If you missed Part 1 of my confessions of youthful delinquency- you can read it here, although it’s not a prerequisite to today’s installment.
Pep Band
When I was in high school, we had this thing called Pep Band. The band’s job was to perform during home basketball games. As a young trumpet player, and a fan of the game with friends on the team, I loved this idea. Plus, Pep Band was a well- established school tradition.
If you were in the school Concert Band, as most of us instrumentalists were, all you had to do to join Pep Band was sign-up. So I did. So did a bunch of others, including a certain flute player who was also my girlfriend.
One of the most beautiful (and by today’s standards- ridiculous) things about Pep Band was that it was totally and completely student run. One of the band parents would unlock the band room and supervise us from a distance, while the band president would lead us through a brief pregame rehearsal. Then it was off to the gym where the president conducted us during the in-game performances. The band president was a student like we were, elected by the band members for a one year term.
The Pep Band had front row seats in the gym for every basketball game. We performed during the entire first half as well as halftime. The third quarter of the game was our break. That was our chance to go get food, hang out with non-band friends, or just do whatever until the fourth quarter when we resumed playing.
Remember I said my girlfriend was in the Pep Band too?
That, combined with the opportunity to “do whatever” during our third quarter break, led to the two of us roaming the dark, spooky hallways of our 1938-art deco styled school, looking for “private places”. The school was big, the floor plan was quirky, and the private places seemed unlimited.
We constantly dodged the evening custodial team and the probable suspensions that would come with getting caught. We went places students weren’t supposed to go, and did things students weren’t supposed to do, at least at school. We weren’t into damaging property or anything criminal, we were just into each other.
We had no idea what was happening during the game, and usually came back late for our fourth quarter performances. Sometimes we wouldn’t come back at all. Friends knew to grab our instruments and were kind enough to pack them up for us back in the band room.
Why didn’t anybody of real authority notice that my girlfriend and I would routinely go missing?
Because as I mentioned, the Pep Band was totally student run by the band president, and they either saw nothing wrong with our behavior or didn’t care.
Judged?
Several years later, I married that girlfriend and we had a few kids. Now we’re middle-aged empty nesters, and as we drove by our old high school the other night while running errands, we laughed about the stupid (yet fun) stuff we did in those days. We both agreed the stunts we pulled back then would be much harder to achieve in today’s school world. Nowadays, a fully credentialed staff member would be have to be present; closely supervising everything in order for the Pep Band idea to even be approved by administration.
The school environment seems much more controlled now than it was when I was growing up. Same goes for most environments involving anybody younger than college-age.
And I’m not sure that’s good.
Is it safer? Yes.
Does it help prevent the type of delinquency I participated in? Yes.
Does it make for the development of better adults?
I’m not sure.
As inappropriate and irresponsible as some of my adolescent behaviors were, I had the opportunity to make my own decisions, reap my own rewards, and suffer consequences I deserved.
I’m not trying to condone my past behavior, but I am glad I had the chance to learn from a wide range of experiences; experiences that almost always took place when adult supervision was either lax or missing altogether.
These days it sometimes seems like our kids are overprotected from themselves. The best way to learn is often by screwing up or failing, and I’m not sure we’re giving our kids enough opportunity to do that without the safety restraint of ever-present parents and chaperones .
Am I saying we should we give teenagers “enough rope to hang themselves”?
No. But maybe the leash should be long enough that they can run a good bit before it chokes them back.
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