There's nothing more painful than seeing your child hurt and feeling powerless in the wake of it.Sometimes the hurt is a "necessary evil" in the lessons of life... sometimes it's not.
Last night, Emily came in from dance class and burst into tears. The new pointe shoes (which are exactly the same as her old ones except one letter different in width) we'd gotten on Ebay were apparently "all wrong." And her ballet teacher made sure to say as much in class in front of all of the other students, pointing out that we should always "buy locally" instead of online.
Now, you might think Emily is just being a bit dramatic and that it's not really such a big deal, but she has felt like an outcast in this class for the past two year or more. She already feels friendless, like she stands out, especially since she's nearly 5'6"...about 3 or 4 inches (or more) taller than most of her classmates. So being chastised in class over a pair of dance shoes was like a pile on to her.
I asked Emily if the new shoes were too big...were they making it hard to dance...was she falling out of them...were they tripping her.... And the answers were all "no." The shoes just gaped a little on the sides. Her teacher had only noticed when Emily asked her how she should break them in.
The maternal side of me hugged my daughter close to my heart and soothed her. The human (more nasty? *grin*) side of me wanted to go back to the studio and read her teacher the riot act while simultaneously kicking her little ballerina behind. But Emily had already begged Stuart not to do that while they were still at the studio.
We both felt that the teacher was out of line. She should have remained professional (a very hard thing for adults in charge of kids these days it seems) and come to us with her concerns about Emily's shoes. She should have advised us about buying shoes locally and why this is so important to her, and we could have explained to her that we needed to buy these shoes online because they were half the price of the ones that are sold locally. We could have told her that we'd researched the exact same kind Emily had been wearing and made sure to get a slightly larger size. And we could have advised her that we have three children in our home and the one involved in dance class has grown nearly 4 inches and 2 shoes sizes since October. We cannot afford to have her outgrow a pair of pointe shoes that cost nearly $60 in a space of a couple of weeks.
Stuart called the studio when he'd calmed down and asked for the manager to call us back. We haven't received a call back yet (and I'm not really holding my breath), but at least Emily knows we've got her back. We'll make sure that the teacher understands her side of the story and shows a bit more professionalism next time.
It's not about being right... It's about doing what's right.
2 comments:
So many thoughts are running through my head after having read this. I don't know where to start with. This person is a teacher, as such she is responsible for her pupils and should me more adult-like than her pupils. She should act like a role model and not like that. I guess this is some kind of private dancing school and you have to pay for the lessons. If so, how can this teacher dare to treat Emily like this when Emily is a customer (as well as a child of course). Is this school in such a comfortable position to eventually lose customers by such an awful behaviour? Or are they possibly somewhat linked to the local store and fear to lose some income? Have they not yet noticed any effects of the current economy crisis? And even without the crisis how can this teacher dare to treat your poor daughter like this? I cannot stop shaking my head and can only hope that you have been able to convince Emily how happy she can be being a very special person with shoes nobody else has in her class, thus being able to stand out from the crowd, and having a loving and caring family as yours.
All the best for you all.
Thank you so much for your thoughts, Tina!
We, too, were a bit surprised by the treatment Emily received in this class which we do indeed pay for... But such attitudes from adults/teachers towards children is becoming more normal these days. Unless a child/student needs the extra discipline for some sort of attitude or action, I'm not sure why they consider it a necessary part of the lessons.
We're hoping to have a little chat with this teacher tomorrow and urge her to come to us with any problems she may see rather than singling out Emily in class.
{{{HUGS}}} to you!!!!
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