AIBU to be annoyed my DS will be getting "Beatboxing" music lessons at primary school

[OhLori]

Had a letter from son's school today. Apparently they will be getting "beatboxing" lessons from a specialist "beatboxing" teacher coming into teach his class. DS is 10.

For the uninitiated, beatboxing is that sort of spitting into cupped hands over a microphone thing, found in some rap/hip hop.

I just don't want my son to learn this rubbish at school, it does my head in when he occasionally does it in the house so the last thing I want is for it to be encouraged further by a 'professional' at school.

I am amazed that the school is financing this, but we live in a London inner city area, so I guess its seen as "cool" to waste taxpayers money on this crap.

Would I be unreasonable to have other appointments on that day e.g. doctors, or be sick? I don't think there is much point in giving my opinion to the school. They are not interested in parents' opinions.

This is a genuine AIBU post, I don't know what to do.

Do you actually know its costing the school? Often these sort of projects are free to schools and run by volunteers, if they do pay it is normally a couple of hundred pounds at the most. In the grand scheme of a school's budget it is tiny.

What about if they decided to teach Mongolian throat-singing instead, would that be high-brow enough for you? Because it is a very similar set of skills, just one comes from an exotic nomadic culture and the other from black urban youths.

The OP said it was being paid for by the school and it was 'several' sessions, not just a one off.
I have no idea what Mongolian throat singing is, but I don't think I would want them doing that either.

Tbh I actually doubt she knows the details of the school music budget and is just assuming the school are paying for it.

Mongolian throat singing performed at the Proms in 2011. Maybe you should construct a list of acceptable and unacceptable musical forms for school children?

My friend's daughter is in the national youth orchestra, you have to best to get in, they all do it and have had workshops in beat boxing,

It's great fun, and also very useful to learn what ever type of musician you are.

Oh, but coalfire thinks it should all be 'naice' and 'classical', you know... She probably thinks is stupid and 'beneath' children too. Despite the fact that these guys - and quite a few Beatbox artists too - are celebrated, win awards and make a very very good living out of their art. There is no point in engaging with snobs who want their DCs to learn last century's music.

If you think that this country's academic prowess should be celebrated, you are smoking crack. We have an appallingly low rate of school leavers going on to study maths, science, engineering etc compared to other more progressive countries. Compare our results and standards with Japan, Sweden - even China!

Pedagogy is a constantly evolving art and anything that raises interest in school gets the ok by me. You talk about school for educational attainment - am I the only person who remembers being bored out of my tits by teachers with no passion, no interest in their subject?

Also - you might be interested to look at studies showing the overall academic achievements of students at GCSE & A level when they have an arts subject in the mix compared to those who don't...

"Compare our results and standards with Japan, Sweden - even China!"

UK Education sixth in global ranking

OK, I've compared them, what now? Looks pretty good to me.

Pointy you are right. It did amuse me that despite being a snob realcoalfire didn't know about Mongolian throat singing. I learnt about it from an episode of Frasier where Miles (huge classical music fan and massive elitist) and Daphane can't agree on whether to go to a 4 hour throat singing concert or Billy Joel. Just proved nicely that they don't have a particularly extensive knowledge or understanding of music.

'Pedagogy is a constantly evolving art and anything that raises interest in school gets the ok by me. You talk about school for educational attainment - am I the only person who remembers being bored out of my tits by teachers with no passion, no interest in their subject? '

..and why should a teacher of this beatboxing be any more or less enthused by his subject than any other workshop teacher the school could have brought in?

So Mongolian throat singing is basically pretending to be a dalek and try to sing.

Complex - that report used data from many years before (iirc, a decade?) and mentions itself that educational standards rose sharply in the UK in the 90s and early 00s before (comparitively) levelling off. I reviewed a report in class last week which compared maths & science results at three stages and the UK was more than halfway down the table. I'll see if I can get the name of the report if you're interested.

realcoalfire - It's not about the beatboxing teacher being enthused, it's about the children being drawn in to a subject which they may have felt wasn't for them. We're talking about a handful of sessions during c.12 years of education, I'm genuinely surprised that parents have an issue with this opportunity.

Yep and opera singing is just screeching at the top of your voice.

As a massive Frasier fan I can't believe I wrote Miles instead Niles. D'hoh!

I would love the OP to come back and tell us more about her school.

Realcoalfire is doing all the hard work here......

@catsnotrats - that pretty much sums up my attitude towards opera. I hate it. I won't listen to it. Why ruin a perfectly lovely piece of classical music with all that singing? Give me Sibelius, give me Brahms, give me Faure, and Grieg, and Rachmaninov and Bach. Okay, when it comes to Bach I like the singing - the Passions rock. I played classical piano growing up and loved it - not enough talent to make a living at it, though.

But I also like Stomp, and Beatbox, and prog rock and loads of other stuff. Some people on here don't seem to see that musical development is not a zero sum game.

"So Mongolian throat singing is basically pretending to be a dalek and try to sing."

Try to sing? Did you miss the fact it's called "throat singing". It is singing, just not the kind you are likely to hear in our culture.

The OP has my greatest sympathy. Why only last week the governess tried to teach little Mezzanine this modern-angled thing called a fortepiano! What's wrong with proper classical instruments like the harpsichord?

Yep, and of course a didgeridoo is just a primitive flute and so not worthy of any interest from us middle class types. Only Western music and culture of a certain era is of any worth, don't you know? That nice Mr Gove says that there is nothing better than Dryden, and he should know, since he is a journalist who couldn't cut it an expert in education with many years' experience in the field.

Arf @ 'Mezzanine'. Does he/she have a sibling called Mezzaluna?

No, but there is a French cousin called Mezzanononannette.

What about an Italian cousin called Mezzosoprano?

I want to know how many posters on this thread have had a sneaky go at trying the odd ba-da-dum-dum-tisshhhh since reading this thread and some of the ignorant shite therein

I am also very about the fact that cbeebies has had two beat boxing artists on this weekend - Zingzillas and Justin's house. I've watched that channel non stop for three years a fair amount and can hand-on-heart say that has never happened before. Interesting time for this thread to come about anyway.

My sister plays the digereedoo. Please moominsister, digereedont. She doesnt play very well. Its not a nice sound and not very musical if played badly.

At best it will be an enjoyable day that enthuses and informs and teaches new skills.
At worst it will be a day that makes your DS cringe and feel uncomfortable (like all those "trendy" projects that our local "yoof" team used to make us attend in the name of social inclusion)

I never felt quite so uncomfortable as when I was made to do African Tribal dance it really made me feel completely culturally inappropriate, perhaps the same as if I were wearing a burka as part of a social experiment.

Either way it will be a valuable learning experience. YABU

I think it will go a long way to build confidence which is very important. I wish we had this when I was st school.

Word

It's all noise, noise noise nowadays.

I used to try and teach music to Y6 boys. I wish I'd the imagination to do something like this. We did African drumming once - they loved that.