Last Updated : Monday, 07 January, 2002 at 08:45 PM -0600
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| Daynotes On a Budget Last Updated : Monday, 07 January, 2002 at 08:45 PM -0600 |
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Monday,
January 7, 2002
Sure, there's a whole can of worms out there to open right now, and me with a big, new, shiny can opener...
Seems our local schools have run into some budget crunches. Some no doubt from their own fault, and some from a change in state aid which is a change from previous year's operations.
So, as usual, the first reaction of most districts was to "raise more money." When those efforts failed, they turned to "cut costs." And inevitably, there are highly-paid administrators who come on-board to "aid in the situation." One of the most recent was David Jennings. Mr. Jennings, a former member of the state legislature (I think he was Speaker of the house) moved from that job to head the local Chamber of Commerce. Where he jumped from there to the Minneapolis School District last month to a six-figure salary as a "troubleshooter" I wondered why there was all that money laying around. After all, they've got something like a $10,000,000 shortfall...
But that's only part of the problem.
When it comes to cuts, schools invariably look to protect the core stuff - Readin', writin', and 'Rithmatic, if one believes in the three "R"s. But let me tell you a little story...
I was mostly an indifferent student. In grade school (or the first eight years of "formal schooling" from age 6-14, in my case), I was rarely challenged by the materials. My school lacked anything along the lines of a "gifted" program, for which I'd have had trouble qualifying anyway, since I didn't have much of a work ethic. Homework was something to be avoided with a passion. In fact, in seventh grade, I succeeded in not turning in a single religion assignment the whole year long. Pretty pathetic.
In high school, I was more challenged - some by the material, and some small amount by the teachers. I developed a work ethic which suited me - if the work was easy or interesting, I'd do it right there in class during the assigned work-time, or in study periods later, as soon as I could. If the work was either difficult or boring, it would wait until the very, very last minute. The writing and re-writing and re-drafting which other kids went through seemed such a waste - I could write first-draft-final stuff which, with some small revisions, would regularly get A/A- work.
Which was how I managed. During the daily work, I'd sluff by, and when it came to the big projects, I'd gear up, do those well, and pass the class with a C or occasionally a low B.
But there was always Freshman Algebra.
The year I was a freshman in high school, one of the sections of Freshman algebra was taught by our high school wrestling coach. That this individual was adjudicated competent to teach anyone anything other than shoe-tying was an indictment of the entire post-secondary educational system. If he had to teach someone how to get out of a wet paper bag, that individual would be mourned yet today. This fellow put the capital F and the "OOL" in FOOL. Just one kid in my freshman class managed to come out of it with a C, and only because he was pretty sharp in math, and tutored me... Where I passed with a B+ (first quarter), D+ (second), D (third), and D- (fourth quarter). That gave me a C- for the year, which was just barely safe.
Freshman year was hell - new kids, new school, new routine, new everything. The only consistent and enjoyable thing for me was band. I'd picked up a cello in third grade, and wanted to play it - mastered "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on it and found that it could screach and howl worse than my sisters. Then, in fourth, the big kids came through - real band. I wanted to play the snare drum. And, after plenty of howling, convinced my parents. Who managed to get me a new, shiny, Premier drum. No more coffee cans with taped lids for me - I had a real drum.
Come the end of 8th grade, I was able to join marching band. I missed the first two parades (mostly from not knowing), but joined the band just prior to Sauk Rapids. Four practices weren't enough, though, and I walked in the crowd with water bottles the whole way. But in Detroit Lakes...
I put on the figure-eight harness - imagine a bra, no cups, no underwires. Put it on backwards, and instead of clipping it together in the middle on your chest, attach it instead to a forty-pound steel and wood assembly called the "Small Bass Drum". This drum was a wooden shell, covered on the outside with a thin sheet of highly-polished steel (wasn't aluminum - the school had the stuff donated, and it came from a guy who owned a steel fabrication shop. And I think one of his kids played either trombone or woodwinds. Figures).
Now, take that one-inch-wide strap, roll it up a little bit to make it less than the inch-wide width it originally was (it had stretched to three-fourths, honestly). Take it off, and put on a tee-shirt, a black wool suit-coat, and over that, throw on an "overlay" - think old-fashion tabbard which has a round cut-out for the head, and front-and-back colorful embroidery. Now, instead of a hole, put in a heavy, thick, plastic high-collar with a hook in the front. Then, before you put on the drum, polish the top and front of the thing (the back which rests against you won't be seen, and the bottom, well, if they're looking at the bottom of the drum, you're going to kick them in the head anyway, so there's no points lost there for dirty-drum bottoms). Then hook up.
