Recently I was looking over some old journal entries, and I found this one about presenting a music student testing program I developed with Bob Athayde and others to the Stanley Middle School PTA in 2005.

I replaced the names of students with initials.

2/15/2005, 1:59 PM

Today I demonstrated the DBSchools music testing application to members of the Stanley PTA executive board. It was great fun. [PE] and [CT] were actor/musicians playing characters who were being tested. First [PE] played a tuba player who forgot his tuba. I showed how we make a record of kids who aren’t prepared. Then [CT] played a trumpet player, and I had the PTA ladies write on a piece of paper several flub-ups they wanted her to demonstrate. She did that well, and I stopped her and checked most of the check boxes. I asked Mr. [Boardman] Moore, “Did you think of any others?” “Get out of here!,” he said to her, jokingly. Laughter. Then she played it again, not making the PTA’s mistakes, and did very well. Then [PE] came as a flute player, and played a piece very well. I said, “Let’s thank our actors,” and they got a nice hand, and left for class. It was clear [PE] and [CT] enjoyed themselves. Ditto for the PTA. Later I got some nice emails from Jill and Cheryl of the PTA, and from Fred Brill.