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Post by gyro on Mar 4, 2009 8:08:03 GMT
For those of you that are parents ..
School plays and the like; do you enjoy them ? I’m sure this will sound bad, but I find them mind-numbingly tedious, in all honesty. My daughter loves the drama side of things, so obviously I encourage her, and attend anything she’s in, but so far she only has small roles and I normally end up sitting through an hour or hour and a half of boredom just to see her on stage for a few minutes.
And, as if that’s not bad enough, their next school production is We Will Rock You. A musical stageplay based on Queen songs, and written by Ben Elton, fercrissakes !
Jesus H Christ …..
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Post by spindrift on Mar 4, 2009 8:45:45 GMT
I found them excruciating but you can't absent yourself. The good thing is that they don't happen very often.
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Post by palesa on Mar 4, 2009 8:52:44 GMT
I am not a mom, but I have been to every single concert that my niece and 3 nephews have been in, almost all of my god daughters and will now start going to my helper's sons concerts and I LOVE them, I LOVE watching the kids and their different reactions to being on stage. I would go to concerts of kids I do not even know, I find them adorable.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2009 8:56:40 GMT
School plays are not so bad compared to having to watch the embarrassing and extremely regular school sports activities.
Luckily, most of the European countries do not have school sports teams, but there are plenty municipal or neighborhood ones.
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Post by bazfaz on Mar 4, 2009 9:28:17 GMT
There is no intrinsic merit in school plays or else you would see them put on in the West End. They are boring. Parents and other family members go and find their little ones cute. Well, I could have cute at home; no need to spend 90 minutes on a hard chair. The kids themselves love them. We asked our daughter, before her first performance, whether she had been nervous. Yes, she said, I couldn't wait until it was my turn. She has gone on to be an actress - but only on the fringe. So once again I found myself sitting on hard chairs in strange venues like Crouch End watcing shows which if they had any intrinsic merit etc,
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Post by onlymark on Mar 4, 2009 9:41:34 GMT
Please spare a little sympathy for my own predicament whereby not only do I have to sit through them but, due to it being Egypt although a German School, they start an hour and a half late anyway.
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Post by bazfaz on Mar 4, 2009 9:45:38 GMT
Those Germans have really gone native.
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Post by gyro on Mar 4, 2009 10:13:06 GMT
Baz, yeah that's pretty much how I feel.
Sports days, on the other hand, I don't have so much of a problem with. Is that right, K, that most European schools don't do extra-curricular sports ? Shame.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2009 10:17:20 GMT
In France, there are a lot of sports activities proposed, but they are never part of the school program. There are therefore far fewer team sports for children, but lots of things like judo or tennis.
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Post by gyro on Mar 4, 2009 11:09:59 GMT
When you say part of the school program, do you mean they're not available AT ALL, or they're just not compulsory as part of the curriculum. I think team sports are more important than individual ones, at school.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2009 11:29:38 GMT
There is physical education, but we all know what a laugh that is in school. Real sports are signed up for as optional activities on the day off (Wednesday for small children), or after classes. Video games have eliminated a lot of the interest in sports.
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Post by gyro on Mar 4, 2009 11:36:34 GMT
Yeah, true. Which is why team sports should be part of school.
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Post by onlymark on Mar 4, 2009 13:09:53 GMT
I think I remember this being touched upon some time ago by me and Welle. When my kids were at school in Germany there were no team sports, no inter-school competitions, nothing unless you joined a club after school.
I was dead set against that system and made my views known to the school, but it did nothing.
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Post by bjd on Mar 4, 2009 15:45:36 GMT
I live in France and when my kids were in school, at least starting at age 11, there were sports activities at school, but they were indeed extra to regular school sports. I mean that PE teachers supervise them, and sometimes there are competitions between schools, but they take place on Wednesday afternoons (when there is no school).
However, there are lots of organized sports activities on a municipal level here and my kids all took part in those. But the parents often have to participate by driving the kids to games when they are in another area or town.
I don't think there is anything organized in the sense of a Little League kind of thing. It really depends on the sport and the location. One of my sons played rugby and when they went to play in a village somewhere, the whole village turned out to support the locals.
