West Cocoa Chat

In one of my favorite episodes of the T.V. series, "M.A.S.H.," Radar comes down with a crush on one of the nurses who happens to be from a classical background. As was his mode of operation, Radar goes to Hawkeye and Trapper to ask for advice. One part of the advice they give Radar is to utter the phrase, "Ah, Bach," if she were to confront him with something (which would have been all of it) from the classical world he was unfamiliar with. I still use the phrase today with close friends at church or at school when someone presents something that seems to be a bit out there or is too good to be true.

For the past few days, I've been playing classical music (Bach's "Prelude," "Sarabande" to name a few) when my students have been working. Today they are taking a test with Mr. Bach in the background. There is some educational research that states some classical music (no Greg, not Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" :) ) will put the brain in a certain wave that is condusive to learning.

At first my "Hip-Hop / Gangster Rap / Country Music" students laughed and made fun of "Mr. Walker's music." However, as each class progressed, there were less objections and almost to a student, each one was on task. Today when my students entered my room to take a test before Spring Break, they all asked for "the music."

Hey, maybe that's why some of our CofC church fights have been so ugly in the past. We should have been playing Bach when our members entered our Auditoriums. Just imagine, if one of our preachers during a sermon stated its O.K. to clap during worship, before the first you can't do that / Noah built the Ark out of Gopher wood / the strange fire of Nadab and Abihu arguments could come out, someone would stand, put their index finger on the side of their face, and in the grandest tradition of Radar O'Reilly say, "Ah, Bach!"