May 03, 2006

Electives

Had a thing to attend last night with Jonathan and Rebecca--an orientation meeting of sorts in the middle school gym, intended to inform parents about the elective class choices for 7th and 8th graders in the upcoming year.

Jonathan already had his filled out--he wants to take band for sure, and then either art, or piano/guitar. I'm not sure how you play a piano/guitar, but it still amazes me that anyone can play any sort of musical instrument, period, and even more amazing that I have kids who can do it. I just never could figure all that stuff out--I like to sing and all, and actually can figure out (if given enough time to look at it) how to read music. I guess the kids get it from their mama.

Rebecca didn't quite know what to take, until we were driving over and she started going down the list of stuff she DIDN'T want to take. After she'd eliminated those, she only had three choices left. Made the decision easier, to say the least. She finally decided to put down art as her second choice, yearbook as her third choice. First choice, foreign language.

Which is going to be interesting, in that they haven't hired the teacher for the class yet, and therefore no one knows what language will be taught.

Could be Spanish. Or French.

Or Urdu.

Although the former is more likely.

What will be funny is if it turns out to be a Latin teacher, and if that teacher also teaches it at the high school. Oldest is about to split a seam to take Latin, mainly because she already knows all about Latin from reading all the Harry Potter books. I, on the other hand, having watched Life of Brian, know that Latin is fiendishly convoluted. However, far be it from me to dissuade her from her obsessive delusion, because I really would like it if she learned Latin. I also have this selfish desire to witnessing the total shock that will overcome her when she realizes that there's more to it than "expecto patronum." But the funniest thing will be if Rebecca is taking it as well--the sibling competitiveness should make for quite the combustible household.

Good grief, what am I wishing for!?

Anyway, we pulled up to the gym and a herd of tanned, willowy, coltish, and incredibly attractive young maidens came pouring out of the building after cheerleading practice. Jonathan piped up, "Hey, that's X!" [Not her real name.] "And there's A! And B over by the door! And there's C and D and E and F and F' and X's cousin L!" He knew every one of them. I pulled in to a parking spot on the curb behind someone in a hulking Expedition, and one of the girls broke from the pack and got in the truck. "Hey, that's M!"

I couldn't help myself--"Good night, Son--she's pretty! How do you know all these girls!?" (Left unasked was how is it that 13 year old girls look like this [i.e., 20 year old supermodels] nowadays!?)

"Aw, I don't know--most of them I have class with."

"They're in your grade!?"

"Mmhm, yes sir."

Fascinating.

ON into the building, which was nice and breezy with the giant wall fans on. Unfortunately, these make more racket than a B-52, so when the program started, they were shut off. And thus the gym became like every other middle school gym you can imagine--hot, stuffy, and smelling of hormonal teenagers, floor wax, and dirty mop water.

And in the end, it really didn't help us any, because my kids had already made out their forms. This was really just to help those people who were undecided about what they wanted.

::sigh::

And it lasted an hour and a half. And included a herky-jerky PowerPoint presentation. And the microphone worked only 42.3% of the time. And despite the fact that I have ample padding, within three minutes of sitting down, my butt ached with an unimaginable intensity due to the shape and material of the hard bleacher seating. And to top it off, it meant that we missed going to hear Oldest in her last choir concert for the year.

Mom said they all did really well.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at May 3, 2006 10:47 AM
Comments

I think that's where you play a piano with a guitar, instead of the old boring way with the keyboard.

Posted by: Ed Flinn at May 3, 2006 12:08 PM

Hmmm.

I thought it must have been some kind of weird keyboard-equipped guitar, but your way does make more sense. It'll give it a sort of Jerry Lee Lewis feel, I suppose.

Then again, maybe I'm just confused.

Posted by: Terry Oglesby at May 3, 2006 12:29 PM

Good for you for letting them take what electives they want.

My parents were always saying stuff like, "YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE ELECTIVE WHICH GUARANTEES YOUR ADMITTANCE INTO THE CORPORATE WORLD SO YOU CAN MAKE MONEY AND GET OUT OF OUR HOUSE THANX".

So I took speech. And I hated it.

Posted by: megabeth at May 3, 2006 01:32 PM

My parents weren't big on letting us actually choose our own electives either.

Posted by: Jordana at May 3, 2006 02:45 PM

Any chance for Boy to get them to start a marching guitar band?

Posted by: jim at May 3, 2006 02:53 PM

Well, I have to admit, Beth, that we used that very speech with Oldest in re taking a computing/learning-to-type class. Some things are valuable no matter what, and I think the skill to type is one of them.

Since their core courses are pretty well prescribed (even one putative elective--PE--is premarked as being one of their three elective choices), and the electives offered are all interesting and useful, I don't mind them being able to pick stuff out. If the choices were more toward the loony end of things, well, we might have a bit more guidance required.

As for the marching band--I'm just waiting to see how they'll do that with pianos.

Posted by: Terry Oglesby at May 3, 2006 03:03 PM

Latin isn't easy but it'll help in almost every field of her further education. I don't regret taking it one bit, though I wailed and wept while doing so.

Posted by: Tony von Krag at May 3, 2006 09:46 PM

I'm hoping that she will stick with it if she does get it. I really want her to have something useful that she's done on her own. But given her past bouts of whininess after finding out that sometimes things are difficult, I expect even more wailing and weeping than even you produced, Tony.

::sigh::

Posted by: Terry Oglesby at May 4, 2006 07:54 AM