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Friday, February 17, 2012

Thunder Soul and musical education...

[VIDEO] Thursday night I went to the local movie house (ICE Theaters-Chatham 14) to see a special Black History Month presentation of a documentary Thunder Soul. It's the story of a high school stage band that were able to accomplish so many accolades with their performances not only in this nation but around the world.

The documentary started off with the original band members who had attended a Houston high school back in the 1970s and how they came together as well as talking about the man who brought them all together. "Prof" Johnson was a music teacher who definitely made an impact on his students and was able to write music around the popular style at the time.

They talked about the genre of stage band music. How this band - Kashmere Stage Band - had essentially outperformed all the other stage band. In the words of one Kashmere band member those other bands were technically good, however, they didn't feel the music and had no soul. They did some things as performers much different than other similar bands of their era.

Then they talked about the breakup of the band. Questions by officials at the Houston school board about how this band could afford to tour and then they just decided it was time to break it up instead of continuing to support such a good thing in a poor neighborhood high school. Ultimately in frustration Mr. Johnson just retired because they gave him a lot of grief for doing his job.

Typically it's safe to say this blog isn't an always activist blog, but there was a point to be said in that last paragraph. "Prof" opined in this movie that anyone who wants to take music (or art) out of our schools should be fired. His point was when would be the next time any youngster would at least get a chance to play a musical instrument of any type.

I had to think about my music teacher at Bennett-Shedd, her name was Ms. Burnett. I remember making fun of her because she wore sneakers to school one day. I had never seen that from a teacher and rarely did I expect back then any teacher would wear casual clothing to school.

In any event, I'm sure my classmates in that era did the typical music thing listening to key songs and what not at the time. Unfortunately there isn't much that I remember of those times where we studied music. The only memorable material was all the notes and to arrange them on a musical staff.

The point to be made here is what if students had the ability to touch a musical instrument at the time. Just to get an opportunity to play around with an instrument just to experiment with the idea of having any type of musical talent. If there were instruments at Bennett-Shedd there was only a piano that no students (unless they already had talent) ever played.

Granted I'm sure it's a financial issue but can one really have musical education without allowing one student to play an instrument of some sort. It's OK to study musical notes and arranging them on a music staff, but one thing I never learned in school was to at least carry a note whether with a voice or an instrument.

I'm giving credit to "Prof" Johnson he did it with his students back in the 1970s allowing them to perform as a band. Would today's music teachers on the elementary & secondary levels allow the young people to do it now?

BTW, if you can find it go see Thunder Soul!

Monday, December 12, 2011

The Cartel


[VIDEO] Close to a year ago I wrote about the documentary about public education entitled The Cartel. Now you can watch this film in its entirety on Hulu! Just click the word video within the brackets at the start of this paragraph and you will be able to watch all of the roughly one and a half hours of it. Although there will be several brief breaks for advertisements.

Hat-tip Newsalert!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Meeting schedule for the Bennett Shedd LSC

Just got a copy at the latest meeting but if anything should change refer to the about page and get in touch with the school. For Bennett School the phone no. is (773) 535.5460.

As per the most recent LSC meeting on Oct. 12, there is now a Parent Representative vacancy on the LSC. If you're the parent of a Bennett-Shedd student this is one way to get involved!
Bennett Shedd LSC 2011-12 Schedule

Thursday, August 25, 2011

CPS Now Wants Longer School Day in January - Chicago News Cooperative

CPS Now Wants Longer School Day in January - Chicago News Cooperative
Less than two days after negotiations between the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union stalled, a new offer is on the table presenting the possibility of a teacher raise and a longer school day as early as January.

Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard first offered to pay elementary school teachers 2 percent more to work an additional 90 minutes each day in September when he appeared on WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight” Tuesday night. During Wednesday’s Board of Education meeting, CPS officials said the changes could be made as soon as January, 2012.

The offer came as a surprise to CTU president Karen Lewis. “It would’ve been nice if we had that proposal while we were actually in negotiations,” Lewis said Wednesday after the board meeting. “For some reason they decided to do it on Channel 11.”

The two parties began negotiating over wages after the board voted to deny teachers their 4 percent contractual raises in June, citing a $712 million deficit.
Yeah making a proposal on TV show when it could've been made behind closed doors in labor negotiations is not exactly a good look. I'm just going to side with Karen Lewis on this one!

I do however like the fact that they're talking about a longer school day especially on the elementary school level. Let's hope that the school board and the teachers can come to terms with that.

ALSO you can watch CEO Brizard's appearance on Chicago Tonight below [VIDEO]

Friday, August 5, 2011

Bennett-Shedd is back in session Sept. 6th

Now with a new principal in longtime faculty member and assistant principal Roberta Fields.

Bennett-Shedd is not a track E school at least and as such those schools will start instead on August 8th.

Are you - parents & students - ready for the upcoming school year?

Thursday, July 28, 2011

This is a month old pic..

But Bennett-Shedd at least has a new principal just in time for the start of the new school year. And it took less time than I thought it would to choose her!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

What about the 8th graders you may want to know???

Well I wasn't in time to talk about my experience graduating from the 8th grade as I was for my experience in talking about graduation from kindergarten (kgs) yesterday. Yesterday the 8th graders had their commencment and on this day kgs have theirs both Bennett & Shedd at Bennett's auditorium.

Strangely enough my folks didn't have many pictures of the ceremonies. There was a ribbon pinning ceremony where the parents would walk onto the stage to pin a ribbon on me. Then after that the actual graduation which took place just about the last week of June the year I graduated.

In any case one of the many tassles hanging on a pin in my room included one from my 8th Grade commencement. I still have a few artifacts from that time even though I'm closing in on almost two decades since that time. As part of my grad regalia in addition to a cap and gown with an unattached tassle, there was also a kente scarf and a medal.

Not sure where my actual cap and gown is but I still have the medal and it's not particularly fancy but something I still treasure enough to get the medal itself attached to the ribbon again. The ribbon is red, black, and green and most likely to emphasize our African roots. I couldn't possess my kentae scarf because my mom would appropriate it whenever possible.

Somewhere around the house are the tickets from the graduation. I also ran across a program and my certificate. Also I do have a class picture which is really just all the portraits of not only my graduating class, but also the teachers, counselors, and administration at Bennett School.

Unfortunately if I wanted to share that I would have a tough time. The class picture is a little too large to just put on my HP scanner at home. :(

Unfortunately we had to sing at our graduation and when I rehearsed the ceremony some teachers discouraged it. My 8th grade teacher since I didn't get the step right to his satifaction said I had to march by myself when others marched in pair. Unfortunately we also had to sing some knock off songs such as "Kiss 8th Grade Goodbye" based upon the song "What I did for love". That in addition Bennett's school song.

Anyway at some point I was glad it was over and off to bigger and better things. On some level however I'm excited in more ways than one of the current crop of 8th graders.