In the annals of amazing young musicians, Avery Gagliano is making herself quite the niche.
In the annals of timid, heartless school administrators who think the purpose of students is to be abused with idiotic rules, and preen about “zero-tolerance” policies that take plastic knives away from eight-year-olds and suspend first-graders, this is some kind of new low, and deserves note. Jemea Goso, are you are just personally clueless and heartless? More likely the cowards you report to, who won’t take responsibility for this, have nailed your feet to the floor so you can’t do your job.
You would all be merely ludicrous, if you weren’t dangerous to kids.
Update 9/IX: DCPS has quite a different version of events. My instinct (no more than that at present) is that they are having an elevator-video moment of reflection and damage control since the Dvorak story was published, but it’s possible Dvorak just pooched the story and the family didn’t tell tell her the truth. These versions cannot both be true.
Update 10/IX: Dvorak replies.
DaveZimny says
There's no bureaucrat like an education bureaucrat! I'm reminded of Robert Maynard Hutchins's famous comment, still as true as ever: "Academic politics is so vicious because the stakes are so small." Small comfort to learn that it's as true in middle school as it is in colleges and universities.
CharlesWT says
Avery Gagliano, Lang Lang Foundation Junior Camp Finalist - Chopin Impromptu #1 Op. 29
James Wimberley says
There’s a legend about the first day of school of Carl Friedrich Gauss, that shows how it should be done. The kids are aged seven or eight, and are supposed to have already learned at dame school to read, write and do simple addition. The teacher checks this - they all say, yes Sir, we can add up. So he tells them to add the numbers from 1 to 100. (So far this is terrible teaching, designed to put the poor kids in their place and establish his authority as alpha male). They take their slates and settle to it, squeak squeak. After ten minutes or so young Gauss lays down his slate, and folds his arms. The teacher warns him not to fool around. No Sir, I have worked it out, Sir, really. A the end of the hour the teacher collects the slates. All but one are of course wrong. Gauss has got it right : the method is to fold the series in two, 1 to 50, 51 to 100, and match them up: 1 +100, 2+99 etc. He has even written out the general formula. At this point the bad teacher becomes a good one. He recognizes that he has been gifted not a bright child, but a one-in-ten-million great talent, takes him aside for spacial coaching, and hands him on quite soon when he has taught all he knows.
It’s a legend, that is improved history. It’s not likely that it all happened in one day, but it is certain that the genius of the son of a village carpenter was recognized and nurtured. It could so easily have gone the other way, and it is to be feared that it very often does. For every Gauss, Picasso and Avery, there are several equal talents smothered by jealousy and ignorance.