So ... I had over 100 kids in my band. Maybe a dozen took private lessons. Playing a musical instrument is difficult under the most favorable conditions. Coordinating your fingers, both hands doing different things, breathing, reading a foreign language of dots and lines all at the same time as 100 other kids. I believe if you are not having fun, it will just be too hard.

Most important to me, was that I got you from 11 years old to 13 years old and you were still in the band. If you lose them in middle school they are gone. If you can get them to high school band then bingo! Sometimes at the high school concerts, a kid would stand up and play the baritone horn and it would be beautiful. I would sit there and think that if I had thrown him out of band because he never once practiced, he wouldn't be playing now. Making sure they enjoyed band was task #1.

If you are reading this you probably know me. It is my job to have fun, and I am a professional.

So here we were, approaching the Winter Concert during my second year at ITMS. I had my 30 kids who could play pretty well, 50 more that can play some stuff, and two dozen kids without a clue. This is a pretty normal continuum of ability for middle school band.

The good kids helped the struggling kids participate in a working group. Some kids have a lot of trouble playing on their own, put could be productive when part of a section playing together. Unlike sports, nobody sits on the bench at a school music concert.

I clearly remember stopping the band, and leaning back in my chair to think. I needed to motivate the

band to work a little bit harder. Hmmmm ... what to do. So I blurted out "If you can play this perfectly at the concert - - - I will shave my beard off in class!!" The class erupted in a wave of positive emotion.

Did they practice extra hard? Maybe some of them. Anyway, we did well at the concert. So I covered my podium with a tablecloth and put my bus tray full of soapy water in front of me. I clipped a mirror my wife uses to put on makeup to the front and I went to it.

Me being me, I couldn't just buzz the long hair off and shave. I had to play with it. The Goatee, the Duane Allman etc. But then, there it is. Right in the center.

The Fearless Leader doll, from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon program, was given to me by a social worker from my previous district. She felt he had a resemblence to our principal at the time. Looking at it now, this picture is completely inappropriate. But it was displayed in my classroom for the next 9 years and nobody ever paid any attention to it. I was so ready for the "What the hell were you thinking?" that never came.