Why do all the worthwhile programs have to be sidelined because of money?

Contributed By:Dorothy Nevils

I remember something Barbara Taliaferro said when we both taught at Roosevelt. I have not the foggiest idea what the conversation was, but, if I remember correctly, I was letting out some frustrations about expectations being so low. I was exasperated! The bar I had set for my students seemed to get lower and lower, so low that those reaching it would skin their knees.

After a few moments of witnessing my exasperation, she looked at me and said quietly, “Dorothy, we’re dinosaurs.”

I think about that often, and my whole soul frowns. I know it was true then, and it’s worse now; but I still can’t accept it. I still can’t believe we’ve rolled down the hill like little kids used to do, laughing and rolling, and giggling, and rolling some more, and getting their clothes full of dried grass, until they were dusty as the moles this summer; and yet they giggled.

I thought about this as I saw repeated clips of “engaging kids.” The cameras and mikes recorded smiles and hope, and announcers touted a program that allowed those kids to develop and showcase their “talent”. A dinosaur for life, all I could see was a kid, his body jerking and elbows jabbing, and unrecognizable sounds coming from his mouth. He seemed to be having a spasm!

I lowered my head and my dinosaur body sagged. This is what they pass off as talent to our children! Why aren’t all our children given the opportunity to learn music? Why don’t more of them learn about sharps and flats? Why aren’t more of them encouraged and taught to play the piano, saxophone, the violin?

Why was communication all but stripped from the curriculum? Why do all the worthwhile programs have to be sidelined because of money?

I remember how it was during the last half of my stay in the school system. Students who were “dismissed” as clowns were sent to drama. Since they “acted a fool,” another term for “acting up,” that was a “good fit” for them. They could “act up” and get a credit for it.

Yes, I am a dinosaur. I haven’t “evolved” to the point where jumping around and making any sound is talent. I don’t think that putting a series of rhyming words together is poetry, and I don’t think that providing a place where kids can do that is encouraging talent.

I think that kids need more than a “space.” They need more than four walls and a door to separate them from the street. They need to be offered what they would not experience outside that place. They need a different view.

I don’t know how it will happen. In fact, it may not… but I wish it would.

I think about the pendulum, and I think, maybe there is hope. Maybe we’ve gone as far off course as we can go, and the pendulum will edge its way back… Maybe this is “rock bottom,” and the only way left is up!

If that be the case, then, I shall close my eyes with the possibility that tomorrow will be better… that that kid will pull up his pants, walk over to a piano, and play some real music!

Story Posted:09/23/2016