XplanaZine

The end of the school year brings many pleasant experiences for teachers and parents. There’s the last exam, the last committee meeting, the last carpool and, my favorite, the last school band concert.

This year in particular was a pretty big milestone in my parenting life. I attended my son’s last middle school concert. What makes it so momentous isn’t that I sat through three years of listening to him play the trumpet, but that I sat through the previous three years as well listening to my daughter play the bassoon. That’s right six consecutive years of middle school band concerts. Six years of timing my entrances and exits so I didn’t have to listen to the other grades playing. Six straight years of the Star Wars theme song as the year-ending finale. I swear, it’s keeping me from seeing the new movie.

I’ll admit, these last three years were tougher than my first three. That’s mainly because my daughter played the bassoon and between the instrument being so tall and the fact that there were only two bassoonists in the band, I never had trouble picking her out. And there were other things that made those years easy. You see, my daughter had no dreams of being a professional musician. It as just a fun thing to do for her. Besides, the other bassoonist was one of her best friends so there was never any concern about who was first chair or who got to play the solo.

My son, on the other hand, already has a thousand-dollar trumpet and has aspirations of being a great jazz player one day. He’s extremely competitive and it makes a big difference to him if he is the lead player or not. Getting to play the lead solo at the final concert was one of the biggest moments in his life. And if all that weren’t pressure enough, for the last three years I’ve had to contend with finding him in a crowd of trumpet players simply by recognizing his hair or glasses. I never told him, but half the time I thought he was the girl sitting next to him.

Yep, it’s been six long years but my concert experiences have taught me some important lessons about life and education. Here’s what I’ve learned.

1. Quantity can be just as important as quality when it comes to learning. Trust me. A beginning bassoonist is nothing you ever want to hear this side of death. On the other hand, with lots of practice the instrument takes on a sublime sound, even in the hands of a fairly uninterested player. It just takes time and plenty of quantitative work. The same can be said about writing, reading, or learning a language.
2. A mentor’s role is often just to applaud. As much as my children look to me for help for everything under the sun, there’s not much I can give them when it comes to music. I’m pretty much arythmic and atonal when it comes to such things. But I can give them my support and show them my appreciation by clapping loudly. The same thing goes for my students and it’s a lesson I hope I won’t forget.
3. You can lead a horse to water.. . At some point, for every human being, learning becomes an inside-out proposition. It becomes something that the learner wants to do for him or herself and the external stimulus becomes irrelevant. Whether it’s math or the trumpet, we can expose our learners to opportunity and inquiry but we cannot learn for them. This is probably the lesson our current education system would benefit from most.
4. Dedication and commitment matter. This last lesson pertains to the learner but it’s also a toast to all the great teachers out there. I’ve watched my kids for six years but I’ve also watched the same band director — Mr. Heitz. He is dedicated, tireless in his work with the kids, and a true inspiration to those that really want to learn and excel. Here’s to you, Mr. Heitz. I hope you have many more great years with our kids.

As for me, well. I’m off to high school. This will be the first and only year I can see my kids play together in the marching band and at concerts. Maybe I can talk my son into switching to the bassoon so I can find him in the masses.

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