Little Orphan Subject
Sep. 15th, 2011 03:48 pmThis is, I'm afraid, likely to sound like "is it just me and is x?" post requiring agreement and sympathy for the execrable state of things, but actually I'd like to be proved wrong and I'd love to find some suggestions as to where I go next.
So, the little orphan subject. That'd be music. LL has no class music this year (year 9, part way through which she chooses and starts studying for (I)GCSEs). There's double Art, and Drama, but no music. According to the head, they've tried and even with LL's school and its sister school combined they can't get a minimal 4 kids (from mid-forties across the 2 schools with any number of them learning instruments, singing, etc.) to study it voluntarily. I didn't know this until LL went back, so I'm now (especially as LL has worked through music theory books on her own over the summer and deserves feedback and encouragement and a teacher whose qualified to take her further forward, a summer when for the first time since she was five she had no music lessons during the holidays) desperately trying to find a music teacher. Not an instrumental teacher who might offer, somewhat grudgingly, theory to grade 5 so you can carry on taking instrumental exams, but an actual enthusiast for musical form and development and the history of music.
So, why is Music treated this way? It's not as if there's an expectation that those continuing with Art are going to become the next generation of Damian Hirsts and Tracey Emins or that Drama will throw up the next Gillan or Tennant. Is it? Yet, continuing with Music seems to be predicated on some kind of special, serious commitment to being a musician. A vocation. Those who simply enjoy understanding how pieces are put together, who enjoy finding out about composers' lives, who might play a little but with no hint of a vocation, need not apply?
So, in fierce tiger mother role--I'm not letting this lie, not when my generally easy-going, imperturbable, accommodating child comes back from her first day back at school and cries because there's not music. But I'm kind of stuck. The most promising teacher I found on the web is fully booked (and there seem so few compared with instrumental teachers). It's bad enough that we had to say "no" to her choice of instrument (concert harps are big and pricey) without having to say "no" you won't be studying one of your favourite subjects, too.
(Brought to you by the person who threatened to boycott school when there was no Music option offered for year 9 [it appeared: it was probably a genuine omission], and who negotiated between the Head of Music and her English teacher to be allowed to miss English in order to fit in one lesson of Music a week so she could take the 'O' level. LL is not driven quite the way I was, but it doesn't mean she doesn't care.)