frustration speaking here- this girl had, has, much potential, but no less an august organization than the NY Times is pleased that they can find a piece to publish about the despair of the downtrodden town and one young resident. This is not what is needed.
Perhaps I’m off base, but I did get the feeling that the reporter was trying to make us feel badly because this youngster was unable to head off to music school because she has to continue to earn a living. If that were not the case, why would so much attention have been paid to the price of her instrument, her “fragile hands” and the competition and travel involved? It was as if he(the reporter) thought that someone should have come forward and given her a full scholarship as well as a living stipend and then guaranteed her a job, so she could have chosen the route that would make his article have a nice, neat ending.
Witness a quote from Dan Barry, the author of the article:
“Should be going to a top college, on scholarship. Should be, but wont be, because she feels a need to make money more than music.”</p>
<p>OperaDad- I wish that it would make a difference if the article was posted in every inner-city high school, but I doubt that it would do anything except turn yellow with age, if it stayed on the bulletin board more than a few hours.Tiffany’s life would not register with those kids.And besides, her success, at this point, is hypothetical as even though she has achieved much in high school, anything further is still speculative and unless she is draped in designer clothing and driving a car covered in chrome, her accomplishments are not relevant to them, at least not to the kids in this city. I chose to teach in the inner city and the only way teachers could keep sane was to come to the realization that if we made a favorable impact on ONE student during our years in the classroom, we were doing great. Until I took the advice of a much more learned colleague, I would spend each evening in tears believing that my prescence in the classroom made no difference at all, since the kids would do as they chose as if I was invisible. But at least I wasn’t one of those the ones teachers screaming at the students in anger bred of years of frustration. You do what you can, and someone thought enough of Tiffany to provide her with a better instrument than she would otherwise have had. What a shame that it seemed to come all too late…
There are a few topics that really push buttons for me, but, I will now step down from my soapbox and go make dinner- I promise!</p>
<p>A truly great story. Never give up on music, Ms. Clay.</p>