I suppose I had always assumed that instrument playing fell into three categories:

• Those who play an instrument
• Those who wish they could have played an instrument but were never able to have lessons
• Those who wish they could magically play an instrument but wouldn't put in the work.

I don't think I ever considered the possibility of a person who has no desire to play an instrument. I suppose they must be out there, have you met these people? Maybe we are, as a group, less likely to meet such people, but perhaps you have siblings or other family who never had the remotest notion of playing anything. I have witnessed primary school children in a room which has glockenspiels on the table and you practically have to staple them to their seats to get them to stop playing, I assumed it was innate.

She is still young yet, but I had a moment of panic (not sure that is the right word, probably bewilderment) that perhaps my daughter may be one of those people. She is surrounded by instruments and I have tried to leave it a little up to her what she would like to play and wondering what she'd pick: maybe she will be a flute person, a piano person, perhaps she will be overtaken with enthusiasm to play the trombone. But the idea that she might say no thanks to the whole lot is mind-blowing. She's keen to tinkle with the instruments and twang and bang and blow at them, but not interested in the idea of holding them the right way round. Little does she know she is probably going to get piano lessons anyway, after all, kids don't get to choose whether or not they want to learn to read, they all learn whether or not they show an interest, but I am hoping to conjure some interest before landing some poor teacher with a reluctant pupil.

Have you experienced people who really just don't care that they can't play anything? Boggles my head.

Yes, most of my friends and relatives.

I'm the analogous type of person with sport. I am not interested in doing any sort of sport, competitive or not. I like exercising to keep fit but it really is only about keeping fit. I have met people who express incredulity that I am utterly uninterested in participating in any form of sport, or watching most forms of sport. Because I am this sort of person, I can appreciate how there exist people who are completely uninterested in playing any sort of instrument (including singing). Maybe it's just not their thing.

(I like watching the Olympic gymnastics and diving but that is more about being able to appreciate the pretty patterns that can be made with a human body)

Yes, the large majority of the people I meet, especially family.

I'm with you Corenfa - I just don't care who wins! And I'm not watching any of it!

RoseRodent, maybe your daughter is too young at the moment? I should leave the idea of piano lessons for a while, or it will be a waste of money. (I've just off-loaded a pupil who was forced to learn and who really didn't want to - the parents were very determined - I nearly had to leave the country to achieve this!)

I have a twin sister who hates (literally!) all things to do with classical music or playing an instrument. She chooses to relax with a cigarette instead.

I have met a lot of people who say they envy me being able to play, but refuse to take up my offer to teach them with startled faces and "oh no...I couldn't possibly play piano!" Well, how do you know unless you try?

I think it might be a case that not all children of a musical parent want to take up music themselves. Just as not all children of politicians want to go into politics for example.

Maybe your daughter will when she's older. I won't take on any child if mum/dad/ whoever says they want child to learn. If child has absolutely no interest or they're being forced to, then it's a no go from the start.

I'm the same - I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in football. Try explaining that to people growing up in a city like Liverpool..
The only sports I have an interest in watching are cricket (and even that's less so now that it's pyjama cricket with floodlights) and skiing and that's probably because I can ski and I used to play cricket
I appreciate the skill and effort of the olympic sports but that's about it.

...moving back on topic... Ditto - very few of my colleagues at work (very few under 40, just about all graduates, apart from the illiterate types like me ). I have one senior manager who came to speak to me about his young daughter (aged 8) who is taking up the violin - she sounds keen. He's been paying GBP25 a session for GROUP tuition where she is.....wait for it.... "guaranteed 10 minutes of individual tuition per session" . I told him to have think about private lessons and explained the likely costs. His eyebrows were interesting to watch...

The concept of "don't care who wins" is an interesting one - I just had a sort-of argument last weekend about this - I said that I didn't enjoy playing any sports and thus I would never do them. The counterparty said "but don't you care who wins? Don't you want to win?"

I said no, because I find it utterly pointless. Who cares who wins? There's always someone better. (yet, contradictorily, I find myself rooting for Team GB. I can't explain this.)

