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I dunno what kids do these days - probably nowt but Facebook & computer games, but what do I know? I've never played a computer game in my life (apart from playing chess against computer programs, and precisely one Space Invader game - anyone old enough to remember those? -, which bored me stiff), and I wouldn't touch Facebook with a barge pole

When I was a kid, luckily, there were no computers. You did sports (i.e. you're the 'sporty type') or you did academic stuff, or 'arty-farty' stuff (as they were colloquially known - is that term banned in PW?). I soon discovered that I was no good at anything sporty. All the girls beat me in the 100m sprint. But I loved music (which I learnt from my teachers) and chess (which I self-taught from books like Bobby Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games). No talent, but I did get through all my ABRSM exams, could sight-sing, and even became county junior chess champion (winning with a perfect 8/8 score in the Swiss-system tournament ).

Kids multitasked in those days - but only in activities they enjoyed and wanted to participate in........

I would have loved to have been put in soccer lessons as a kid! I think they are valuable. You learn to work on a team, you learn to work hard and coordinate with others, you learn to win and to lose, you learn to exercise even when you don't feel like it, you breathe in outdoor air and sunshine, you become skilled at a sport, which could translate over to other sports, you learn to strategize, you learn to be healthy and take care of your body, you learn how to avoid injury and how to not trip over your own feet (i'm a clutz, so ya). You could also say there's an academic component, if you wanted to learn the history of soccer too. There's a world in everything, if you want there to be. Even something not so great like waiting for a bus. My parents left me at school for at least 45 minutes before they picked me up, because of their work schedule. I chatted with my friends, I learned to wait. Patiently. I learned to entertain myself. I think everyone has personal reasons for doing things. It all depends on your personal philosophy.

De gustibus et coloribus non disputandum est. You can't argue about tastes and colors. The Romans knew it 2.5 millennia ago, and yet, here we are.

In case it wasn't obvious: I learned Latin in school. For six years, no less. Today, all I remember of it can be distilled into a few catch phrases (like the one above). Can't say I ever spoke the language: we were taught to translate from Latin to my native Dutch, but never the other way around. Today, I have no use for it. I learned Latin because 'all the smart kids did'. It was sold to me (and to my parents) as a great way to instill study habits, and to prepare for the study of modern foreign languages. In my case, it did neither.

I speak and write three languages fluently (Dutch, French and English), and have forgotten most of what I ever knew of two others that I almost never use (German, Spanish). My knowledge (or lack thereof) of Latin has little to do with any of that. I would say I built fluency in English mostly thanks to the text-based online role playing games and subtitled American movies I was exposed to as a teenager. Whatever knowledge I picked up in my youth remains in development, because I use it (and it is of use to me) every single day. I can't say the same for Latin. And yet, learning Latin (along with math), is seen by many in my country as a 'conditio sine qua non' for smart kids who want to go places. Personally, I think it's mostly a historical artifact, left over from a time before public school. Access to (written) knowledge was then mostly provided and safeguarded by clerics, who wrote and communicated in Latin so that the unwashed masses could be kept out of the conversation. Admittedly, it was at one time also an answer to the multitude of language barriers that divide Europe. Either way, if you wanted to have access to academic knowledge in the Middle Ages, you had to learn Latin. That's no longer true today, yet it retains some of its value as a status indicator: he whose kids are learning Latin, must have smart kids and therefore be a smart man.

My point is this: the thing that most adults considered, in my youth, to be the pinnacle of academic achievement, isn't of much use to me today. Some of the things I did that were frowned upon (playing text-based RPG's, watching silly American movies) taught me skills I still use every day.

By the way, playing soccer may not be much of a career path on your side of the Atlantic, but for some, it is on mine. Playing basketball isn't much of a career path over here, but our very best basketball players end up in the States when they bump into the limits of the possible here. I imagine a select few of those soccer kids you speak of could do the same in reverse. And you're right: most of them won't turn soccer into a career. But then again, how many of your students have done that with piano?

