Amazing...seriously...

I am amazed at what my students are able to accomplish that is often quite far outside the realm of anything that we're teaching them.

Today's example begins with a couple of my students pointing out that their band had a little side project (Salute Your Schwartz Studio - check PureVolume.com if you're interested, but be warned, the first track is way foul in the language milieu). Apparently, the three gents have put together a recording studio in one of their basements. They've bought a nice mixing board (check the picture), mixing program, soundproofing, and a bunch of recording equipment. Neat enough so far, good kids record music in basement, right?

Well, there's a little more to that. Turns out that they've got a benefactor fronting the money, they've got a plan to pay the investment back, and they're using the new digs to start their own recording business - cutting tracks for other PHS bands, recording mom's boss, and being engineers so little girls can send trumpet recordings to Grandma. It's apparently a serious business, the kind of thing that sends them on to music production careers (their current futures). I, for one, am amazed and impressed. I know that when I was in high school, I didn't have nearly that kind of drive and creativity and initiative. Phenomenal...

Kind of makes me think of another couple of my students (and former students) who have a DJ business. He'd bought a bunch of DJ equipment when he was in high school (and has done a bunch of favors for our Pasta for Pennies campaign - feel free to donate online) and has built up that start into a decently successful business now that he's in college.

Seriously, the students that I teach amaze me. They do it consistently within the confines of my classroom, but it's what they do outside the walls that throws me for such a loop. They are incredible.

If anybody ever tells you that the current generation is a bunch of wastes, tell 'em to stuff it. Send 'em my way, and I'll tell a vastly different tale.