But this led me to think about how I view other things, like music: I care about becoming better than myself. That's why I practise. I do not practise because I want to be better than ______ because there will always be someone be better (faster, richer, better looking, smarter, insert any adjective you like here) than me.

But but, somewhat perversely, my complete lack of interest in sports allows me to understand and even empathise with people who are utterly uninterested in classical music. Someone once asked me what the point was of learning music by dead white men to play it to myself. I said the same point as whacking a ball with a piece of wood (or a limb). Both could be seen as pointless. But if we enjoy them that's the important thing, I feel.

I can't see the point of supporting fellow countrymen/ women who we don't even know - they might be really horrible individuals and the person from Mongolia might be lovely - we just don't know, and I'd like the nicest, kindest people to win!

On the whole I think that's right. However in September I am taking on an eight year old who says she doesn't want to learn to play the piano. Her mother is a colleague so I know her well and the little girl is in my music and English classes at school. It seems that whenever a new activity is suggested the child says no and claims she won't be any good at it. There was the same attitude to dance classes but mother insisted as the child was beginning to be overweight on account of grandparents looking after her for her working mother and spoiling her with too many sweet foods. After about 6 months the child decided she liked dance after all and has not looked beck.

For piano I am arranging for her to have a half hour shared lesson with her best friend who is very keen to start.
Mother has asked me to work on motivation and confidence building. So I'm going to give it a try.

I know, that makes sense, that's why I can't explain why I feel the way I do It's totally irrational

I have high hopes that if my daughter learned from someone other than me she would be happy to learn, as she'd get to come home and show me what she did. She is a natural group learner, so I hope to be able to get her into a group lesson somewhere. It's really tricky to find a group lesson with a stranger (she is an only child) and her school friends are unlikely to be interested.

I suppose she is likely to grow up with a similar incredulity that I have no interest in dancing.


I feel some serious coming on here, but from a sport point of view I do find it all very odd. I can understand things like running. There are no real rules apart from those necessary to make it fair, it's all about a physical skill, who can run the fastest from this line to this line. Easy. Where I start to find sport weird is the contrived nature of it. My husband is a huge fan of NFL American football, and I am afraid I have been sucked into watching it otherwise I have no husband during the NFL season. There are an enormous number of rules about who is allowed to touch whom, how, where, when and under what circumstances. Hair is part of a uniform, you can't tackle someone unless you have given them a fair go at catching the ball, you can't grab a jersey while a particular player is in a particular part of the field, but once he moves you can grab an entirely different player by the shirt. Boggle.

Yet with that said I end up following gymnastics, a contrived sport of the highest order, but it's just because I used to do gymnastics when I was younger and I watch it to fly with them again.

And whether someone truly is the best at something is even more contrived. They have to qualify via a given route at a given time, so if the best in the world is hurt for 3 months during qualification they may be out anyway. It is a one off performance on one day, one 10 second period out of a day for some. Everyone has off days. It gets weirder. I assume it's the same through all sports, I haven't really followed the system, but in gymnastics in order to spread the participation about in the Olympic finals, no more than 2 gymnasts may come from the same country. Team USA is decisively dominant in the sport just now, so more than the prescribed 2 girls often qualify. Jordan Wieber came 4th in qualification and is out because she is American. The girl who qualified in 28th place is in because she has the good fortune not to be American. At least one Russian and one Brit have been put out for the same reason, coming 17th is no good if you are British, the top 24 qualify, but no more than 2 from the same country. Given that only 3 from the same country can actually contend it seems absurd not to let them all in if their performance merits it. So the girl in the 4th qualifying position, a contender, therefore, to medal if she can step it up a tiny notch, is not allowed to compete. The best against the best? No.

And then there is the money side, and the fact that in order to make qualification an athlete must come from a country with a fully functioning government - many don't have that luxury even if they could afford to train and then attend all the essential qualifying events all over the globe.

Well, RoseRodent, it's your topic so I guess if anyone can take it off-topic it's you!

