Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Rising To The Challenge

This past Saturday my son and his high school show choir headed to the state competition. While they were excited to compete, they were also extra nervous, more than they normally would have been. The reason is that they were missing 6 of their members. Why? Because those kids chose to make a poor choice in their behavior and it cost them. Just the day before the competition, they were told they were not allowed to participate in any school activities for 2 full weeks as their punishment.



Between the 6 of them, this affected the state show choir team, the state speech team, the dance team, & the varsity basketball team. While I felt so bad for the remaining kids having to step up to the challenge of not having these kids, I was beyond thrilled that the school followed through with it's disciplinary action to show these kids there are consequences for your actions.

As my dad always said "If you're gonna play with fire, be prepared to get burned".


The best part to me is that these kids received verbal beatings from the other kids about how they screwed up, and how could they do something so stupid, and how could they be so selfish and not think of their peers and teammates.


This all came to head on Friday morning...with the state competition the very next morning. ACK! The instructor had some good friends of his (who are also choreographers and judges) come in to the school, and the administration allowed the remaining show choir kids to get out of class for basically an emergency practice session. They had to rearrange their lines, positions, moves, everything. I can only imagine how stressful it had to have been for the instructor!

The kids rose to the challenge though. When we watched them during their performance we all were so impressed with them. They had more life, fire, and enthusiasm than they had in previous performances. They left it all out there on the risers. When they were done, we noticed how many of them were covered in sweat, that's how hard they worked. Even my son, was sweaty and his face was all red, but I could tell he felt good about how they had done.

I was so proud of all those kids! We all were. We all cheered as if they were superstars!


The rating system was a roman numeral 1-5 scale, with "I" being the best you could receive. We honestly didn't care what they received. We were just so proud of them. They ended up receiving a "II" and were thrilled! There were a few errors during their performance as kids struggled to remember where their new position was, and I think they were worried they'd get a "V".

Hopefully those other kids will learn from this mistake, and they will gain a maturity to realize that life is not all just about you. What you do DOES have an effect on others.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's awesome! Oh, I remember those swing choir days! What fun! Good for them! :)

Love, Debi

Anonymous said...

Great job for the ones left to carry on! But yesterday is gone - so will see how these kids handle it in the future, with their personal lives and yes--it does affect others, but they did rise to the occasion. Austin looks great too......

Becky said...

Looks like sooooooo much fun despite the hardships. I would love to see a clip of your son in a concert. :-D