Posted by Rick Denney on August 16, 2001 at 13:53:10:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Teacher wont let me use my new CC horn!! posted by Klaus on August 15, 2001 at 20:30:33:
Klaus, with all due respect, this isn't about you or the effectiveness you have enjoyed as a teacher. This is about a kid who came to use seeking advice in the face of a directive he didn't like from his band director. The advice we give is for the student, not the director, the principal, the community, or anyone else.
Do you really think that the student can gain anything at all by being defiant to the director? The director cannot be defiant to the student, because the student has no authority over him, so there's nothing to defy. Any escalation of that initial refusal with defiance is absolutely guaranteed to fail. Do we want the kid to fail in his quest? If so, then we advise him to fight when he has no weapons and no hope of victory.
So, the proper advice is to have the student recruit the assistance of responsible adults who can plead his case for him. They can address the director on an equal footing. This is the only hope he has of gaining what he seeks.
Of course, his director may not really be so hard-and-fast as our inexperienced student fears, and maybe the student can persuade him with the technical arguments presented here. So much the better. But that is not defiance at all, and it shows the proper respect for the authority of the band director. That persuasion must take place in private, however, and the student in question must maintain low tones. This is not easy for a teenager, as I'm sure you can appreciate, especially an American teenager.
Again, what we think of the director's decision has no bearing on the situation--it is not the director we are talking to.
I have no problem with the director being taken to task for this decision, but it must be done in the proper way, or the student will suffer the consequences.
Rick "who respects Klaus's skills and experience as a teacher highly and wishes it were germane to this discussion" Denney