What Adrienne Thinks About That

Well as long as the school has a pretty lawn, it should by okay for a little cancer in some 7 year olds. After all, school doesn't let out for another month and the lawncare must start now!

Kelly and I just had this discussion yesterday. First of all, dandilions are pretty, people are stupid to want to get rid of them. The only thing that I would not want to grow in a yard are those prickers, but barefoot kids can just avoid them the way I did when I was a barefoot kid. And I whole heartedly agree that tax money in a bankrupt state like NY is better spent on educating kids than improving the turf around the school. Lawn care at a school should consist of mowing. Period.

And things like sports, dance, and theatre should be funded separately by individuals and parents, not by taxes.

Taxes should pay for buildings, books, and busses. Everything else is a luxury that should be paid for by those participating or by organizations that volunteer to help fund them.

I can't disagree with you more about that Chuck. One of the beauties of the American public education system is the access to all things for all children, not just the ones who can pay for it. You look at those things as frivolous, which is why you think they are expendable. If anything we need more of those things in our schools. Anything that fosters creative thought should be encouraged and funded highly. Art should be for more than just rich people.

And I don't know of any school system aside from NYC's LaGuardia arts focused public high school that offers dance.

I have to say that I agree with Jeffrey. Chuck--not everyone hates participating in extracurricular activities. Marching band was a wonderful experience for me and I’m glad my school had one—in fact, we were State Champions more than once in my career! I remember the budget was really bad when I was in fifth grade, so they cut the art budget, and we had an “art cart.” Our art teacher would travel from class to class with a little cart filled with paint and construction paper for us to play with for ½ hour a week. That year sucked.

The Greece school that my neice goes to puts on really elaborate shows every year that cannot be paid for just through ticket sales and selling caramel popcorn tins for $20. I do have to say that they do a good job of incorporating a bunch of kids in them, like hundreds of kids on the stage. The things that really bother me are football programs or baseball programs that cost as much as hiring 20 teachers each year and only about 20 students out of thousands get to actively participate.

Of course there are places that have the balance out of whack. There probably isn't a town in western New York that doesn't over emphasize sports. And they are exclusionary events to a degree. But to trash everything other than books and teachers would still be a disservice. Or we could just be completely draconion and send all the kids to work and forget about school systems all together. It'd be a way to raise tax revenue, that's for sure.

Chuck - Ok, here's the thing. The niece, you're referring to (my step-daughter) is in the Greece school system. Lots of things about the Greece school system suck. I mean SUCK. One good thing, however, is that there are three high schools in the district, and each one specializes in something. Olympia is known for sports, Athena for theater and the arts and Arcadia for their academic programs (particularly math and science). The children/parents get to choose. If they pick one of the schools outside of their immediate area, they may need to be on a waiting list, but generally the kids don't have an issue getting into the school they want. Devon is in the Arcadia district, but goes to Athena. Even though the schools have their specialties, they still offer the arts and sports, etc. in each school.

The productions Athena puts on are AMAZING, to say the least. The show choir/theater director, I'm told, is the second highest paid employee in the school district. The brand new theater is spectacular, but probably unnecessary.

But what Devon has gained from the whole experience is immeasurable! She's completely overcome any anxiety she may have had about performing or public speaking. She's constantly moving (dancing, etc.), so she's in excellent physical condition. She's dealt with disappointment and excitement. She's been held accountable for her actions. She's busy all the time and has had to multi-task more than any adult I know and through all of this, she's maintained a 4.0.

But the most important thing about all of this is that I KNOW WHERE SHE IS ALL THE TIME!! She doesn’t have “down time.” She’s not having sex in a corn field somewhere or drinking in the cemetery. *Not that I know anyone who’s actually done this, mind you!*

Arts, sports - any involvement, are all just as important as the academics and in a perfect world, all children, regardless of their financial standing, would have the same opportunities.

Oh, and I'm totally with you all on the poisoning of the lawn. Completely unnecessary and dangerous.

Dandelions rule!!! If they were difficult to grow, everyone would want them in their lawn.

She and maybe six other Athena students have that level of commitment to the shows. Probably 10 more are very committed. The rest give it a few hours a week at best. I think it's very much like a football team that way. Thousands of students at that school don't benefit from it at all.

All that expense to benefit a fraction of a percent of the students. What are all the kids who don't get selected for these things doing?

Since my daughter is on the 1-11 softball team at Olympia I might have to disagree with you about Olympia being known for sports (LOL). She is also in a good music program--they brought home the Sweepstakes award from a recent competition. I DO have to agree that all students should be granted the same opportunities and lots of times it's the extras that keep some of them in high school. BTW, isn't this a great topic for today? Don't forget to vote in your local school election.

Like you said, it is hundreds of students involved in these productions, not just a handful. The rest of the students are in show choir, or mixed show choir, or voice, or orchestra, or art, or clubs, or sports, or cheerleading, or dance group, etc. Some just attend the events and cheer on their friends!

