Posted by GC on June 03, 2003 at 07:33:10:
In Reply to: extravagant student ensemble trips posted by js on June 01, 2003 at 13:09:25:
The best rationale that I have heard for this type of trip was told to me by a director in the '70's (I'm quoting as carefuly as I can remember): "Most of the kids in this community come from parents who grew up here and never left. These kids will probably spend most of their lives here and will rarely go anywhere further than Panama City. Too many of them have grown up thinking that this little community is the only decent place in the world. They don't know what's out there and will probably never even try to better themselves as long as they don't know that there's a whole wide world out there waiting for them. We do these trips [London, the Bahamas, Vienna, New Orleans, New York, Chicago] so that these country kids can learn a bit about the world and maybe get some motivation to move up in the world. Sure, these trips are expensive, but there's no better cultural education that this school can give them than a big trip." He made certain on every trip to take kids to places that were historical and significant, not just to whatever contest or concert they were headed to. He ran a gigantic budget even back in the '70's and '80's, but every kid had the opportunity to raise funds for his trip, and no kid who wanted to go badly enough was left out. Yeah, he was a trophy hound, but there was more to it than that. Some of the band members from then have had kids of their own who have gone through band, and they have been among the biggest boosters of big trips. They remember what the trips did for them, and they are determined to open up the world to their own kids.