Being Seen

Today Mr. Apple, Ms. Haynes, and myself took 33 students to the middle school to "drum up" some business. We took the dance/colorguard group and the drumline to the middle school to play for their 4 lunches. Although a fairly easy trip, it was next door, it still takes all of us working together to make stuff like this happen. I feel the more visible we are as a group the more students, teachers, and parents will get involved with what we are doing. I think the middle school students enjoyed and at least they know who we are now. Many next time the Jazz Band can play at their lunches.

Tonight I am actually sitting in the hall for "interim pick up night". This where parents can come and pick up their children's progress reports and meet the teachers. Granted I probably see my student's parents more than just about any teacher but this is the part of my job where I am just a "regular teacher". Everybody is required to be here so I am too. Sometimes I am a coach, sometimes I am an administrator, sometimes I am a teacher but all days I am a unique being in the school...I am the Band Director.

This weekend is region band. Just one of many days for the cause...the cause of Band. At least it is a worthwhile cause that I believe in. How many people do you know that can say that about their job?

The Doctor is In...

or will be in couple of hours any way. Dr. Rebecca Phillips the associate band director from the University of South Carolina will be visiting the Symphonic Winds class today. I think it is important for the students to have experiences with other conductors and certainly never hurts to get another opinion on interpretations. Many band directors only bring in guests after the music is just about perfected. This will not be the case today. We are good but we are not refined yet. It should be a time for all.

Who Will Teach Them?

This is the question I must ask myself lately. It is no secret that our state and many others are in financial difficulty. The answer is often to cut spending. This leads many to suggest cutting spending and funding to education. This is what is being done here in South Carolina. My main point today will be the affect this will have on teachers and most importantly the lack of teachers. Teachers in South Carolina have not had a raise in a few years. This is leading to more of them searching for other fields in which to work. Also our teachers are getting older. Many are at or nearing the age of retirement. The problem is that fewer and fewer young people are going into the teaching profession. I myself have seen this in that only 10 years ago band directing jobs were hard to get. Many times young teachers would have to start out at a small, rural school and work their way up. This is not so much the case today as many band directors get a large school straight out of college. The problem is that many don't stick with it and find another profession. The learning curve is sharp and expectations are high for all. Many just don't have time to get better. Now there is talk of required teacher furloughs. This means money out of the teachers pockets and they aren't making too much to begin. Here are a few suggestion to attract more to the teaching profession:

1. Make it like military service and allow retirement at 20 years service. Perhaps don't offer as many benefits unless you continue through to 28 years but allow it.

2. Offer incentives such as financial help to obtain advanced degrees. Some districts already do this by offering classes but more do not have help for all by allowing them to take classes at the unversity of their choice.

3. Reward good teachers so that they will continue in the profession and not just for high standardized test scores.

I don't know if any of these things would really help but something has to be done soon because there will be real problems when nobody wants to be a teacher. What if they build a new school and nobody applies to work in it?

Work Report

Here are some of things I have going on:

Thursday, Feb. 18 - Rehearsing the middle school band after school

Friday, Feb. 19 - Jazz Band at school program during 1st and 2nd block

Wed., Feb. 24 - Dr. Rebecca Phillips from USC is coming to work with Symphonic Winds during class

Thurs., 25 - Guard and drum line will play for the middle school during their lunches.

Fri., Feb. 26 and Sat., Feb. 27 - Region band in Fort Mill

Continuous - We are now in the cut stage of the marching band show. This means we are cutting and choosing the parts of what we are going to use in the show. Don't even think about asking about it yet! It's a secret.

If you think this is a down time of year for a band director, you aren't one!

Inservice Day = Useful Information?

Yes. It did! Most of the time our required in service meetings do not really relate well to me as a band director but I must admit that yesterday afternoon I liked it. Myself and the band directors in the district went to an instrument repair shop, Palmetto Band and Orchestra, in Irmo. It was great. The owner showed us around, answered questions, and showed us how to do a few things. He also quickly convinced me that I should leave all that repair stuff to him. There are just too many specialized tools for me to be getting into repair and that's ok too. Why not leave it to the experts?

NASCAR

Unless you don't know me at all, you know I love racing. I love all racing. My college room mate told me once that I would watch two kids race around a track if it was on TV. Maybe that is true but I really do love racing. I love to go and I love to watch it. So as the rest of the world may have been clued to the Super Bowl, and yes I did watch it, the real sporting event for me was the official start of the racing season. There has been lots of talk about Danica Patrick and her debut in stock car racing in the ARCA race Saturday. She finished 6th and that is fine. Today she announced that she would race this Saturday in the Busch series, I know it is the Nationwide series now too but I just can't say that, at Daytona. The media is all over this but wait a minute. There are few things that are not being said about this. Check out my list of problems with this whole thing:

1. She raced in ARCA with the best possible equipment that was supplied by Rick Hendrick racing. She finished 6th against other racers with much less equipment.

2. She raced against racers that really need to take care of their equipment. They can't afford to beat and bang like the many of the NASCAR racers because many of them only have one or two cars. They tended to save their cars for this reason. What is going to happen when somebody forces the issue with her Saturday? What happens when she pushes somebody and they push back?

3. Who cares? I have seen many of them come and go. Let's just wait and see.

One thing is for sure, I will be watching lots of racing this weekend. The twin 150 races are Thursday, the truck race is Friday, the Busch race is Saturday, and of course the real deal is Saturday, the Daytona 500! One thing else is for sure too...I miss Dale.

Jazz Band

I thought I would put a bit up about Jazz Band. I am NOT a "Jazzer" by any means but I do appreciate it and I enjoy working with a jazz band. This year we are meeting after school on Monday's. Today will only be our 3rd meeting but we are already sounding good. I am a tuba players so the jazz thing escapes me at times. In reality my jazz bands play a lot more than just straight jazz. We tend to play a lot of rock too. I really don't care what the students play as long they do play so anything that they like is fine with me. We even have a performance coming up on Feb. 19th for a school assembly. It was pretty neat after the first rehearsal that several students commented how much better we were this year over last year. It is amazing how all that sightreading and technical skill can transfer to other areas of music isn't it? Not really. Not at all surprising. Band is Band is Band.

Stupid Groundhog

6 more weeks! Come on give a guy a break. Oh well.