As I grumbled and griped about having an honors band rehersal only hours before the concert - as i complained about the growing callus on my thumb, about the gay kid with the neckstrap who was first chair clarinet, as i lamented the fact I could NEVER play this music, that i wouldn't get any better in that small practice, so WHY bother-
my uncle killed himself.
in the basement of his very own house at that, with a gun. his two little girls and pregnant wife left him, and he took his own life.
at the memorial, our pastor spoke of God, of how even "Jesus wept" at a friend's death (excuse my ignorance, i know not much of religion.). he said that he knew we were angry, that he knew we would harbor hate and such for a long time, that we would always struggle to understand what happened. i was fine until that point. because i had never really thought about it. I hadn't grieved, I hadn't cried, I wasn't even able to find a friend to cry to. it's our new dark family secret. A promising, handsome, charming young man, with two beautiful daughters, a third on the wa...
Current educational policy and practice asserts that increased standardized student testing is the key to improving student learning and is the most appropriate means for holding individual schools and teachers accountable for student learning. Instead, it has become a tool solely for summarizing what students have learned and for ranking students and schools. The problem is standardized tests cannot provide the information about student achievement that teachers and students need day-to-day. Classroom assessment can provide this kind of information.
Not only am I in the band, but I am an essential component to the success and well-being of my section. The clarinets never sounded better than when they were under the direction of Section Leader Sarah, whom they all loved and adored. Okay, that's a boldfaced lie. As a dedicated band member, I demand perfection, not only in my own performance, but also in the performance of others. I refuse to accept mediocrity from any section member. In my opinion, there is no excuse for not knowing music, ignoring instructions, or not knowing right from left. Sadly, this quirk of mine doesn't make me terribly popular among t...
Parents and advocates of education can all agree that they want their students to be in the best hands possible in regards to education. They want the best teachers, staffs, and schools to ensure their student’s success. By looking at the score results from standardized testing, teachers can evaluate effectively they are doing their job. On the other side, a proponent for eliminating standardized testing would argue that not all students care passionately about their education and will likely not perform to expectations on the test. However, receiving the numerical data back, teachers can construe the student’s performances and eliminate the outliers of the negligent kids. Teachers can then look at the individual scores and assign those outliers to get the help they need in school. This helps every student getting an equal chance at education. Overall, taking a practice standardized test can let a teacher look at individual questions and scores and interpret what they need to spend more time on teaching. A school also can reap the benefits from standard testing to ensure they are providing the best possible education they can. The school can look at the average scores from a group and hold the teacher accountable for the student’s results on the test. The school can then determine the best course of action to pursuit regarding the teacher’s career at the school. By offering teachers and schools the opportunity to grow and prosper, standardized testing is a benefit for the entire education
At age 4, my paternal Grandmother lost his mother whose spirit likely went to Heaven, because she was a law-abiding, loving and hard-working person and body was buried in the midst of a storm in a small, godforsaken cemetery in Hungary. Shortly after the funeral, my Grandmother’s father remarried and with his new marriage came an ...
"Huh, I bet you all don't even have paved roads or indoor plumbing," he persisted.
Piaget proposed that cognitive development from infant to young adult occurs in four universal and consecutive stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, and formal operations (Woolfolk, A., 2004). Between the ages of zero and two years of age, the child is in the sensorimotor stage. It is during this stage the child experiences his or her own world through the senses and through movement. During the latter part of the sensorimotor stage, the child develops object permanence, which is an understanding that an object exists even if it is not within the field of vision (Woolfolk, A., 2004). The child also begins to understand that his or her actions could cause another action, for example, kicking a mobile to make the mobile move. This is an example of goal-directed behavior. Children in the sensorimotor stage can reverse actions, but cannot yet reverse thinking (Woolfolk, A., 2004).
