Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: extravagant student ensemble trips


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Posted by Yeah... on June 02, 2003 at 19:23:47:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: extravagant student ensemble trips posted by Voter on June 02, 2003 at 19:04:44:

I needed to dig a trench for drainage in hard clay along a quarter-mile stretch of road. I even went down to the mission, offering $10/hour (that's way above what unskilled labor gets here) for a day's work--I'd even throw in lunch and dinner. No takers. Ended up taking two days to do it myself. I survived.

But my wife and I also volunteer in a middle school on the wrong side of the tracks. We buy music for the band, get instruments repaired (when possible) and tutor the kids. Most of these children don't manage to see the school year out--their family life's too unstable. Some are from zero-parent homes, getting shuttled between relatives. Some are two-parent with one in prison. Most are single-parent. Quite a number of these kids have been "mainstreamed". For some, music is an escape from a not-very-nice world.

To their credit, quite a number of the single parents try very hard to provide for their kids. Others would just as soon give their child the back of a hand. A lot of the kids understandably develop a rotten attitude toward the world, but many don't.

These are the kinds of cases that I'm thinking of when I suggest that a well-heeled school populated by kids with a stable homelife do a little community work. Just having someone give a damn about them makes a huge amount of difference.

If this is bleeding-heart socialism, I plead guilty.


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