As for waiting for the bus: that strikes me as an excellent opportunity for the reflection that you think over-extended kids are missing out on. Also, as hello my name is says, it can teach them patience, which in my experience is an important life skill. Plus, I really doubt that the world would be a better place if all those people waiting for buses were instead driving around (or being driven around) in private carbon-emitting vehicles. So no, it's not ideal to have to wait 45 minutes for a bus. I agree with you there. But whether it is objectively better to do something else, depends entirely on which alternative you pick, and the criteria by which you choose to judge it.

It's totally meaningless to try to compare the value of different activities... A great situation imo is when a kid finds something that suits him, gets proper coaching and becomes really good at it. It may even become a career (people can make money in very peculiar ways these days), but if not, while the skills may not be transferable, the learning skills and mindset often is. Which is why a successful athlete can have a very successful career in something else even if starting late.

But it's also great when one is able and driven to try different things and widen one's horizons as a kid. Maybe less "depth" is acquired, but one develops other skills.

We really do need both types of people, those who get very good in one chosen field and those who sort of can jump into anything and get a quick overview. The second type often make good managers while the first type actually gets the job done.

But what's most important is that the kids don't burn out in the process and end up with mental problems when they are 20... Or the parents burn out trying to get everything done. All that is required is some common sense, which is unfortunately not always that common

Ah - I see. I totally misunderstood your question. I thought you were concerned about a phenomenon that many teachers complain about, namely kids who are enrolled in way too many things by their parents: they're constantly exhausted and can't study anything properly (incl. piano) because of all these activities. So this is not your concern. Gotcha.

I would not have a value judgment on any individual activity. I'd hope that the child wants to be doing the activity, and that whoever is teaching it knows what they are doing. Also (again) that there aren't so many activities as to be overwhelming. Maybe how it's done and why it's done plays a role. There's a difference between the child who genuinely wants to immerse himself in something, and the parent who forces things on the child "for the sake of their future" because of what they have read somewhere. I don't like the idea, for example, of piano lessons because it will make kids good at math or look good on a college application. I like the idea of piano lessons for learning to play the piano and a love of music. The attitude will also govern the behaviour of the parent.

This post nails it, IMO. General value judgments on certain (categories of) activities are meaningless. Everyone's criteria for judging value will be different. What 'most people' tend to think of certain activities, is largely irrelevant to any individual who really wants to do that activity. We may care about the value judgements of significant others in our lives, but pretty much nobody cares about the value judgements made by a stranger on the internet; as well they shouldn't.

To me, the only truly relevant question is how valuable an activity is to the person doing it, and why. Exceptions can and should be made for some specific skills without which it would be impossible to lead a normal life in today's world (such as for instance the ability to communicate in written form). Those, or at least the attempt to learn them, can be mandatory. Things that clearly harm others can and should be outlawed. The rest is, IMO, to each his own.

But it is precisely those selling points that are keeping me--and oodles of private piano teachers--financially afloat. You might philosophically disagree with it, but it certainly makes economic sense.

And I would pick a driven student over a loafer. That's just my personal preference.

I agree with you and the ancient Latins about tastes and colors (and activities). I'm not sure you are quite fair to your own Latin education, though. One of the key things Latin teaches you is about the structure of language. You are fluent in three languages and have learned enough of three others to have stuff you've forgotten because of disuse. I'll bet the orientation you got from the Latin has been working behind the scenes.

You probably can't even imagine the ignorance of language structures that is possible for speakers of just one language (maybe partly because you're European as well as Latin-educated). Here in the US, I teach college students all the time who can't keep their verbs and prepositions straight, let alone grasp more complex language concepts that undoubtedly are second nature to you.

I did not get early Latin education, but had to cram some in for a grad school exam. I've forgotten almost all of it, but I can still see how it helps me--maybe because I learned it late enough that I'm aware of the difference. (This even though I had French and German.)

