Magnetic Dent Removal

[Ken Herrick]

40years ago I took a job teaching "brass" in a school where instrumental music was compulsory for grade 6. There had been nobody to teach brass and I had a class of over 50. There was not a single playable instrument as with no teacher the hoons had totally destroyed everything.

I made my classes elective by quickly sending most to the headmasters office for special physical education. Every week I took boxes of pieces home and made a few more playable horns. I set some very rigid standards. By end of year we had a decent little brass band and I could even trust the kids enough to let one use my King to learn tuba.

IF you can set and enforce discipline, work your guts out and develope two way respect and trust, success sometimes comes.

[Ken Herrick]

IF you can set and enforce discipline, work your guts out and develope two way respect and trust, success sometimes comes.

Ken, that "enforce" bit is where things seem to terribly wrong most of the time.

VERY TRUE!! In this case I had support of administration to give students the option of proper participation or leaving so that those who DID want to learn some music could without disruption. Those who left were likely to spend the class period cleaning the school grounds. A few of the real wreckers received harsher sanctions.

Not meaning to hijack this interesting thread.

[Ken Herrick]

Nah, Ian,
Leave it as is and when you have your own repair shop, it can be a "before" item hanging over the counter. Its got soul.

As a very good banjo player I used to work with inChicago would say, "If you don't like this mouldy oldy, you got a hole in your soul".