Sweat dripping down my face and butterflies fluttering around my stomach as if it was the Garden of Eden, I took in a deep breathe and asked myself: "Why am I so nervous? After all, it is just the most exciting day of my life." When the judges announced for the Parsippany Hills High School Marching Band to commence its show, my mind blanked out and I was on the verge of losing sanity. Giant's Stadium engulfed me, and as I pointed my instrument up to the judges' stand, I gathered my thoughts and placed my mouth into the ice-cold mouthpiece of the contrabass. "Ready or not," I beamed, "here comes the best show you will ever behold." There is no word to describe the feeling I obtain through music. However, there is no word to describe the pain I suffer through in order to be the best in the band either. When I switched my instrument to tuba from flute in seventh grade, little did I know the difference it would make in the four years of high school I was soon to experience. I joined marching band in ninth grade as my ongoing love for music waxed. When my instructor placed the 30 lb. sousaphone on my shoulder on the first day, I lost my balance and would have fallen had my friends not made the effort to catch me. During practices, I always attempted to ease the discomfort as the sousaphone cut through my collar bone, but eventually my shoulder started to agonize and bleed under the pressure. My endurance and my effort to play the best show without complaining about the weight paid off when I received the award for "Rookie of the Year." For the next three seasons of band practice, the ache and toil continued. Whenever the band had practice, followed by a football game and then a competition, my brain would blur from fatigue and my body would scream in agony. Nevertheless, I pointed my toes high in the air as I marched on, passionate about the activity. As a result, my band instructor saw my drive toward music and I was named Quartermaster for my junior year, being trusted with organizing, distributing, and collecting uniforms for all seventy-five members of the band. The responsibility was tremendous. It took a bulk of my time, but the sentiment of knowing that I was an important part of band made it all worthwhile.
...eight years old when my father was murdered. It is almost impossible to describe the pain of losing a parent to a senseless murder.…But even as a child one thing was clear to me: I didn't want the killer, in turn, to be killed. I remember lying in bed and praying, 'Please, God. Please don't take his life too.' I saw nothing that could be accomplished in the loss of one life being answered with the loss of another. And I knew, far too vividly, the anguish that would spread through another family -- another set of parents, children, brothers, and sisters thrown into grief."55
George Helmholtz, as the head of the music department at Lincoln High School, is very determined with his regular students and the gifted musicians of the band. Each semester and year at school he dreams of “leading as fine a band as there was on the face of the earth. And each year it came true”. His certainty that it was true was because he believed there was no greater dream than his. His students were just as confident and in response, they played their hearts out for them. Even the students with “no talent played on guts alone” for Helmholtz.
Piaget believed in four stages of cognitive development in which new schema, the framework for organizing information, are acquired. They include the sensorimotor stage which last until a child is roughly two years old. In this stage a child learns about the world around them by using their fives senses for exploration. This stage leads to an understanding of object permanence.
... the rest of his life in his mansion in Miami Beach, Florida. A great contribution to the Chicago Mafia died alone in 1947.
On earth, God uses various religious leaders as instruments of His love and guidance—chaplains, counselors, pastors, and lay leaders. It is through these instruments that Jesus tells the grieving that it’s OK to cry. God is with you and will protect you. He is your counsel in your storm. We are not orphans. Instead, as Christians we belong to the family of Christ, who will comfort the afflicted.
Standardized testing is not an effective way to test the skills and abilities of today’s students. Standardized tests do not reveal what a student actually understands and learns, but instead only prove how well a student can do on a generic test. Schools have an obligation to prepare students for life, and with the power standardized tests have today, students are being cheated out of a proper, valuable education and forced to prepare and improve their test skills. Too much time, energy, and pressure to succeed are being devoted to standardized tests. Standardized testing, as it is being used presently, is a flawed way of testing the skills of today’s students.
At the age of 14, I lost my second mother, my auntie Anitra to suicide. I can really say that it was most difficult time of my life. I wanted to talk to her one last time. The only way I knew how to do that was to talk to her through God. In Revelation 21:4, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." I am a true believer in "God does everything for a reason. " It was just her time to go home. Losing a loved one would cause anyone to mourn all day, but is it going to bring that person back? The person you lost is in a better place now. They 're in good
I started to cry all the time, even during school. I just couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. I was not the same person anymore. I felt hopeless. I didn’t think that anything would work and no one could do anything about it. I felt so alone and powerless. I kept thinking, "how could God be doing this to me. I 've been in so much pain for so long, when was it going to stop?" I was so frustrated with God that he wasn’t answering my prayers, he wasn 't helping me get through my problems, and I couldn’t help but feeling abandoned by him. This led me to start thinking that he wasn’t there listening to me. I started to question if there really was a God or if this whole Catholic faith was just a joke. I stopped believing in God, because if He was really there, then how could he let his child suffer like this? I would go to church still, but only because my parents made me, but I didn 't sing or say any if the prayers because I didn 't believe in anything they