*I’m never sure if these things are supposed to be OBJECTIVELY Mundane and Pointless. Am I supposed to think myself that it is, or is it okay to share it if I think you guys will think it is?
Anyway, I’m going with the latter. Responses of TL;DR are welcomed. Also, I redacted it to take out personally identifying stuff.*
Dear Dr. Principal,
I have concerns about Choir Teacher’s handling of the choir programs at redacted. This letter will necessarily place more emphasis on the Chamber Choir.
Choir Teacher has promised her Chamber Choir students that she will be present for them at an after-school Choir rehearsal “every other Friday.” Putting aside the fact that this is not nearly often enough to produce the kind of results that the redacted Chamber Choir is known for, she has not followed through on this promise. There has not been a SINGLE after-school rehearsal of the entire Chamber Choir. Nor has there been any Friday after-school activity. This does not give me confidence that the Choir will be ready to turn in an up-to-standard performance in December.
Choir Teacher has apparently announced that she is planning to incorporate the entire Mixed Choir into Chamber Choir when the spring semester begins. While I am not one hundred percent satisfied that this information is accurate, if it is, I am at a loss to understand why she would do this. I generally try to avoid letting speculation stand in for knowledge, but at the moment, it is all I have, and my current speculation is that she wishes to solve the problem of a female-to-male imbalance with this action. Other, more difficult to articulate alternative motivations come to mind, but my sense is that whatever problems the Chamber Choir has, they are not amenable to being solved by packing the roster with singers who, by various metrics, are not as committed to being an elite performance group as are the current members.
On the subject of Chamber Choir morale, an incident has just come up that highlights Choir Teacher’s inattention to the needs of these students. A few weeks ago, one of the sopranos took the initiative to organize an activity for the Chamber Choir members, to be held outside of school hours. The activity is a trip to go to the movie theatres at Shopping Center redacted and watch Pitch Perfect, a movie about an a capella vocal group. The young lady who organized the outing was making ad hoc arrangements with acquaintances who work at Other venue redacted to obtain their tickets at a substantial discount. Choir Teacher has now apparently invited all of the singers in all of the Choirs to join this outing. It is not clear whether any plans are in the works to obtain for more than one hundred people the same discount that was planned for two dozen. In a very substantive way, however, this matter of logistics is beside the point.
What IS the point is that the redacted High School Chamber Choir has, over the years, become an elite group of musicians. The people who auditioned for Chamber Choir last spring have proven both their desire and their merit to be members of that elite group, and Choir Teacher’s actions and apparent plans are already seriously diluting and jeopardizing that elite status. Part of what has always made membership in the Chamber Choir a desirable thing is the exclusive group activities that Chamber Choir singers enjoy together. Opening these activities to the entire Choir department completely undercuts this benefit.
Please understand: the registered Democrat in me has always been somewhat ambivalent about the fact that “elite” necessarily implies “exclusive,” which in turn, necessarily implies “exclusionary.” However, I made my peace with that last year, when it became clear how well it has worked to maintain the redacted Chamber Choir as a first-rate group, with a first-rate reputation. There’s also the fact that I am a dyed-in-the-wool implacable foe of Major League Baseball’s “Designated Hitter” rule, and the principle that people who receive coveted privileges (such as batting, and singing in elite ensembles) have to EARN those privileges is pretty important to me.
There seems to be a clash of cultures between what Choir Teacher wants to do, and what current Chamber Choir members have become accustomed to. While I accept that it is unrealistic to expect Choir Teacher to model herself into (I’ll go ahead and say it) the Second Coming of Scandal-ridden Choir teacher removed in disgrace redacted, I feel that it is important that this culture clash be brought out into the open, and acknowledged by all interested parties. And it is important that how the Chamber Choir proceeds from here be a collaborative effort between Choir Teacher and the students who have worked so hard to earn the right to call themselves the redacted High School Chamber Choir. Only in this manner can I see any hope for long-term relevance of the program.
When I first wrote this, I showed it to my daughter, and she asked me to wait to send it to you. This was to give her a chance to speak with Choir Teacher and try to confirm or clarify the information about Choir Teacher’s plans to augment the Chamber Choir with personnel from the Mixed Choir. The unexpected day off last week prevented this, so I am sending it without having received any clarification on that point.
There are other issues that have come up since last week, and I would like to raise them here. The first is that Choir Teacher has been very slow in bringing a choreographer in to work with the singers. It’s my understanding that on Thursday she announced that the choreographer would be coming to the school on Monday, but this did not happen. Considering the truncated nature of so many other aspects of preparing for the Holiday concert, this is looking like another area where we need to be concerned about meeting the performance standards that are expected of the Choir program.
The other thing touches on the point made above, regarding the “elite” status of the Chamber Choir. Over the weekend, my daughter spoke about this. Her sense is that the “elite/exclusive/exclusionary” atmosphere that forms the basis for the Chamber Choir’s outstanding quality is perceived by higher powers in the District’s chain of command as the root cause of the unfortunate incident of this past summer (in the sense that maintaining that atmosphere necessarily caused the teacher to engage in “favoritism” towards the Choir). She is also concerned that what we have been seeing as declining expectations and standards for the Chamber Choir have been deliberately introduced, apparently on the theory that the goal of utmost importance, to which all other goals are subservient, is eliminating the risk that an atmosphere of favoritism will lead to a similar incident in the future (and that losing the outstanding quality of the Choir is an acceptable price to pay for that goal).
I would like to be able to reassure my daughter that her analysis does not hold water, but in order to so do, I’d need to be able to explain why, and right now, her analysis strikes me as at least plausible. So if you can reassure me that it is not the case, I’d be grateful. It might also be helpful for this to be discussed with the students. If her analysis should happen to be on the money, of course, that also needs to be brought into the open, so people can make informed decisions about their participation in the Choir (and so I can know that I need to fight against that kind of decision-making process at the level of the District).
I welcome your thoughts, and look forward to knowing what action you are prepared to take in response to what I have written. I will be happy to hear from you either through email or by a telephone call to redacted.
Very Truly Yours,
Kaylasdad99