And for the OP, when I had to go to school plays or other theatre things my kids took part in, I was always pleasantly surprised. They often did a really good job.
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Post by rikita on Mar 4, 2009 16:00:25 GMT
well at my school the only sport apart from PE was like AGs (like work shops in the afternoons, done voluntarily in the free time), and there weren't that many, I think. Same for theater AGs, choir, school paper. anyway, I for one was glad that sport wasn't as important as it is for example in American schools - since in the states I found it to be nice for those that are already good in sports and interested in them, but due to the importance put on success in sports, bad for all others, since there was a whole hierarchy based on that, at least in the school I went to it felt like that... and in the end, I would say, most of us still moved more than most of the students from my US school, already just due to the fact that we rode our bicycles to school...
school plays btw, aren't that common here either - except maybe for older studends that join a theatre AG...
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2009 18:03:19 GMT
That is absolutely true about American schools, and I have heard that the girls are even crueller among themselves than the boys.
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Post by gyro on Mar 4, 2009 19:58:42 GMT
Yeah, but that's just bad and lazy teaching attitudes and practices, isn't it ? I hate the pc attitude that if something is possibly pyschologically damaging in certain scenarios it should just be BANNED altogether.
No, the teachers should be re-assessed and re-trained on the correct way to deal with it and present it to the kids.
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Post by rikita on Mar 4, 2009 21:09:48 GMT
question is - were you yourself in one of those psychologically damaging situations? is your daughter? obviously one can't and shouldn't protect kids from everything, they have to learn to deal with things after all - but at the same time one shouldn't teach them either that it is okay to be cruel (and that if others are cruel to you, you obviously deserve it)...
well anyway, for me it seems there was quite enough psychological damage even in normal PE class still... most when the teacher wanted to do us a favour, and let us play volleyball - it was always my fault we lost. it might sound like a little thing to those that weren't in the situation, but it made me loathe not only volleyball, but school altogether (well amongst other things)...
what amazes me is that these days, long after school, i really enjoy sport, and work hard at getting better in the sport of my choosing. of course this has to do with that it is a sport i myself chose to do and find interesting, but also with the general attitude with which it was being taught in my university sport course and the athmosphere in general: no grades, most people seem to be really helpful and enjoy giving each other tips and encouragement, etc. - well maybe that is just because it is mainly adults though...
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Post by gyro on Mar 5, 2009 5:43:34 GMT
But that's what I was saying; it's all in the teaching. Why on earth would ANYBODY teach that it's okay to be cruel ? That's insane.
"well anyway, for me it seems there was quite enough psychological damage even in normal PE class still... most when the teacher wanted to do us a favour, and let us play volleyball - it was always my fault we lost. it might sound like a little thing to those that weren't in the situation, but it made me loathe not only volleyball, but school altogether (well amongst other things)..."
That's bad teaching and a bad attitude. It's the responsibility of the teachers and school to foster a positive feeling for the kids. Sure, kids can be cruel at times, but that's not limited to sports and team events, so it's still no reason to ban them. I think these are picked on more than any other issue like this because it's easy to say the ethics of team activities are purely to blame, so best to get rid of it. What rot. And then people moan years later that kids don't get enough exercise and have no motivation for physical activity and we're a nation of fatties. QUELLE SURPRISE .....
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Post by rikita on Mar 5, 2009 8:18:10 GMT
well i don't think the teachers are always aware of it. my impression is more that a lot of them are used to things being as they are (the sporty kids are the good ones and are to be supported, the ones that aren't good at sport must be lazy, for example), and since teachers are just people too, a lot of them might think of the weird kids as weird, etc. ... ah and actually i found the few attempts of my teachers to "help" me worst... like we once spent a whole period discussing why i don't have friends - horribly embarrassing, i'd have liked to disappear in the ground... but yes, you are right, a lot is in the teaching. the problem is, you can't teach everything a teacher needs, some is about pedagogical talent, and those who really have it are rare...
well but as i said - even though i hated sport in school, and thought i'd never practice sport again when i graduated, i do practice a sport very regularly now... i guess sometimes it is more a matter of luck to discover the right sport for yourself, outside of school.
but i agree that school sport should be more about the fun. ours seemed to usually be very much about grades. even things i initially liked, like swimming, were spoilt for me by the feeling that i am doing bad at them (swimming consisted of swimming a certain number of rounds at the fastest time, diving a certain amount of meters deep, and jumping from a tower, which i was scared of)...
