They say "The apple doesn't fall very far from the tree."

Sometimes, this is very evident. I think this saying has a negative connotation. In other words, "You think the kid is nuts? You should meet his parents!" When you teach public school, you are allowed to view your community candidly. When children are awake, they spend more time at school than anywhere else. You see them for who they are and can only wonder what is going on in their head. We certainly see the negative, out of control, lazy, uncaring, mean, promiscuous, cheating, disrespectful children. But there is another side.

I want to tell you about two of my students, one a senior, one a sophomore. By themselves they delightful. These two both happen to be girls and there is a common element that ties them together with the first sentence in the blog that causes me to write about them and not others. The first one is brilliant. She has hardly made a grade of less than 100 on any work that she has ever done. Remarkably, she is only second in her class out of almost 500 students. What else does she do? She plays a few instruments: guitar (she has two Martin guitars), violin (she has and acoustic and an electric violin), autoharp, piano, and mandolin. She is singing well enough to get a full scholarship to college in vocal performance next year at a major university, IF she decides to be a music major. She is a song writer. She has put out a CD of her performing and on the CD she sings, plays violin and piano and one of the songs is her own creation. She has garnered all manner of awards and been to numerous leadership conferences, HOBY, girls state, governor's honors, etc. What "no athletics?" you say. She runs cross country and is on the schools competition cheerleading squad. She tutors little kids every morning before school. She says "I'm smart. It's my responsibility to tutor little kids." She visits the local nursing homes to cheer up and help out. She sings in the adult choir at her little church and is a soloist with the group. She isn't perfect on her instruments but she is promising on them. Now the connections. Her CD is not some slapped together childish thing. Her studio was one that turns out CD's for country music superstars. They made her CD for no cost. And her back up band? They are the back up players for country music superstars. Her uncle called them up and said "Guess who's recording in the studio? Why don't you come over and back her up? They came. When I commented on the phenomenal guitar playing I heard on the recording she said in her little girl matter of fact way, "Yeah, he's the best guitar player in the world. He was Johnny Cash's guitar player. My uncle made that guitar he's playing. He said it was worth about ten thousand dollars." These things just fall out of her mouth. She has been excited when she has performed live on the radio with other country stars, or performed with greats at the Carter Fold in Virginia, or sung the national anthem for the Atlanta Braves. "Isn't this fun, Dr. G. ?" She doesn't understand that this is not normally how a kid's life goes. In all this, she is thoroughly delightful, happy, smiling, questioning, and ready for whatever is next. The kid is driven beyond belief. She's hard to calm down. She's always surging forward to do something. I mostly see her in her music, but she is also a promising writer and has won numerous awards in math and of course she is in 4th year French. She has won state and national awards in French. What is the connection to the apple tree in the first sentence of this essay? I'll tell you this. Neither of her parents are musicians.

Did you see the recent documentary special on Public Television on the orgins of country music? It's the story of A.P. Carter, a more or less unsuccessful businessman in many ways until he began to promote country music. The Carter family, the first fruit of country music in the United States, beginning in the 20's. "Little Anne" as they call her, is the great grand daughter of A.P. Carter. What will she become? She loves me for being her teacher and that admiration is my great reward.

Well the blog is long already but I must at least mention my sophomore. Fair haired and wide eyed--an open scandanavian face with strawberry blonde hair. She came to me at the end of last year as a 9th grader wanting to audition for chorus. She introduced herself but I already knew who she was. I had seen her sawing away on her violin in middle school and we lost her out of chorus and into orchestra. She plays the violin really well, technically better than Anne and has made it into an elite group in the southeastern united states, the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra. They are phenomenal and play like pros. She is a terrific music reader. Her voice was untrained but sound and accurate. She had no sight singing method but could find notes and missed no rhythms. She was agressive, trying what I asked her to try. She was not afraid. I placed her in a middle group of girls for this year where she is leading the pack both with her singing and her sight singing. She is delightful to be around. Amusing and interesting. I don't teach her class but get to interact with her at extra practices that we have in the mornings. It is obvious that she is brilliant. She rarely misses and is one of the best readers in those reading rehearsals. I have an opening in my top choir next semester and I'm going to move her up into it, though she doesn't know it yet. Apple from the tree? Her ancestor? You have to go back several generations. I just asked about her name one day and said you aren't perchance related to . . . She looked up and said "Well yes, she was my great great great grandmother or something, but we don't know much about her or make a big deal out of it. I came home and scrambled through the boxes of books that I own, looking for that small volume that I had purchased at a little store in Wisconsin. I found the paper back book bearing the image of her ancestor and to my surprise in this 19th century photo of the writer there was the face of my student Hannah, seemingly no more distant in looks than a mother and daughter who looked very much alike.

The town was the closest one to the replica house, built on the original foundation, where that her ancestor grew up. You know the stories. The family trying to eek out a living. Charles Ingalls dragging his family across the northern plains, enduring blizzards, droughts, disease and misfortune, all chronicled by his daughter, the ancestor of my student. Laura Ingalls Wilder. The apple . . .

There are great privileges in teaching. When someone asks why you teach instead of having a real job, I have an answer. Look who I get to influence. I'm changing the world one student at a time.