Reply to APS - Symphonic Band marching band requirement

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Your kid can't do everything, OP. She had to pick one. Orchestra or band. Marching band directors need every single student to participate. If the director starts excusing one student for reasons, then he or she has to start excusing other students for their reasons, and [b]the marching band dwindles to nothing[/b].

If your kid wants to do orchestra, then do that but don't try to change the rules that apply to everyone in the band for good reasons.[/quote]

What's the problem with that? If kids don't want to do it, then why force it? 
[/quote]

It's a problem for the students who want to do it and it's a problem for the school - [b]the marching band is a positive force for the entire school[/b], during parades and at football games and some assemblies.  [/quote]

I see we've abandoned the bailey and retreated to the motte. So your position is basically that you don't care about the preferences of the kids who don't want to do it, you aren't interested in [i]why[/i] they don't want to do it (they might have good reasons...), you just want the school to have the marching band.

So you'll find something that kids actually want to do (symphonic band) and then tell them they can't do it unless they also commit a ton of time and effort to something else in addition. And if they quit, you'll claim it was their free choice all along.

I think (I hope) we are all adults here. I'm trying to think of any other field of life where the average adult would find this line of reasoning acceptable as applied to themselves.

No one is arguing with the right of parents to tell their kids what to do, nor is anyone saying that classes like band or orchestra don't necessarily entail a commitment of time outside of school hours (concerts and rehearsals and whatnot). We are taking issue with the idea of taking something that kids [i]want to do[/i] (symphonic band), and then telling them they can't do that unless they also participate in something that, by all accounts, many of them [i]do not want to do[/i] (marching band). Something superficially similar but actually quite different and with a much greater time commitment, for no reason other than you like the aesthetics of a high school marching band.

What really kills me is that if we made it voluntary we would have a core of enthusiastic participants that could form the basis for a really good, effective program. And if that program was having trouble recruiting more people, they could make adjustments to how they manage it that would help to attract more participants. But the reason the "make it mandatory" crowd don't seem to want to take that approach is because they view the kids in the marching band as a means to an end (the prestige of having a marching band) and not an end in themselves (growing kids who could benefit from a group activity that is well-managed and enjoyable on its own terms). [/quote]

This isn't a debate; you aren't winning.  That's a different class.

Requiring marching band is what schools committed to marching band do.  Those who don't have small not-very-good not-very-fun marching bands.  That's how it is.  (And yes, marching band is an end in itself.  Kids however, view only themselves and don't realize this in 8th grade.  As do parents nowadays.)

Band and a full orchestra are two different things, fwiw.  They play different music, serve different purposes.  In some cases have different instruments.  [/quote]

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