WAYLAND MIDDLE SCHOOL
BAND MANUAL
2010-2011 |
RETURNING PARENTS... Please look over the Band Manual even if you have had students in band in past years. Things change and review is good! The entire band manual is on the web, all in one section. You may access it via the table of contents below and find a particular page that you are looking for, or you may look through the whole band manual, one page at a time, by clicking on the herald trumpeter at the bottom of the each page. When you click on the trumpeter, you will be moved to the next page, just as if you were reading the hard copy. All parents are asked to read over the Letter to Parents, look at the grading & exam pages and fill out the Parent Signature Return Sheet. The return sheet is due back to school on September 29(for 7/8) or 30 (for grd6) in order to be part of the raffle drawings (Oct 1 & 4) and everything MUST be in by Thursday, October 7, to avoid detention! (Students who turn things in early get raffle tickets; students who turn things in late get detention! Something for everyone!) (Why Detention?) Included in the band manual are:
Reference Section
Percussionists - you need to purchase a stick bag & certain mallets. Each year I ask you to upgrade your mallet selection. Please check the requirements.
* Why DETENTION?? Two reasons: First, and most important, is responsibility. If our children don't learn to be responsible, they will really struggle as adults. For a MS child, there are deadlines on forms and assignments. For adults the deadlines are on job details and income taxes. If a band student doesn't turn in our initial forms on time, he/she first gets left out of a fun event (which then encourages getting it done on time the next year as they see some of those who turned in everything the first day getting THREE prizes!) and if it still isn't in by the final deadline, the prize is detention. Detention is annoying, but not earth-shattering, so it is a good consequences for not being responsible. Adults can lose a job or get a big fine for not being responsible. My feeling is that we owe it to our children to help them learn about responsibility NOW, while the stakes are smaller. It is part of my curriculum and students are actually graded on their responsibility (rather leniently, but it is there). The secondary reason is that it encourages students to get stuff in which makes my job easier; chasing after stuff is SO time consuming(!). When stuff is in on time, I spend less of our rehearsals reading off names of delinquents - we'd all rather be playing!! Help your child learn to be responsible, but DON'T do it for him/her. A question, "Do you have anything due that I need to take care of?", is more educational than the parent always checking up and doing it for the child (are you going to take care of his/her income taxes, too??). While I'm on the topic, now is a good time to increase your child's responsibility level. If you are one who drops off stuff at the school at least a couple of times a week, how about setting up a system where the child gets a certain number of drop-offs (one a month, or if you come every day, start with one a week) for free, then any drop-offs after that cost $1 from the allowance money. Then the other half of the job is to help the child think through the next day and lay out whatever he/she needs: assignments, projects, lunch (or a reminder note), instruments, soccer shoes...). I've got loads of ideas on helping kids become more responsible; feel free to email or call me to talk further if you wish. return to Manual description
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