Editor,
I address this to the community and parents of Decatur Northside Elementary students.
As a grandparent, I have attended the last two musical presentations at Northside Elementary. First and foremost, I want to commend the students and the music teacher at the school for all of the work and dedication and effort they have put into these programs. You can tell that the music instructor really does enjoy working with these children and that they in return do respond to her effort.
But, unfortunately, even the parents and community who show up to see these presentations do not get to enjoy and appreciate them. I have never personally witnessed such rude and unappreciative and disrespectful parents. When each group is trying its best to show the community what they have accomplished, you cannot hear anything because of all of the "social hour" conversations going on throughout the room and children running and playing uncontrolled. To be able to watch and hear what is going on with these children, you have to get up and stand in front of most of the crowd and then block the view of the ones that are trying to remain seated and enjoy their kids or grandkids. At the recent international performance, one of the teachers even went to the microphone and asked the crowd to please remain quiet during the performance but, again, to no avail.
I personally would never attend another function at Northside Elementary if it were not for the fact of maybe looking like I do not want to support my grandchildren. I will continue to go, but I know I am not going to enjoy the evening and will usually end up leaving as soon as my group has completed its performance. I hope this is not showing disrespect to all of the other kids and parents; but if anybody says that they do enjoy the evening, that has to be completely false.
Parents, please show the children the respect they and this instructor deserve. You might be surprised at what you are missing. If things like this do not change, you may be losing out all the way around.
Maybe, and just maybe, if we show the children the respect they deserve when they have worked hard on something, we might be teaching the kids how to respect others throughout the rest of their life. Just remember that you reap what you sow!
Once again, my applause for the hard work of the music instructor and the students. You get an "A." But for a lot of the crowd in attendance, you get the "F."
Robert Smith
Gravette
Editorial on 05/18/2016