Whiners win; teacher forced to back down on consequences

Band teacher Tom Brozene of Gilroy, California, has had the same rules for fifteen years: if you don't keep your grades up, or don't behave well in class, you don't get to go with the band to play at Disneyland. He's enforced this rule on numerous individuals in the past without problem. This year, however, so many students were disqualified that his low brass section was decimated,

"And as any band director knows," said Brozene, a trumpet player,"when you don't have your lower brass, you don't have a good band."

So he cancelled the trip entirely. It was the right thing to do, and it couldn't have been an easy decision. A band, like a choir, is a team, and if all the players aren't qualified, you can't play.

The other students complained about it. "It was unfair," one said. "We had already told our relatives about it, and they were going to come see us. The whole thing was ruined," said another.

Unfortunately, parents of some students whined to the principal, and we all know principals like nothing better than to stop teachers from enforcing their own rules in their own classrooms, so he overruled the decision, establishing a "contract" with the underperforming students to do better. It's the usual feel-good, consequence-free, self-esteem-enhancing approach: if you do something wrong, the only consequence is you have to promise not to do it again. Promises, promises. They made the promise when they signed up for band, because that was part of the rule book. And the moment when this promise was to be evaluated was a week before the trip, meaning unbelievable pressure on the teacher to approve them on short notice. They're going.

The local newspaper was rightly critical of the outcome:

If members of a sports team play badly, the whole team loses, not just the few members who didn't practice.

And there's little to no sympathy for this argument: "Many students have joined the band just to become eligible for this trip," one band parent said, concluding with remarkable hyperbole that canceling the trip "is nothing short of disaster."

The reason to join the band is to learn about music, not to visit Disneyland.

The principal, Joseph DiSalvo, said that for the students who didn't meet the standards for the trip, it was a "learning experience." That's for sure. They learned that promises mean nothing, and they can get away with murder.