It was while watching the gymnastics that I had exactly the same thought as you, that "best" is so subjective, and that sometimes the evaluation of who is best depends on things that might be random. Who knows why someone does well on a particular day? I was thinking about that with regards to performance; the best we can do is to practise a lot so that the chances of us being at the right level are higher, but it's still variable on the day. When we have to deliver, we might not, and we might not be able to say why we didn't.

Regarding group lessons - when I was little I was sent to Yamaha group classes. They were classes of perhaps 10 children and the focus was learning music rather than a specific instrument. No idea if they exist in this country or if similar things do, maybe it's worth looking for something similar? I was hooked, and most of the reason why was because we got a sticker every week (I was four, cut me some slack please )

Sorry to have gone - I know, I know! With alot of these sports, I just think well, do they really enjoy the activity (I'm sure some are enjoyable), or does the enjoyment just come from beating other people at something and feeling superior? I remember netball at school - everyone had to be in the class team - the only people who liked netball were the ones who were good at it, and the others hated it. It just seemed so totally pointless. Cross country running on the other hand was great - I still came last but it was via the fish and chip shop!

Don't despair, but equally as important, hold your nerve and don't push it. She probably just isn't ready to learn in a structured way, yet. Try and wait until you see some real interest before going for lessons, or you risk putting her off.
My eldest tried several instruments but decided that music just wasn't for him. He doesn't play an instrument, but has become very interested in folk music (a completely unexplored genre for me) and as developed a whole host of other interests that would never have occurred to me. I'm a little sad that we don't share music as a common pastime, but it isn't that big a del in the grand scheme of things...

My mum tried to use this argument on me. She said that the reason I didn't like sports was that I was no good at it and I only liked things that I was good at. I used my horn playing as precisely the thing that disproved this. I was awful at horn for the first couple of years, but I loved playing the instrument and the sound of it (erm, when played well, on the many CDs that I have) so that kept me going. If it was truly the case that I only liked things I was good at, I told her, there was no way I'd have stuck with horn until I started to sound good. I think in some cases the skill comes because of the love for it, whether that is sports or horn.

I do know some music students who used to think of music as a sport (maybe they still do, I don't know) - it was all about being better than so-and-so. I wonder if they had always loved music and just forgot that, or if they just used it as something to one-up other people.

I always thought that if child A with strong cardiovascular system trains, and child B with chronic asthma trains, they will both improve but child A will always win - it's just the way people are - so it would save everyone alot of time and effort if we measured people's cardiovascular systems at age 5 and then left it at that!

I've got a friend who had asthma and says he never had any more attacks after he started playing trombone at age 13!

(Without meaning to get into how correlation does not equal causation....)

I'm still struggling with the whole netball thing, and why anyone would find that worthy of inclusion on a school curriculum. No doubt "team building" would be trotted out as a reason, but competitive sports just exclude a load of people - there's no team about it! School is supposed to benefit everyone. Instead, they could have focussed on personal fitness and personal goals, healthy eating and so on.

I've no interest in playing an instrument It's not really because I hate the thought I realise I don't have time to do it justice. I messed about on a relatives piano a bit as a child, and as a teen fancied learning guitar.

Looking back I think what put me off was being sent hom,e from Primary school with a recorder that I was expected to play. I couldn't do it but then a 2 minuite instruction from someone who probably couldn't play recorder either wasn't exactly the best start. I was about 7 at the time and just assumed I'd be useless at all instruments.

As an adult I realise I dont' have the time to make the enormous committment needed and I've never really felt cheated that I can't play anything.

When they were young I gave the girls lots of opportunity to try different things including dance and gymnastics. It was someone else that got them hooked on music

I have one brother who never wanted to play anything - actually the eldest so initially he wasn't put off by thinking he would be outshone by the younger ones. Might have been part of it later I guess.

My daughter said no to piano, violin, cello, flute etc. She then fancied a harp. I thought it was pie in the sky gold angel attraction as she had seen on at the Nutcracker. She was 4. I said that she was a bit young for that so why not play piano first and when she could read the music she could add harp. She said no. She played nothing but was exposed to a lot of music - recorded and live. She was clearly very musical - recognised anything after one hearing by name and composer. Then at 6 she started teaching herself piano from my old books. I helped when asked and she agreed to get a teacher. She was good. Then at 8 she brought up harp again and I agreed. She still plays both.

