A gift of playing and teaching with the Maple Valley Youth Symphony Orchestra | Dennis Box

There is a lot of talk about teaching and teachers these days.

Educating kids has been a political punching bag for decades, particularly since the 1980s when we started hearing stories that our kids were all dummies and children from some country over there all earned a PhD at 3 years old.

When teaching and education becomes a political sport for campaigns, a great deal of the truth gets shuttled to the side for bumper-sticker talk.

I can imagine seeing a yellow sign dangling in someone’s car window stating “Child on Board and he may be a dummy if you don’t vote my way.”

One of the best education stories I’ve heard was when my daughter, Katy, was in seventh grade. A boy we knew suddenly disappeared from class about November when the first set of grades came out. His mother decided the school was doing a crummy job of teaching her prodigy. He suddenly returned to the class about March.

Katy asked him why he was back and he said, “My mom said I just kept getting stupider and stupider, so she gave up home-schooling me.”

I could have never home-schooled my kids. I would have been the one sliding down the stupider and stupider slope if I did. Families that do home school are very impressive to me.

I could teach my son to throw a circle change on a 3-2 count, or how to wheel a trifecta in the Kentucky Derby. I could tell him about how my dad watched Rocky Marciano get off the canvas in a title fight with Ezzard Charles after he cut the Rock from the base of his nose to the top of his eye. The referee gave him one more round and Rocky ended it in the eighth.

There is a reason guys like me need teachers to make our kids better than we are. Great teaching is a gift, and I saw that gift in action last Friday evening.

I was covering the Maple Valley Youth Symphony Orchestra’s summer camp concert, “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.”

Here was a group of about 130 kids from Kent, Maple Valley, Covington and the surrounding area. They looked like they ranged in age from 6 or 7 up to high school.  The camp started early in August and by Aug. 12 Music Director April Whyte and Elisa Lewis, the executive director for the orchestra, had these kids playing a full program of movie music.

This wasn’t just hitting a few notes, these kids were playing very well. Violins, violas, saxophones, trumpets, percussion – the whole deal.

A few months ago we were publishing stories about the Kent School District possibly dropping music programs due to the budget cuts.

I understand the problems with money and I know we have to teach kids how to add and subtract or they’ll be bouncing checks from here to Bulgaria. But you simply can’t add up in a ledger what a true teacher can give to students in a setting like that.

I can barely get myself pointed in the right direction for over a couple of minutes, much less direct more than 100 kids. Think of that – more than 100 … and they are all kids.

April is a music teacher for the Bethel School District, and she performs with the Olympia Symphony Orchestra – a teacher and a very talented musician.

Casey Stengel, one of the greatest baseball managers and teachers of the game, said it is a rare breed to be a great player and a great teacher. I think the artistic spirit is present whether one is playing a viola or throwing a slider at a .300 hitter.

For those few who have the ability to throw inside when the bases are loaded or bring the voice of an angel to a violin, and be able to pass that on to our kids – that is a gift for the community.

April, Elisa and the kids in the Maple Valley Youth Symphony Orchestra gave the parents, friends and fans a very special night.

And “Mr. Grouchy” me had a lot of fun, believe it or not.