The ones who are not participating are doing so by choice. Which is ok too. Some people just don't want to join, but it's good to have the option to do so.

BTW, Pat, I hope I didn't sound as if Olympia didn't have great arts programs too! I've attended some of the plays they've produced and they *rock*!!

Dandelions really do rule...just try to make a salad or tea or wine or medicine out of a "perfect" lawn. Outrageous indeed!

For the record, I love dandelions too!! My dad once asked me to go to Chase Pitkin in Brockport for him to purchase clover to fill in some bald patches in the lawn. I couldn't find any, so I asked the man in the department to help me locate it. After he laughed so hard he peed his pants, he explained to me that he could sell me stuff to RID the lawn of clover, but that no one in their right mind would want to plant clover in a lawn. I thought it was rather forward thinking of dad to have wanted to plant it. 1. It's way cool for the kids to look for four leaf clovers. 2. It doesn't grow tall and is super green. Low maintenance. Hmmm... maybe that's why Chase Pitkin went out of business....

I'm not sure why I'm arguing this whole point anyway. I'm not even agreeing with myself.

While I'm glad to hear that you are rethinking your position Chuck, I'm afraid there are lots of people out there who feel the way you claimed to have only a few hours ago. Arts programs are often the first thing to go when there are budget issues. Much the same thinking goes into the politicization of funding for the NEA or NEH. There is a deep distrust that many people in the country have of intellectual thought. How else could anyone justify cutting programs that cost almost nothing in the grand scheme of things but that are in almost no way quantifiable.

I would not trade my horrible high school sports experiences for anything. Sports are character building and should be offered as much as arts programs. I think this is as much true for the people who are good as it is for the people who suck (like me). I was terribly embarrassed about how my forays into baseball and soccer turned out, but in the years since I've realized how much I gained from those times. I learned how to recognize what suits me versus what I think I "should" be. I also became one of those kids that JJ was talking about who glom onto the other activities that surround the sports events. I might not have ever found photography if I hadn't made a vain attempt at shooting some sports action photos for the yearbook. Granted, none of those photos turned out, but much like my baseball career that never took off, I learned from it. I'm glad that I went to a school that allowed me to experience and fail at many different things.

And I won't even go into how the visual arts program practically saved my life during senior year.

This kind of reminds me of a post Liz did over at A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy yesterday:

http://yzocaet.blogspot.com/2007/05/play-half-hour-of-baseball-every-day.html

This says how I feel about summer reading programs just as well as anything I've ever written on the subject. It explains how I feel about forcing children to do much of anything (besides non-negotiables, like not getting hit by cars). The point of childhood -- and, dare I say, life -- is to explore and figure the world out.

For me, personally, I always academically successful, which was mostly a function of the fact that I read constantly and my reading level was so high. I also realized that as long as my grades were good, adults would generally leave me alone. My classes held exactly zero interest for me through most of school until I hit junior high and English got somewhat interesting some of the time (more so the older I got). School for me was about getting out of the house, spending time with my friends, and doing things like chorus, plays, and whatever else I was up to (never sports -- yuck-o, that would have been torture for me). One thing I'll say for both my parents is that they never pressured me to do any particular extracurriculars or even gave a thought to how my activities might look on a college application someday. I'd be like, "So I got a part in the play." And they'd be like, "Great." I'd be like, "I think I'm going to be a writer someday." And they'd be like, "Great." My dad had a rule about not reading books at the dinner table, which was reasonable, of course, and which I ridiculously attempted to violate at every turn. That's about as dramatic as that ever got.

Anyway, the point is, what from school has served me well in life? I amaze children with the string tricks I learned on the playground in elementary school (which then convinces them to check out our many books and DVDs on the subject, just in case you were wondering). Turns out that chorus and drama club provide pretty good preparation for doing storytimes. I still read constantly and now I'm encouraging other young people to do the same. My writing was encouraged and supported by several teachers, and you can see what I've done with that. The other thing that saved my school experience was the ADEPT program the school got me into when I was in eighth or ninth grade. With ADEPT, I got out of school for a WHOLE DAY and got to go on a bus to some other place where they'd have stuff like an improv class or a performer being Emily Dickinson or a creative writing session with a real writer, which was just amazing, especially for someone from a small school district in a small town who didn't get out much. As I recall, there were maybe 20 or 30 students in most of the ADEPT programs I went to and they must have been extremely not cost-effective what with the buses and paying performers and whatnot, but the programs had a huge impact on me. I remember many of them with a fair amount of clarity, and what meant even more were these adults who recognized my interests and supported them. I'm not sure what my life would have become without all those things, and none of them had much to do with what we consider core academics. I remain extremely grateful for those experiences, and I feel generally supportive of anything that expands kid's options when it comes to school.

Needless to say, if I ever have kids, I think I'd like to keep them at home with me instead of sending them to school at all.

Mostly I didn't like school because I didn't put any effort into it. And sometimes I just make some dumb points here because I'm just feeling contrary or I'm in a lousy mood. Or both. I'm not always that comitted to my stupid points.