Actually, more and more American students are fluently bilingual. However, their grammar continues to be horrific. I was teaching high school in the wake of the Content Standards movement here in California, and I can tell you that my students can't write a compound-complex sentence without multiple errors.

Actually I was thinking practically rather than philosophically. What I have heard is that the parent who is choosing this for reasons other than music may also not be supportive in the daily practice area, not bother trying to understand what you want as a teacher, and suddenly bizarrely pull the child out for reasons that have nothing to do with progress. Because the goals were incongruous in the first place. Maybe I'm wrong?

I think that's rather common in those who don't have the teaching language as their primary language. I teach primarily high school students who speak Arabic at home, French in public life (and to each other whenever the teacher lets them), and Dutch exclusively inside the classroom. Like me, they speak three languages, but unlike me, they speak none of them fluently. Not even their native language, because there's so much interference from the ones they learned afterwards.

I think all kids need to be taught the rules (spelling, grammar) of their native language, and learn to apply them well, before they can successfully be taught to read and write in a non-native language. Those who first learn to read and write in a language that is largely foreign to them, may end up never fully mastering any language.

My kids attend private school and projects are the bane of my existence. There is no way that these kids are doing these projects by themselves but they sure look good during Open Houses .

That reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/NuMC73jdygI

My daughter was recently accepted to a nationally ranked math HS program. When speaking with one of the students in the program, we had asked about orchestra opportunities. Before the student answered the question, the first thing she told my daughter was that ALL kids in the program play a musical instrument.

Even in formal scholarly written language it is now okay for plural pronouns (they, themselves) to refer to singular nouns. I guess the syntax will sort itself out, but it sets me on edge. Perhaps I should try to be modern and say, "the syntax will sort themselves out..."

Grammar rules do change over time...you know you're old when you correct someone's use of language and are told that what used to be a huge error is now accepted

And by the way, I don't think after-school activities necessarily have to lead to a career. But if something like soccer takes up many, many hours through the week, it makes sense to consider whether it could lead to anything.

pianoMom2006: I don't see many direct parallels between music and math. There is the division of the beat into halves, quarters, sixteenths, and thirty-seconds. It may be that kids interested in music end up taking special math programs because they or their parents happen to be more accomplishment-oriented.

I recently read a job search ad in which a young woman stated she wanted a job in accounting. She made over 14 punctuation, spelling, and grammatical errors in this one ad. I'm sure her accounting would have been horrendous.

How many hours a week do you expect your students, at a minimum, to invest in piano? Based on what other teachers have written here, I would guess it's probably at least four: a one hour lesson, and thirty minutes of practice six days a week. Would you say that's fair?

Now, do you know many soccer kids who train for more than four hours a week? (I'm not counting matches, because those are like piano recitals. You wouldn't count them as practice).

Most soccer players will never play professionally. Most piano students don't become professional musicians. They both invest a sizeable chunk of time in their respective interests. One is not inherently more valuable than the other. It just depends on the child's preferences and priorities.

I am sure that there are soccer coaches out there who are currently wondering: 'why do those kids invest so much time in playing a musical instrument? Soccer builds agility, team work, and learning good sportsmanship. Piano is essentially a solitary activity that doesn't develop leadership and group-interactive skills'.

I am saying this from the prospective of a dyed-in-the-wool piano student that never played a group sport. We all judge usefulness based on our backgrounds and perspective; comparison of which is better is meaningless.

Candywoman..I realize that correlation does not imply causation but I definitely felt better hearing that all kids in the math program play an instrument.

One of my biggest fears as a piano mom has been that because my son spends so much time playing piano that he's losing out on other academic enrichment activities. I'm extremely carefully about the number of activities that I allow my kids to participate in which makes us seem very different from our friends. Most families I know are constantly shuffling their children from activity to activity all of the time.