By Barb Hauge
Recently we enjoyed our Spring Music Concert at Turner School. Our Music/Art teacher is a large lady with a heart to match. She opened the concert by saying that, after following the news of the massacre at Littleton School in Colorado and seeing the pitiful plight of Kosovo refugee children, she knew we are all reminded how precious children are and will be giving our children hugs and love.
Ms. Deborah Bosch has been a special treasure in our community for a number of years now. She has a deep, sympathetic understanding for children and knows how to use art and music to help them express their feelings and frustrations; she brings out the creativity of their hearts and souls.
Her final concert with our kids left us clapping and stomping to the beat of Turners guitar ensemble playing Texas Rock and Stevies Blues. Because so many farm and ranch families have left the land, our school is kept alive with eight foreign high school students this year plus children who are bussed out from the Harlem school. As a result we have a wide variety of talent.
The younger performers did Carmino Ravosas A Mud Puddle Jumped On Me and Frog and Toad Together plus Woody Guthries Mail Myself To You an African American folk song Chicka Hanka. Young boys in cowboy hats performed the cowboy song Pickup Man aided by three girls. We enjoyed Little Pigs Jive and Yankee Doodle Dandy and the kids did too. They were performing with a real sense of joy. There were piano and vocal numbers and of course, the band. Michi from Germany played selections by Ludwig von Beethoven and Robert Schumann.
Ms. Bosch or Deb came to our community with a broken heart. Her heart has since healed. She has subbed as minister in our church and recently decided to go into the ministry full time. We are loosing a treasure and Debs church will benefit greatly.
In the worst way, Littleton, Colo., has lost its treasure too in the deaths of their children and our hearts go out to all of the bereaved. I personally am an advocate of The Little Red Schoolhouse, though any I attended were never painted red. I remember what a jolt it was to go from country to town school where at first I felt like a nonentity; lost in the big building with so many confusing rooms and lockers with combinations you must remember or you could never get the books for your next class and would be tardy and lose grade points. The larger the school the more it is structured and the more rules one must obey. Even your bladder is closely monitored and you need a P slip to go to the toilet. I can only imagine how demeaning it must be to be subjected to metal detectors, urine tests and even strip searches.
When the American West was settled every section of land had a school section. Perhaps may of our schools have become too large and are just impersonal institutions. We need to break them down with smaller schools serving each community (even within cities) where parents are involved and teachers can be hands-on educators who personally know and are a guiding light and a special treasure to each and every child.
