Perfect synopsis.
That was the letter to write for self-therapy; then draft a more concise letter to actually send.
Sounds to me like things are changing regarding choirs at your kid’s school. Moving away from a separate ‘elite’ group, and integrating it into, all one unit. Seems highly unlikely to measure up to your lofty expectations, of course. It would seem this is the result of some ugly incident that revealed a real division and left ill feelings.
Since your special snow flake is in the ‘elite’ group you don’t want to see that special status diluted. No doubt because ‘elite’ high school choir is so dreadfully lifechangingly important, or should be, to everyone!
And one cannot help but wonder if this teacher, expected to surrender a Fri night without pay, is one of the one’s who’s wages have been frozen, or bargaining rights rescinded? Who schedules volunteer events for Friday nights? What’s so hard to understand about it being run differently now as their is a new teacher running it? Or does every new person have to run it like the last person? 'Cause that’s kind of ridiculous, it isn’t the army, it’s an after school choir!
It’s a shame you asked for advice after you sent the letter. You come off like a pissy entitled parent, upset that your child’s ‘elite’ status is being diluted in favour of the common good. It’s probably not who you are in real life but that’s how your letter sounds.
Things change, separate ‘elite’ choirs may cause more problems, (requiring a choreographer? really?), than one large uniform group. Somewhere, in some high school, kids and parents are miffed because they joined the Aviation Club the very year it was losing funding and being phased out. Sucks, sure. But shit happens, things change.
That’s what the adult should be helping the child to accept, in preparation for real life in the real world, I think.
In my view – a view admittedly colored by my constant alertness for liberal inconsistency – these two paragraphs interest me greatly.
I agree with kaylasdad99 that an elite, exclusionary group is a useful thing, even in school. A meritocracy rewards those who have merit; this produces good results, as he acknowledges when he relates how well the Chamber Choir has succeeded. Diluting a first-rate group with others of lesser talent simply because they’re all in public school together serves only to emphasize one of public school’s greatest failings: the relentless pull towards the mediocre middle.
LHoD’s post seems to capture the more typical liberal attitude towards the issue: that it’s more important to give everyone a chance than to create an environment which rewards and recognizes top-notch achievement.
I don’t think the letter to the principal is a good place to even mention this philosophical divide.
But I think the SDMB GD forum is.
Without getting into a political argument here, I don’t see why an elite choir would be different from a football team, basketball team, or any other competitive endeavor. I don’t think that any kind of elite team is per se wrong as a school activity especially if there exists a similar version for kids who aren’t elite.
I do think that the OP’s letter is way too long and needed to be edited down to the most important points. I also think that political and philosophical musings need to be removed otherwise the letter impact and becomes easier to ignore.
That is a difference between two different “liberals”. Do all “conservatives” think exactly the same?
Also, it’s unlikely the choir leader is making these changes independent of the principle. They probably had a meeting, and this convergence of the two choirs is likely a done deal. I’m sure at the meeting they discussed being a united front against anticipated push back from the parents of the elite students. I suspect the OP will get shined on a couple of times and then told for budget reasons this is how it’s going to be, and to suck it up.
The truth is that education dollars are stretched pretty thin and your child is not entitled to an ‘elite’ choir experience, just because such was provided, as ‘extracurricular’, in previous years.
I got to the point where you were bitching about a hundred people maybe getting a discount that was set up for two dozen and stopped reading. Very hard to discern the actual complaint.
Then I read the rest of the thread and realized you already sent it, so why even ask?
If I got it I’d tell my assistant to send back the generic “thank you for your concerns” response.
Band name! Redacted Chamber Choir!
Well, it’s 62 words shorter than the Declaration of Independence, which is nice.
If you think that letter is an effective piece of persuasive writing, think again. You should have made your points in fewer than 200 words.
Being a school principal has got to be one of the worst jobs around, because of the parents.
I may make more comments on this letter later but I’m pretty curious what this is referring to?
And that is why some parents will go without a car or eating meat every day to send their kids to private school.
I bet that one’s going up in the teachers’ lounge!
As someone who enjoyed singing in choir for my entire high school career (including not for credit my senior year… long story) and who has married veteran choir performers (high school, college, etc), I will say this one very important piece of information for you:
Prepare your daughter, NOW, for choir in college to be completely irrelevant. Unless she is going to be attending a performing arts school, it will be worth exactly nothing. My wife says all her years of vocal training and hard work got her free drinks at karaoke bars, and that’s about it.
It’s a sad statement of fact, but it’s painfully true.
Or turned into a game like The Eye of Argon, where they’ll take turns reading it and trying to keep a straight face for as long as possible.
I coached at a private school for three years before spending the last three at a public school. I can tell you that the way the teams are treated is exactly the same at both. . . except I had a way bigger budget at the private school. If anything, I was under more pressure to be more accepting of more kids at the private school because sometimes the awful kids had the parents with the deepest pockets.
Overprotective stage moms come in a variety of genders, I see.
Regards,
Shodan
I want the OP to come back so we can hear about how this letter did nothing.
Understand, please, that I’m not saying this is a general rule everywhere. I’m saying that it’s a good guiding principle for a public school for minors. I have no problem at all with private schools that are elite, or government institutions that recognize elite adults (e.g., MIT). But I think the point of public education for kids is to give all kids the best opportunities available, and if there’s a conflict between broadening opportunities and creating opportunities for the elite, in general I’ll side with broader opportunities.
That said, even in my original post I weaseled, saying that there’s probably a less distasteful way to phrase things, and now I’ll weasel even more. As long as the baseline activities are well-handled (regular-ed classes, PE, music open to everyone), then sure, it’s appropriate to have courses that teach advanced skills for those who have mastered the basics (AP classes, sports teams, glee clubs). I actually have a problem with the No Child Left Behind emphasis on getting everyone to the minimum point, when doing so means neglecting kids who’ve advanced beyond that point; my educational philosophy is that we need to be trying to take every kid as far as she can go, not just getting every kid up to minimally acceptable levels.
To the extent that the above paragraph conflicts with what I originally said, please disregard what I originally said :). The letter’s tone of entitled elitism really got up my nose.
Hey, great idea! checks current forum
:dubious:
I don’t know if this was said to elicit sympathy for those parents or what, but, as that is the choice they made, they will get no sympathy from me.
Nope, it wasn’t meant to elicit sympathy for anyone, but if anyone deserves the sympathy it’s the kids at public schools that miss out on their true potential and earn millions less during their life (but were driven to school) because their parents didn’t make such a sacrifice.