And, in Detroit Lakes, you line up. We faced west, at first, on a side-street, and were ready to go - once the cannon fired (we were the second band, after the home favorite), we lined up and got ready. After inspection, we kicked off, and came out that side-street, and turned left.
If you've been in Detroit Lakes, you'll know what I'm talking about. For the not-quite-six-billion who haven't, the street we turned left onto was wide, unshaded, and three-quarters of a mile, straight towards a lake, southbound. Yes. Into the sun. And at a little after noon on a hot, sunny, July day, with a mirror right below your chin, you're in full glare.
And that's only the start of it. During the three-hour bus ride back home, I fought off the boredom by popping the blisters which grew on my chin and neck. When I tossed my gear into the station wagon and sat in the back seat, my father asked why I didn't want to be up front. "Don't want a head-rest" I replied. When I got home, my mother took one look at my neck, red as a turkey's wattle, and about as shaggy, and broke into laughter. I'd gotten second-degree burns on my chin and neck, which apparently was funny to her. What was worse was the exact line of my collar, with the little rounded corner points, right in the middle of my throat, below which was lilly-white (well, gray) skin.
After that, I learned, and managed to find a way to "shade" the top of the drum the following year (a light mist of water on the panel reflecting right into your face does wonders), and for the remaining three years, I carried the "triples" - three drums, about sixty pounds until they were cut down, but these had two-inch-wide straps and rested against your hips for comfort - unless you let the lunatic drum instructor help you, in which case you have drums at your elbows instead of down where you could really bang on them good.
But that's just a small part of the fun I had in High School. I also played in Pep band. Once or twice a week we'd go to a sports event and play for the team. Pre-game and half-time we were busy - the rest of the game, we could watch. I became friends with a couple of the guys who played basketball and other sports from getting there early to set up.
We also had our homecoming field show, where we did silly designs with bodies on the football field, and the homecoming parade, and other fun stuff. We had dance band, which practiced in the dark BEFORE school once a week, and we had a lot of fun. My AV interests led me into the "Light and Sound Department" for the Theater department, where I'd seen "The Hobbit" as an eighth-grader, and we did "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown" - or that was the last school play we did, for the following year the upper stories of the North Building were condemned - the major portion of the building being the auditorium. Of course, the year after that the rest of the building was condemned when we found a huge crack six inches wide trailing down into the instrument storage area...
But the AV stuff also led to me doing audio for a couple singing groups, and I learned a lot from them, too.
As a senior, one of our music department's major fundraisers was to be a "Band Marathon". We'd done it in previous years, taking Bill Haley at his word, and literally "rocking around the clock". The first year I participated, it was 25 hours. Then 25 more, the next. We wanted to do 26 in '82, as we had a band trip planned for the summer - Winnipeg's Red River Exhibition.
But that fall, a gentleman named Robert Veline moved back to St. Cloud, and enrolled his boys in Cathedral High School. He also offered to help out with the fundraiser, as he knew a little bit about rock and roll and music and such. Seems that, as a younger man, he'd been in Moorhead, Minnesota, just like everyone else, awaiting Buddy Holly and the other artists who ended up crashing in Clear Lake, Iowa. He and three friends "filled in" for that concert that evening, and from there, Mr. Veline became Bobby Vee.
Between Mr. Veline's generous offer and a new development director in the school, that should have been the end of it. A professional show, with Bobby Vee, Freddy Cannon, Tommy Roe, was scheduled. But I dug my heels in.
I'd always been a stubborn cuss, but this one pissed me off. I started with the band teacher. "Mr. Jarnot, this is wrong. It's taking the focus off the people who do the work!" "Well, do something about it."
I went to the principal. "Mr. Wenner, this is wrong - we should be showing off the people who are doing the work. Most of these performing groups get three minutes at a choir concert, or less than that at a band concert - here's their chance to perform before their friends and family. Sure, it's 3 am, but it's a chance!" "Well, come up with a plan."
So I sat down and started working. With a lot of other people, and a lot of other teachers, and a lot of other help, we managed to come up with an acceptable program. The kids would perform from 9 am to 6 pm in various venues throughout the school. The Cafeteria, Girls Gym, and other large rooms would be co-opted for performances. Then the doors to the Boy's Gym would open, and we'd put a couple of the best acts on the stage there, then bring out the "big-named talent". And the lighting and sound would be done (for the most part) by us high-school kids.
And believe it or not, it worked! Sure, we had problems - like the genius who installed the electrical in the gymnasium and never expected to run a rock concert off two low-amp circuits, put the breaker panels in a hot little room in the attic, and left us with no choice but to pop the roof vent to get some air into the place, or the audio guy from California who used a number of terms to tell us not to even think about touching the audio gear (when we'd set it all up for him), or the dreadful cleanup afterwards.
