Sunday, November 4, 2007

The Audition



The Girl auditioned for the All-District Band yesterday and made 3rd chair out of about 40 high school girls who tried out. The two girls ahead of her were both seniors and everyone below her until the girl in 9th chair (a freshman who is one of my former students, thankyouverymuch), everyone who made the band was either a junior or a senior. All things considered, The Girl made an excellent showing so she can't really complain. The clinic and concert will be next Saturday, then she can work on improving the music for the All-Region Band tryout December 1. The competition will be stiffer then because now that marching season is over, they actually have time to work on the honor band music. At any rate, she was 7th chair All-Region last year with only seniors and 2 juniors ahead of her - yep, you guessed it - the 2 girls who are ahead of her in All-District this year. Taking that into consideration, we expect her to go to Area this year. We'll see. If she doesn't pass Geometry she will be ineligible to compete, and all the work she's done since January will have been in vain. Send her some positive math energy to pull her through.

4 comments:

Kate said...

Good luck with the geometry... my husband has math vibes oozing out his ears (he's in a PhD program, for gourd's sake) so he can spare some.

Dr. Brainiac said...

Thanks Kate. The Girl doesn't know it yet, but when I take her to school in about half an hour, she and I are going to have a little conference with the teacher during the tutorial period. --Just to make sure we're all on the same page. Apparently the teacher is also the cheerleader sponsor and kids who aren't in either cheerleading or football are pretty much invisible in her class. That assessment came from several of her peers, not just The Girl. It doesn't explain everything but it does go a long way toward explaining why I wasn't notified that my daughter was failing until 4 weeks into the 6 week period. She has 2 weeks to bring her grade up from a 53 to passing at 70. Grr.

Constance said...

Good thoughts on passing Geometry being sent !

Dr. Brainiac said...

The meeting this morning went surprisingly well. Of course The Girl found it necessary to inform me in a half-joking manner that I'm a Nazi for intruding on her in such a manner, but she is almost 16, so that's to be expected. I did inform the teacher that I am upset that she waited until the 4th week of the 6 weeks to notify me that there was a problem and gave her my contact information so that she can keep me updated on The Girl's progress.

Turns out that she's not been doing her homework - to the tune of 8 zeroes and 5 incompletes. Nevermind that the teacher gives credit just for attempting each problem. She also prints off her lecture notes and as long as the students have them all in order in the folder, they get a 100 for an exam grade. She also gives them a review for any exams two days in advance and writes the exam very close to the review. The teacher is also available for tutorials every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning from 7:30-8:30 and on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30 to 8. There is no reason for anyone to fail that class unless they just damn well want to.

All is not lost though. The teacher is pretty confident that the grade can be brought up to passing and understands that The Girl has several other things riding on passing her class - like being able to participate in the next rounds of honor band auditions in the next couple of months and getting her driver's license in a couple of weeks. Soooo, much to The Girl's dismay, she is expected to go to tutorials every morning until the end of the 6 weeks, which is actually 2 days longer than normal because of the Thanksgiving holiday. She is also supposed to stay after school every day to work on her homework with a friend who has a high A in that class.

Too bad math doesn't come to her as easily as everything else. She has high As in every other subject but Spanish but she has a B in that class. Sigh.