In retrospect I should probably have let her play the harp when she asked originally. But the harp was very hard for her when she did start - very technical, already good at piano so expecting to play good stuff quickly, suzuki ethos when not used to it (only teacher in city was suzuki) etc. It took 6 months to really take off and for me to see that she would continue.

If she likes groups I would visit some suzuki ensembles and anything else you can find and see if peer pressure is what gets her interest! I wouldnt force it unless you are sure you can negotiate the I dont want to do this everyday whining. You get a bit of whining even when they asked to do it but in that case my stock answer is that if I provide the lessons, instruments and driving power then the deal is that they practise.

That would be true only if the asthma were the only difference between them, which is never going to be the case

That is a terrible idea. In sport it is not always those with the most natural advantages at a young age that eventually excel.

The classical music world gives the best training and opportunities to those that show ability at a young age, or learn the basics of an instrument quickly. I suspect this means that many potential late developers never find out just how good they could be, as they are discouraged from even trying.

Am I the only one who is going to admit to liking the feeling of superiority?

That is a terrible idea. In sport it is not always those with the most natural advantages at a young age that eventually excel.

I'm not seriously suggesting that we do this. My point is that forcing children to do competitive sports in school is just going to create a load of winners and losers - and it is supposed to benefit eveyone. And no matter how hard everyone trains, there are always going to be (alot of) losers. I've spoken to so many adults who hated their school P.E. lessons - enough to put them off for life and miss out on the health benefits of regular exercise. The lessons should have been approached in a different way - team sports for those who wanted them, and something else (involving personal goals) for those who didn't.

As it happens the research on this shows that you are far more likely to excel in sports if you happen to have certain natural advantages. It doesn't follow that only those with the natural advantages are worth training and that only those with natural advantages succeed, but it does make a huge difference. For example, the "age bump" - wherever the age cut-off in a sport lies there is a concentration of athletes around that cut-off. For example, if the age cut-off between age 8 football and age 9 football is 31st December then an extremely disproportionate number of adult premiership footballers will have December birthdays, simply because it's more likely that an 8 years 11 months player will have superior skills to an 8 year 1 week player born in January. (I think I got the months right, but even if I messed it up you see what I mean). Gymnastics the other way around - a child who turns 15 in an Olympic year is not likely to be considered for elite because she will be 15 (too young) then 19 then 23 (often considered too old). One who happens to turn 16 in an Olympic year will be able to compete at least twice. A child born to a former star athlete is 800 times more likely than a random child to play in the same elite sport, partly because the parent knows what it takes and delivers that from an early age, but also because the name holds sway. Tall athletes are picked for basketball, those with big shoulders are more likely to be chosen as swimmers. It's a rare athlete who breaks the mould of the sport and they are all the more remarkable for it. Svetlana Khorkina was turned away from loads of gymnastics programs because they said she was too tall and could therefore never be any good, go and do rhythmic or ballet. She refused to be told and won a truckload of medals, but tha natural advantage goes to the short gymnast, especially in Romania where they like them about 4 foot 9.

My daughter has the advantage over me in ballet for sure: I was a short, round, ugly little thing with broad shoulders and a pigeon chest and my ballet skirt did not sit correctly because I had a deformity on my abdomen. I then developed early so I needed a bra already when I was 9. I was always put at the back of the class and broadly ignored. I learned nothing. My daughter is long and slim, elegant and pretty. A ballet recruiter would always pick her even if we arrived and auditioned at the same level.