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Post by gyro on Mar 5, 2009 9:28:57 GMT
"my impression is more that a lot of them are used to things being as they are (the sporty kids are the good ones and are to be supported, the ones that aren't good at sport must be lazy, for example), and since teachers are just people too, a lot of them might think of the weird kids as weird, etc. ..."
Lazy teaching and lazy attitudes. NEVER assume you have nothing to learn....
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Post by bazfaz on Mar 5, 2009 9:44:40 GMT
For reasons they never properly explained to me (even when I asked) my parents sent me to Hilton, a boarding school in South Africa. There the day began at 6 a.m. with PE outside, even though there was the occasional frost in winter..
I think I was psychologically damaged. I have viewed getting up before dawn with suspicion ever since.
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Post by gyro on Mar 5, 2009 9:46:27 GMT
Ha !
That occassional frost is DEADLY, eh ?
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Post by bazfaz on Mar 5, 2009 10:20:57 GMT
An omen.
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Post by Kimby on Mar 5, 2009 19:40:54 GMT
Regarding school plays, band concerts and music recitals, kids need to start somewhere. They aren't born full-fledged actors and musicians. This is their training ground.
Regarding cruelty in sports, is there anything crueler than the system of "choosing sides" in which names are called by the two team captains until there is only one kid left? I can see the wisdom of dividing up the talent a bit, so let each team captain pick 3 players, but don't humiliate the others by picking names down to the last player. What does that serve but to demoralize the last ones chosen, and guarantee that they will hate sports?
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Post by gyro on Mar 5, 2009 19:52:54 GMT
Yeah, agree with that, especially the bit about picking sides. But once again, it just comes down to the teacher(s) being aware, doesn't it ?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2009 20:10:40 GMT
The teachers don't pay attention, or pretend not to. And yes, it is wrong.
I was one of those 'chosen last' people more than once (yes, isn't that one of the reasons a lot of people are on the internet?), but more that once I must say that I experienced kindness from the 'chosen leader'. Even though it was unfortunate to be stuck with the least gifted player in certain sports, the 'chosen leader' often was not the leader for no good reason and had additional qualities that his lesser teammates did not. I was sometimes used as the secret weapon, the player that nobody was expecting to do anything, and this gave the team a great advantage a few times.
However, I was actually good at certain sports, so I did not systematically have the 'last chosen' status... just American football and baseball.
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Post by gyro on Mar 5, 2009 20:15:28 GMT
Mind you, like a lot of things, I think waaaaaay too many people use this experience as some sort of psychological crutch and overplay it's effect.
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Post by rikita on Mar 5, 2009 20:31:57 GMT
well - to judge that, you have to have been in the situation... have you?
and being chosen last in team sports alone, of course, is just one thing. but for most people it is just one bit of many other things. being chosen last is often not only a sign of being bad at sports, but of general unpopularity too (like, usually first the best friend is chosen, then the good players, then the other friends), so there are many other ways of teasing, too...
thing is, it often becomes a vicious circle - a kid is strange and different and thus is excluded, and being excluded makes it act more strange and different...
and as you said, a good teacher can probably help a lot against this situation, but the reality is that in most cases, nothing happens...
as for the effect - i can only speak of myself, and i would say i am glad to not have been like everyone else, becuase i am glad of not being like them now... but it has lead to me always feeling slightly insecure in bigger group settings, and to not having very happy memories of certain phases of my childhood and youth.
but anyway - i don't think that team sports should be forbidden. i just think they shouldn't be forced upon kids either, neither by actual force nor by an emphasis that makes anyone not liking them automatically an outsider.
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Post by Kimby on Mar 5, 2009 21:15:47 GMT
Often just being smaller than your classmates, regardless of whether you were wierd or normal, guaranteed that last-pick humiliation. I think wanting to have the winning team influenced the pick order more than who was friends with who. Though it makes sense that athletic kids would have athletic friends...
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