After reading the article about the changes to be made to the Mars Area School District's curriculum in the upcoming years ("Mars Area adds band, classes," Dec. 9), I believe that such changes will prove to be nothing short of beneficial.
Until my sophomore year of high school, I was a part of the wind ensemble at North Allegheny School District. I never was interested in joining the marching band, and so I was relieved that I did not have to commit to be in the band to be a part of the school's music classes. I have a feeling that probably a significant number of students at Mars Area feel the same way. A lot of kids are busy with extracurricular activities after school or they hold jobs on Friday nights, when the marching bands perform. By allowing kids who don't have the time or interest in playing in the marching band to delve into the world of music at school, I think Mars Area educators will be surprised at just how many more musically inclined students they will discover at their school.
About the potential changes to the language department: I wish when I was in fifth and sixth grade, I could have begun taking a foreign language at school. Younger children are more impressionable to new concepts. Imagine how much more fluent students would be by the time they graduated if they began learning other languages at a younger age. I always wished that my school district offered Mandarin Chinese, Russian or Italian. I hope such changes to the language department will be implemented into Mars Area's curriculum as well as into curriculums in other districts.
KRISTINA KREBS
McCandless
First Published: December 23, 2007, 5:00 a.m.