Real-Life Decision Making
You are a dance teacher in a studio, which offers ballet, jazz and tap
to young students. Many of your studio's students come back year after year
and make close friendships with others in their class. Students often enter
your school when they are four or five years old, so they change a lot as
they grow up.
You're teaching a group of seven-year-olds. You have been teaching this
group of students for the past three years. They are all quite well behaved
and get along well with each other. However, one of the students has not grown
as quickly as the others. She is now having trouble with the more difficult
aspects of dance. She is no longer as flexible or as strong as the others.
You work hard with the young girl and try to help her catch up with the
rest of the group. However, you find that the time you spend with her is taking
away from your time with the class as a whole. You've also noticed that when
you're spending one-on-one time with the struggling student, the other students
misbehave.
At the end of the year, it is time to make decisions about where to place
the students. The struggling student has not met some of the benchmarks that
year. And you know that, as a dancer, she'll benefit from having a solid foundation
in the basics of dance. To do this, you feel she must repeat the year.
However, it will be difficult for her to accept your decision. She has
made friends in the group and won't want to separate from them. You're a teacher,
but you're also a business person, and you don't want to lose a student from
your studio. You're worried about how the student's parents will react if
you hold their daughter back.
"A student who has been dancing with a group for several years,
and then has to be held back is a very difficult decision to make," says Donna
Moreau. She's a dance instructor and president of a dance teachers' association.
"Letting them go on will hurt the student in the long run. Holding them back
will help them but is painful for the student to accept."
What do you do?