Indeed, in my local area and many others they still pick people for instrumental tuition based on administering an aural test. This may help pick out the children who already have the right foundations, but it's galling to think they are rewarding the children who happen to have had the right exposure already. I believe almost anyone can be taught. I had a school friend with a burning desire to be in the local premier youth choir, and was not to be put off by the fact she would have come second in a singing competition behind Carmen Silvera. I worked with her every day for about a year to train her ear to be able to sing the note that had been played. If she can be taught there is good hope for most of the others turned down because they haven't had the right exposure to help them along the way. The kids who have had the right exposure are more likely to pass tests of rhythm and pitch. It's awful that they do not at least teach the kids then test them all at the end of it to see who has worked and retained the information. But music is assumed to be innate, a talent you either have or do not, so testing for that talent seems to make sense.

On the sport thing; it is a fact that some people are much more competitive than others. Winning a race or match is not about feeling superior to anyone (in my book anyway), but about achievement and self betterment. This is no different to entering a music competition!

However, different sports appeal to different people for reasons unknown. I have never enjoyed running for the sake of it; in fact I felt it was a complete waste of time. But I could run faster than a lot of runners when I had a hockey stick or rugby ball in my hands. Yet football has never really interested me at all.

I enjoyed cycle racing, and later took up motorcycle racing, which has to be about best legal adrenalin rush going; although I think I enjoyed the technical challenges almost as much as the racing.

Regarding the playing of musical instruments; I am not at all surprised by the number of people who cannot or will not play and instrument, and who have no interest in playing one. We live in an age where everything is available on demand. We can download almost any music track ever recorded in seconds, so why spend years learning to play an instrument?

Musical instruments also cost money, and take time to learn to play; yet few people will ever see them. Sadly, many people nowadays are more interested in conspicuous wealth; in other words, spending their money on things that other people can see and envy them for. Think of it this way: five thousand pounds spent on a new piano and some lessons could put a BMW on the drive instead of an Astra or Focus. Just five hundred pounds could buy a new iPhone, and everybody will see that.

This is not the way that I think, but believe me, many do. Which is precisely why big companies spend so much on marketing their products, and why we have ended up in the mess we have now, caused by people spending money they didn't have trying to live a dream that only exists on our television screens and in the back pages of glossy magazines.

However, what does surprise me is the number of people who have no interest in music whatsoever, and are completely unmoved by it. Maybe it was the way they were brought up, or maybe it is the way their ears work (or don't work), but I find it difficult to understand how so many people are happy to live in a world without music when it means to much to me.

Maybe it is the same with sport?

SB

I would have thought the vast majority of people have no interest in learning to play an instrument.

I think this is likely to be successful. My daughter now admits that the main reason she wanted to play the violin was because her best friend could play, and she wanted to be able to join in with her. Children are programmed to learn with and from others, so as long as your pupils don't differ markedly in ability they should encourage one another.


Very few people are able to live in a world without music. Almost all of us spend hours and hours every week with music in the background - even if we don't buy CDs, it's not possible to listen to radio or TV, watch a film or play computer games without encountering music - and none of us can go shopping without being bombarded by it. That some find this is enough to satisfy them doesn't surprise me. However, it's obvious from the enormous interest in popular music, school discos, etc that the great majority of our young people find they need more. It's just that they may not like classical stuff.

It's obvious why not everyone wants to learn to play an instrument. There are so many activities which one can do, that everyone prioritises. I would far rather play the piano than use a sewing machine; my sister-in-law is great at making clothes but says that after having piano lessons for two years as a child she has never had any desire to take it up again.

I suspect it may be difficult to differentiate between the third of the categories listed and the "don't care" category. Unless one actively dislikes all forms of music (which is pretty rare), I would be willing to bet that most people would like the idea of being able to play an instrument (and therefore play the kind of music that they like listening to), but only if that result could be achieved without any effort on their part. So if you could wave a magic wand and turn said person into a virtuoso guitarist (say), s/he is not going to ask you not to do so... but s/he doesn't want it enough to work for it.

On that basis, most of the people I know are in the "don't care" category.

I didn't like playing musical instruments when I was a child and gave up. When I had my own children I thought that I would foist learning musical instruments on them, but if they asked to do it, I wouldn't stop them. They both did ask, and my oldest son enjoyed it so much that I took up piano again, too. I now wish I had encouraged him to take up music earlier, but I thought he would be the same as me and see music as a chore. I don't like sport either, but my youngest son was very keen and played in local and national league teams. One'x children can lead you in very unexpected directions.

