The path to madness

A friend sent me an invitation to take the twins to a trial music class. It was something to do on a Saturday morning so I thought why not? It might be fun, I like music, I would like the twins to like it too and once again, I thought it'd be fun.

All I can say, now that it's over is that thank goodness it was only 45 minutes long and we were late to begin with. In that half an hour, I developed a criteria for parents to judge what sort of enrichment class they should put their kids into.

1. Parents should not spend the entire session checking the time.
2. Parents should not spend the entire session rolling their eyes and trying not to laugh.
   
3. Content in the class should not be beyond the ability of the parents.
   

Why do I say this?

Packrat and I were bored out of our mind when the teacher started singing the scales to apparently "improve the child's auditory ability". Baby J gave me a look when she was made to sing the scales and said "Mommy, no like song". No kidding. Mommy no like either! And Mommy also thinks that the same "auditory ability" can be developed by singing anything from November Rain to Uptown Girl to Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars.

When the teacher gave the kids a paper plate and a crayon and told them to draw, while explaining to the parents that the music would stimulate the child's creativity and help them draw better, we exchanged a very pointed "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" look and wondered what parent would be dumb enough to pay money and fall for the spiel.

What took the cake was when the teacher whipped out pictures of musical instruments. Not simple ones like the piano or guitar which the twins know but complicated ones that I only know because I had to study it for music theory when I played the piano. What 2-3 year old knows what a Viola, Cello, Double Bass, Oboe, Harpsichord or Piccolo is?

On top of that, playing classical music pieces (albeit famous pieces) and asking the aforementioned 2-3 year olds to identify which instruments were used for which piece just made me wonder who they really were trying to kid? Yes, Mozart did spectacular things when he was 3 but I really don't expect my kids to do the same. Plus, he had to make up for the fact that he was unfortunately named Wolfgang Amadeus. My children have normal names and have nothing much to compensate for at this point.

So all in, I thought the twins would have had more fun at the park on Saturday morning. When I asked Packrat who would pay any sort of money for these sort of classes, he said that those parents intent on hot-housing their kids and go the way of enrichment as a form of keeping their children occupied in all the hours they are not in school. And the parents that believed that it was essential for the giftedness of the child to ensure they not only know how to identify a piccolo when it is heard over Symphony 92.4, they know how to spell it too and by 7, know how to play it blindfolded with their toes.

I rolled my eyes but knew that what he said was true because there truly was one parent of that specimen present at the class. She claimed her daughter being a few months shy of 3 was too advanced for the class. She also told the girl to draw a square with the scarf that was given to the children when they were invited to do free movement to the music (one of the few things I liked about the class) and proceeded to remind the girl that a square had four equal sides and right angles in every corner.

So was there anything else that I liked about the class at all?

Well, yes. The music and movement bit like I said. And them plonking around on a baby piano of sorts.







































But all the things I liked about it, I could conceivably do myself. All I need is some chiffon material and access to a piano that no one minds wrecking.



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