Lloyd Sherman

Dr. Lloyd Sherman

When I first went to Clement Middle School I was in band. Everybody told me that Dr. Sherman "is so mean" and "you better watch out." I was scared entering into that class on the first day of band.

Dr. Sherman looked and seemed nice enough but I still wasn't sure. He asked us to play the song he had just given us. We all played really badly. Dr. Sherman became hard and stern and made us work a lot. He taught self-discipline and was shaping us into a very good band. Some people in the band thought that Dr. Sherman was too hard and they complained, but Dr. Sherman kept his teaching style.

As Dr. Sherman taught, all the students' grades started to go up. Our musical skills went up too. Again, some band members complained and got removed from the band, which upset some people.

After a full semester of working really hard, our middle school band turned into the best band in Southern California. We got invited to band competitions all over America and were even better than some of the high school bands. In fact, at one of the national competitions we were graded on a high school level by accident and came in Silver (which is 2nd)!

My self-confidence grew as I played in that band. Now that I am in the high school band, I am so glad that I listened and stuck to Dr. Sherman's lessons. I got to play a solo in our first concert and was better than any of the other bass clarinets that were there.

I just moved to Colorado from California a couple of weeks ago and things are different here, but because of Dr. Sherman I am keeping up with everyone. Thanks, Dr. Sherman you have been a big hero and inspiration to me!