A general reply on the 'why dont people play' question.

There is a much wider issue here. Music is not unique in this. There is a general malaise with modern society in which hobbies and activities in general now feature very low on most people's lists of priorities.

In earlier times (certainly pre-television) I think it was more common for people to pick up interests and hobbies and pursue them seriously. In part this was a consequence of the general movement to "self-improvement" from the Enlightenment and Victorian eras.

Sadly, this general aspiration to "self-improvement" seems to have waned over the last few decades. I have seen big changes over the last 35 years or so. I used to be involved at national level with administration of an amateur hobby activity. Whenever I spoke to people at local level, they all told the same story: the loss of members of working age and the loss of youngsters. I have spoken to people in different areas of activity (e.g. camera clubs, scouts, local history, geology etc) they all tell the same story: no/few youngsters, no/few working age members.

I think there are various factors in this:

• Some of this is that people have greater choice now and so people are more thinly spread
• Modern working life is anti-social.
• People used to live and work in the same town
• People's working hours were regular e.g. 9 - 5
• People now have long commutes (mine is an hour each way - 68 mile round trip on cross-country rural A roads)
• People work long hours
• Society places little or no value on hobby/self-improvement type activities - hence the severe loss of funding for liberal arts activities over the last 20 years

Anyway, some food for thought!

Many of my working age friends are so exhausted when they get home that they just slump in front of the TV, or go to bed. Local home spun fun is being replaced by mass media things (X Factor type shows and so on), resulting in a loss of authentic local culture. The evening class scene has really suffered - in the 70s you could go along and do an O Level in many different subjects, including languages such as Greek or Welsh. Now, the only GCSEs on offer in the colleges near me are Maths, English and Psychology.

This is Britain you are describing, and maybe the USA too. It is not like that in much of mainland Europe,

I'm a late starter at learning an instrument, because it simply never occurred to me to learn an instrument when I was younger. I hadn't learnt an instrument at school and nobody I knew played an instrument, so it wasn't something I even thought about. It wasn't as if anybody suggested it and I wasn't interested - it just never crossed my mind.

When I did finally take up learning an instrument, I drifted into it rather than had a burning desire. Once I started though, I was completely hooked, and have been hooked ever since. I wouldn't be surprised though if most people are like I was - it just never crosses their mind to learn an instrument and they get their buzz from other activities.

Welcome back Polkadot! I hadn't realised you were on here again

The desire to learn an instrument depends on a lot of factors coming together at the right time. Until I was 7, I don't remember being interested in music at all, though I liked to sing (I wasn't particularly good at it). We had compulsory music classes in school from age 5 to 13 which involved a bit of singing, listining, singing back rhythms, solfege, and note reading (at an elementary level). I would imagine meant that I was exposed to music a lot more than some people might be, but even then, I wasn't particularly intrigued. Then one day the teacher invited those students who were learning an instrument to perform for the class, and one of my classmates performed the 1st movement of the Clementi sonatina op. 36 no. 3. It seems so silly, but somehow that single performance left me transfixed and obsessed with playing the piano. It's not like I hadn't heard the piano before, but somehow it didn't grab me until then. If not for that performance, it's possible I never would have become interested in music... such a strange idea

Glad you're keeping up your music.

I think it's perfectly normal to not have an interest in learning an instrument, after all, for many people, there are many more enticing hobbies to do than play an instrument.

I also would prefer my kids to have interests that differed from mine as that would broaden my horizons too.

I agree wholeheartedly, as a non-sporty mother of a non-sporty daughter (with asthma) who, I think it's safe to say was victimised at school because she couldn't jump as high as others, or run to keep up with the pack. Not only victimised by pupils in her class, but by the PE teacher too. Fortunately, in senior school she managed to achieve a sports leader award and discovered that she can play rounders really well.

I think that many people are convinced that they are not musical by others around them. I know many adults who have been told in the past that they cannot sing/play etc. This may have been due to family circumstances (not enough money/no opportunity/a "class" thing), or by some careless word from an adult - whether it's a parent, or teacher. And therefore they do not want to go and make an exhibition of themselves trying to play something.

