Marching Bands: the Ideal Extra-curricular

I have a select few experiences from my childhood that I will remember till the day I die. Most people do. However, the fact that distinguishes these memories of mine is that I have committed my time and knowledge to let others learn from my mistakes, but also my successes.

For a mistake, I tried to play little league baseball, I tried soccer and I even tried to learn how to ice skate but to no avail. I was too uncoordinated to play baseball, too clumsy to play soccer and too off-balanced to play hockey. I turned to my newly emerging musical talent for comfort.

I would have been destroyed or left behind in any sport but I could play slide trombone and lucky for me the main socially-oriented, interscholastic, competitively-structured, extra-curricular activity was the marching band.

Such a sense of school spirit ran through me as my twelve-year-old life had not yielded as of yet. I watched closely, the systems of medals, ranks and awards and played and marched. In two years I would be a modest sergeant-first-class. For me, the marching band was a success.

I still enjoy how inclusive a marching band is. Those without any athletic talent can be incorporated into a group where musical talent is valued. I must, however, highlight the fact that a less than stellar musician is not cut as in a sport, but is given an edited part and adequate coaching. In too many ways to count, a marching band is more than worthy of a student's devotion, time, skill, effort and school spirit.

My intention in creating this composition is not entirely to persuade my readers of the beauty of a school marching band but of its meaningful and, in many ways, essential contribution which it makes to the school environment. Imagine a school where everyone has an extra-curricular, where all students have not only a meaningful after school activity but something to put on his/her resume as well, where all students feel they are part of not just a team or a class but a school.

I look to the future and the protection of development and growth on any scale is, with much certainty and sincerity, first priority in my mind. The schools are our hope for tomorrow because children are our living messages to the future.

Protecting Growth and Development

Luke Bradford Knowles