Tuesday, November 18, 2003

CHECK YOUR CALENDARS

It's that time of year again. It's the time when my students and I would mutually like to kill each other. I need a break. They need a break. But first, they need to learn their freaking music -- ya think?? What they always seem to forget is that before I get my break, I have to -- I get to -- give them a grade. It's my parting shot. And everything they have done, everything they have said, all their hard work and all their screwing around affects this grade. If you had one ounce of common sense, wouldn't you think this would trigger some sort of "oh, guess I better get my poop in a group" kind of response? Evidently not. I had one student ditch a performance and later said in a horrifying blase manner, "I had other things to do. I know it will affect my grade." What am I supposed to say to that? Nothing, except, "yes, you're right", and leave it be.



Someday, when my little students are finally grown up and graduated with public school music programs of their own, they will have their own students who decide to do something / go somewhere else on the night of a performance, and it will leave them in a lurch. And I hope they'll remember their own collegiate folly, remember me, and then grade them accordingly.



Why must learning responsibility come in the form of punishment?

Rant off. For now.

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