What We Have

I spent today rehearsing for a tour to China with the Camerata Philadelphia. We leave Tuesday and we're gone for 2 and a half weeks.

The rehearsals were in a school outside of the city -- a middle school that had facilities many times better than my college. Basses and cellos lined on side of the hall leading to the multiple rehearsal rooms. Sound-proofed practiced rooms were on the opposite side, along with more string instruments. I heard they have 2 alto flutes and a bass flute, just in case they ever need them.

The actual rehearsal room had admirable acoustics, with signs lining the wall about rehearsals for hand bell choir, regular choir, jazz ensemble, marching mand, wind ensemble, and orchestra. (It's entirely possible I'm forgetting a few.) Where I'm used to seeing old, ratty cardboard cut-outs about what a quarter note means, this school instead had glossy posters of musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra, and pictorial progressions of instruments.

The music department at this school leaves little to be desired. I'm willing to bet the science lab is thoroughly stocked, that the drama department is thriving, and that there is a yearly art show in their very own gallery. The bathrooms have automatic flushers and faucets.

It's a dream school -- a dream middle school, if such a thing can exist.

Seeing a dream made into reality should be something that feels good -- these kids get amazing opportunities, and that should make me grin.

But instead, I looked around the school and then looked out the window to the town -- at the yarn store right next to the paint-your-own-pottery store, which was right next to the custom tailor... and I just felt a little sick.

I go to Camden every week to teach for the orchestra and those kids have nothing. They don't even realize they're less than 3 miles from Philadelphia; their school is directly underneath the Ben Franklin Bridge and most of them have never crossed the river.

I don't need to go into the way-too-offhand comments I hear each week about family life and jobs and living situations. I don't need to mention the lack of facilities or SOAP or learning materials. Because you know what? The kids in Camden are doing alright, at least right now they are -- they're young and eager and they don't yet know that they drew the short stick. They're learning and they're happy and I love getting to influence their journey, even if it's only a tiny little bit.

I guess it was just a smack in a the face -- a realization that I'm a spoiled white kid about to go to China to play the flute, and while I certainly didn't grow up in the affluence of the dream middle school, I'm also a lot closer to that than I am to the New Jersey counterpart. So, I can't look down my nose at suburban paradise; I can just hope that the kids there realize how lucky they are, and that they won't assume it's just a birthright.

Also, I hope their orchestra sounds good.