Letter to a Student

In my ballet classes, I pick a new story ballet for us to learn about each session.  In the first week of class, we read the story.  In the weeks that follow, we explore the story and the characters by dancing through the scenes of the ballet.  

Things you should know:

1.  This session we're learning about Firebird.

2.  In one class, I got a little carried away when reading the story of the Firebird, which frightened one of my students.  Yesterday I received an email from her mom saying she was "so scared of the story that she doesn't want to go to ballet anymore".  They've been talking about what to do if something scares you and my student came up with the idea to write to me and ask me if I would tell the story "more gently".   

Here is my response:

Dear ______,

I'm so sorry that my storytelling was so scary a few weeks ago in ballet class.  I was so excited to share Firebird with you that I forgot the parts about the evil characters might catch you by surprise.  

I love the story of the Firebird ballet because it has magic, a prince, lots of princesses, and of course a beautiful bird.  I also love it because even though all the princesses are trapped by a man who is so mean that the prince can't rescue them, the Firebird is so magical that she CAN rescue them.  And the way she rescues them is really funny!  While the mean characters are trying to get rid of the prince, the Firebird swoops in and makes them all do a silly dance until they are so tired, they can't be mean anymore!

A lot of stories have scary parts in them.  When that happens, and I feel scared, I look for the helpers - the good people who come to the rescue. 

The scary characters in Firebird are only a small part of the whole ballet.  I promise when we get to that part, I will tell the story gently and we can talk in class about why that part and those characters might be scary to us.  We won't be learning about part of the story for a few more weeks.  This week, we are pretending to be the princesses and doing a dance where they pick apples from the apple tree and toss them in the air and to each other.  They also do a dance move called "scissor kicks" that we'll practice going forwards AND backwards.  

I hope to see you in class tomorrow.  

Miss Jen

Student Update: I received this email back from my student's mom: "You rock!  You double-rock! Nay, triple-rock. Hope to see you later today."  My student did come to class and had a great time.  When it was time for us to learn about Firebird, one of the other students remembered that she was scared when we read the story and they held hands.  I love when it works out this way.  

Hope

I have been thinking about starting a blog for quite some time and today I decided to actually start writing.  I was going to start off with something light and (hopefully) funny about my job.  But my job is often funny, and, given the events of the day, I think I’ll start with something more serious instead.  

Two things you should know:

1.  I am a dance teacher.

 2.  Today there were explosions at the finish line of the Boston marathon.

A couple months ago I went through an incredibly challenging experience in one of my classes.  The girls in this class were not getting along.  They were having major issues with friendship and exclusion, with mean words and hurtful actions.  It was catty and horrible and it made me want to scream.  Each week, I would hear students say:

“I don’t want to stand next to her.”

“That girl hurt my feelings.”

“I don’t want to hold her hand.”

“You’re not my friend.”

Oh yeah... this was a class for 3 & 4 year olds.  

At first, I tried using the line “In this class we’re all friends.”  But something about that didn’t quite sit right with me.  I don’t choose to be friends with every person I meet.  Not even if we take the same class.  Why should it be different for these little girls?  Besides, the “we’re all friends” method wasn’t working at all.  The problem was getting worse.

And we weren’t doing very much dancing.

Instead, the girls were disagreeing, crying, pointing fingers, and stubbornly refusing to get along.  

I was racking my brain for ways to solve the problem.  I sat the whole class down to talk about treating each other nicely.  I had one on one talks with the students who were saying mean things and with the students who were crying. (This changed from week to week.  The girl who refused to hold hands with someone one week would be crying that someone didn’t want to be her partner the next.)  I talked about my frustrations.  I discussed the situation with the parents of the students and asked for ideas, advice, ANYTHING that might help solve this problem.

I felt like nothing was working.

All of the kids agreed that it hurt their feelings when someone said they didn’t want to be their friend or hold hands or be partners with them.  

All of the kids agreed that it was not nice to hurt someone else’s feelings.

Yet they all continued to have moments where they were mean to others or hurt by others or not able to understand why students were being mean/getting hurt.  

This story doesn’t have a tidy ending.  This class has trouble getting along.  They are still learning.  I am still learning.  But I think I have a better idea of what the lesson is. 

It isn’t that we all need to be friends.

It isn’t that we all need to get along all the time. 

I think the lesson is this:

Our feelings are important.  But so are everyone else’s.  And no matter how we feel, it is not ok for our actions to deliberately cause harm to someone else.  

I don’t understand what happened today in Boston or why events like this seem to happen all too often.  I can only hope that I am teaching my students to be kind and compassionate and to see how their actions affect other people.  I hope that I am giving them the tools they need to solve problems without being hurtful or violent.  And I hope that no matter what challenges my students bring, I will work to find the lesson and the best ways to teach it to them.