But we had fun.
And those music classes and extra-curricular activities kept me in school, and interested in school, for four years. I would have graduated regardless - I was too frightened by disapproval to risk dropping out of high school, for one, but I could have turned into a miserable, bored kid with little to look forward to.
As it was, I managed to make a difference in my high school. The list of who's done Rockin' Round the Clock is impressive. Jan & Dean, Del Shannon, The Coasters, Chubby Checker, Bo Diddley, The Crickets, Dick Clark, Mary Wilson, The Nylons, the Shirelles, Roy Orbison, Starship, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Frankie Avalon, Ben E. King, and last year, Little Richard.
But more importantly, every single RRtC has included student performers. That's what it was about then, and it still is.
These days, however, I have to wonder. Would Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold have been better students with more music and theater opportunities? Are we telling our kids that we need to pay big bucks to big shots, but their interest in music (or chess club, or any other cut extra-curricular) just aren't worth as much?
It's a tough question. One I wrestled with. Sure, we want our kids to focus on the three "R's" - but kids also need to learn how to integrate. Things like using Language in Math class, or statistics in science, or science in lit. And music, and theater, and art, and the other "non-essential" subjects tend to do a better job at integration.
For example - let's take music. Ever wonder why most mathematicians are also somewhat musical? Or why most musicians (myself excepted) have some significant mathematical capabilities? Music is just math with funny symbols. Eight notes to an octave. Eleven Octaves to a keyboard. Ever wonder why 23 is rather significant? It's the number of notes on a staff without extending it - 22 down, 22 up. Or look at a chord. First, third, fifth, and eighth notes of that chord's octave. I could go on, but I won't.
Or maybe I will. Sure, Music is math. But how about music through literature? Or history? Why do we stand when the Hallelujah Chorus is sung?
Science, for example - Beethoven listened to his piano, though deaf. Why did he saw the legs off? How could he hear without hearing?
The bottom line with education is not that it's expensive. Sure, it costs a lot of money to turn out a smart kid. It's a great deal of expense to fire passion - to build an interest in a subject or topic or area and let the kid go - learning as much as they can. But sooner or later everyone's going to have to teach themselves. Which means they need to learn how to think, how to reason, and how to weigh information. There's precious little reason any more for children to memorize and regurgitate long strings of dates and places and names. History isn't a string of dates and places and names - it's causes, and effects. How about "why did the first world war come about, why did it lead to the second, and eventually bring about the fall of communism?" If you can synthesize all of that, you're doing good.
Education's expensive. But there's always an alternative. With the new laws and regulations surrounding welfare, we're looking at five years of support for the individual, then probably increasing stays in custody as they graduate to crime after crime after crime, working up the scale in violence until they reach the point of "obtaining" a life sentence - probably for killing someone else. Sure, we can hope it's another low-life idiot, but odds are it will be a mother with two kids at home, or a father with a family to feed and too little life insurance.
Intelligence is expensive. Ignorance is priceless.
So what do we do about the schools? What do we do about their budgets, and their staff, and their waste?
Here's a thought. Volunteer. Not out of the goodness of your heart, mind you, but from the sheer avaricious glee of being able to watch over the shoulders of those people wasting your money. Watch them. And then go to work on the people who really screw up. Your elected representatives. Get them to pass laws allowing for the replacement of carpeted floors with linoleum, and the passing of liability limits on lawsuits when some uncoordinated goof gets running on the linoleum floor and slips and falls and bumps his head. Replace half of the paid staff in the school library with parents who've been through basic security training, rather than paid security guards. Replace the fast-food lunchrooms with good, nutritious lunches and mothers who cook and serve them. Replace the junk-food-belching machines with blank wall-space. When you complain about not having enough money for your programs, look at the programs. Do you sell tickets at football games? Well then, what about other sports. What about fundraisers at those sporting events? Popcorn and pop sales? What about cleanup afterwards? What about hundreds of other fund-raising ideas?
Sure, we can afford to cut corners on kid's education. We can limit their opportunities now, and we can hope to high heaven they'll turn out all right.
And they just might.
But never, ever, ever forget. Some day, that kid who lost the chance to play in band or sing in the choir or try out for a play or make a stupid little clay pot will be the same person who decides where you're going to sit in a nursing home. Do you want to be staring out a frosty window, bored to tears? Or do you want some activities to enliven your days?
It's a thought.
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P. Dominik. All rights reserved. No reproduction without express
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