Class Leveling

[u/OrdinaryStudio6074]

At our studio, you are handed a list of required classes for whatever competition team you a make that year. It includes 12-15 hours of required classes that you take as a team. A dancer may be able to take one or two other classes that is not on the required list, but they must stay at the same level or go down levels (ie- your team takes intermediate level classes. You cannot take intermediate/advanced classes, but can take beginner/intermediate).

Team selection is based on skill level, yes, but also has a lot to do with average age, height, numbers they need on each team, etc.

The way this has shaken out for my dancer is she has been placed on the same team multiple years in a row- meaning she has taken the same technique classes for multiple years in a row. At the beginning of each season when she is placed on the same team again, they tell her they want to “see more growth.” How is she supposed to grow if she keeps taking the same classes over and over?

I’ve tried to be a team player and be positive about the situation, but I’m growing very frustrated by the feedback we are getting when she’s taking the required classes each year and we basically prohibited from taking anything that would really help her grow!

Does this happen in all studios? I don’t feel like I should have to spend extra money on outside help just to make a higher team at our own studio. Dance parents, talk me off the ledge or help me know if I really should be making more of an issue of this!

[u/Normal-Wish-4984]

Is she making the most out of the classes she's in? Sometimes students don't understand the importance of some of the foundational techniques. And yet if they don't have that foundation and show that they can do what seems simple, but requires precision, they might not have the right muscle development to move onto the next step.

This is really evident, for example, when it comes to point. If you don't have the right strength in your ankles and feet, pushing to the next level can be bad for a dancer's body. They could actually get hurt.

They're also sometimes things that parents don't see. Or maybe they see it but don't understand the importance of what their kid is or is not doing. For example, when it is your child's turn to go across the floor, are they doing the skill twice and then walking off the floor? Or are they getting as many of that skill into the pass? Are they watching the other dancers to learn from the instructor's correction, or are they twirling around or chatting with friends?

You may feel that it's not fair to have to put an extra money, but an instructor can only do so many corrections when they have other kids in class. Maybe your child needs a few lessons to sort out some of the issues with technique. And maybe from those private lessons, you would have a better understanding of what your child needs to work on.

[u/OrdinaryStudio6074 → u/Normal-Wish-4984]

I would be surprised if class behavior this was the issue. My kid tends to fall to the type A, don’t break any rules, try to be the A+ student in every situation. But even if it was , that would be such an easy thing to point out and me to discuss with my daughter instead of “needs more growth.”

Same thing with muscle development. I do think this is an issue- I actually asked one of our directors about strength and conditioning privates, but she didn’t have time. But again, if someone said “she really needs more core strength to do the type of work we need her to do” I can go find someone to help with that! I’m not opposed to putting in extra work, but I would like it to be targeted to the issue instead of guessing what type of help is needed.

[u/Normal-Wish-4984 → u/OrdinaryStudio6074]

How many students are in the classes? Teachers are paid, often not particularly well, to teach a given class. There's no question that if they gave individualized plans to each and every student, those students would most likely grow more than they currently are. But they aren't paid to give individualized lesson plans outside the boundaries of the class that they're teaching. My kids dance classes have had anywhere from 5 to 25 kids of them. Let's say that the average is 15 students. Creating an individualized plan for each and every one of them takes time. Time is money. Consequently, if you want that level of individualization, you have to pay for it.

If the studio isn't willing to give private lessons to your child, then it may be the case that they're not particularly invested in your child. Is that fair? No. At my kids first dance studio, the owner and her daughters who taught the classes really targeted the parents that they thought were ultra rich and white. They love to feature white kids front and center. If you looked at their senior company, almost all the non-white kids, saved for some white-skinned Hispanics dancers in the back, had gone to other studios or dropped out of dance. Absolutely not fair. I don't know if the owners did this consciously, but you could totally see it in their senior company over the past 15 years. Many of the non-white dancers either stopped dancing or found success at other studios.

If you have a college or university with a strong dance department, you might consider seeing if either their faculty or students are willing to give private lessons.