But whether we like it or not, there will always be winners and losers. That is an inescapable fact of life, and I do not believe we should pretend otherwise to school children or anyone else.

Children who excel at sport may be weak in other subjects, so should we suppress their natural abilities to level the playing field for those who are better at Maths, English, Music, Languages or nothing at all?

However, I strongly believe those who excel in any subject (not just sports) should be encouraged, and not told to sit at the back of class readings whilst those without the interest or motivation to learn catch up.

SB

Sorry to hear about your daughter's experience Susie. My 2 female PE teachers (in the 1980s) saw themselves as pack leaders - and regulary humiliated the less able - completely inappropriate and so immature. Even the kids who were good at sport didn't like them. I think teacher trainers and schools need to be alot more careful in vetting the attitudes of the people they allow in (in all subjects), otherwise they can make children's lives a misery.

I'm afraid there is a common perception that one is either 'musical' or 'not musical' - that music is a God-given gift one either has or doesn't have. A few years ago I went to talk to about 160 parents at a small private primary which was taking on Kodaly work.. I asked them how many thought that they were musical and only abut half put their hands up. I asked those who hadn't put their hands up why they thought they weren't musical. Their answers were all the same - 'I can't sing' or 'I don't play an instrument.'. I said, 'You do realise that neither of those things mean that you're not musical? It just means that you haven't been taught how.'

I was faced with a room full of blank and puzzled faces - this was clearly a new concept to them...

Yes- I think it is so valuable to learn that "losing" is OK. I am and always have always been the loser in anything sporting; I don't care, because my self-esteem is not tied up with winning or losing. I put "win" and "lose" in italics because they are often contrived measures. I didn't always feel this way - I've been made to feel inadequate because of my lack of sporting ability (by family members rather than teachers), but I'm over it now. I could easily see it being the opposite way in other families - maybe for whom music is the preferred skill there.

Nobody should be victimised for their lack of skill at anything, be it music or sports.

That said, I think all school children should be made to try some sports. Even though I did abysmally at all of them, I think it was still important for me to try. The key thing was that I wasn't made fun of for not doing well. Not by my PE teachers anyway...

I think that schools should be aiming to encourage each child to realise thier potential in their own way. Sadly, there are youngsters who are attractive, popular and good at everything, and those who struggle with everything - a competitive system has little to offer these children. Situations (streaming, competitive sports, exams etc etc) are set up which are going to highlight comparisons, but in my school at least, nothing was ever said to the kids in the bottom sets to help them cope with the feelings of "failure" which they surely had. By age 11, they would already have been acutely aware that they were "losing" - do they really need another 5 years of reinforcement? I think they should be valued for who they are first, and what they achieve second - it's a cruel world but there's not point in making it any worse!

I have made that point to colleagues at work more than once who say "I can't sing"

I would certainly have been one of the parents who thought they weren't musical. Supporting daughter has taught me it is possible to be musical without learning an instrument or being able to sing. I can often hear when things are out of tune even if I couldn't say whether they were sharp or flat amungst other things. I can totally see what you are saying Cyrilla.

Well said.

Interesting.

When I taught in schools i met very few children that were good at sports but struggled academically, but they were the exceptions.

Usually the children that excelled academically were also the best footballers, hockey players, runners, cricketers, swimmers, etc.

In my school the kids who excelled academically were all in the PE group that weren't allowed real javelins or discuses (we had oversized Nerf darts and rubber circle things) or anywhere near the hurdles. The head of PE made it quite clear that she despised those who were not performing at competition level, or even those who could be but decided not to for whatever reason, including a couple who basically chose music over sport.

I'm definitely in favour of competition, but it is possible to be competitive without going out of your way to make those who are at the bottom feel like dirt. If anything my personal experience is that to excel at anything which isn't sport is not socially acceptable, you were more likely to be mocked by other kids for being at the top of the class than the bottom. Is this widespread or was I just unlucky?