Reflections of a Dance School Dropout

By Cindi Rigsbee

Ed Week

A National Board-certified teacher in the area of English/Language Arts, Cindi Rigsbee has most recently served as a middle school literacy coach and district mentor to beginning teachers. A finalist for National Teacher of the Year in 2009, Cindi's book Finding Mrs. Warnecke: The Difference Teachers Make was published in 2010. Currently, Cindi serves as a Regional Education Facilitator, a teacher-on-loan, to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

At the beginning of a new calendar year, everyone resolves to get healthy, eat better, and exercise more. I myself know my limitations when it comes to exercise. I’m limited in that I don’t like it. I also have an aversion to sweat.

So this past January I decided to get creative. I thought about what type of exercise I would most enjoy. I wanted to try an activity that wouldn’t seem like exercise at all. Then remembered my teen years and how much I loved my dance classes. I could again be a dancer, exercising in a way that would be fun and calorie- burning at the same time.

I started immediately, purchasing workout clothes and shoes and registering for an adult class that would have me hopping around to popular music, all the while increasing my energy level and decreasing my waistline. I began the class on a snowy night in January. By March 1st I was a dance school dropout. Even though I began with such excitement, somewhere along the way I lost the motivation to go.

After some reflection I realized that what happened to me is not unlike what happens to our classroom students every day. Many begin their school career, or school year, or school day, motivated and ready to learn. How do we lose them so quickly?

Dancing With the Stars

One potential pitfall, I learned, is failing to ensure that our students feel successful, even if only in small increments along the way. As a dancer, I was nowhere near the star of the class. But I didn’t struggle the most either. As a student “in the middle,” you might say I fell through the cracks. The stars received continuous positive feedback: “Susan, show the class how you just did that move! See how flexible she is?” The struggling students received attention as well: “Susan, can you hang out with this group and show them the moves s-l-o-w-l-y?” Followed later by: “Guys, that’s great! You’ve improved so much!” And there I stood, invisible, the average student receiving no feedback.

Next, we can’t expect our students to “perform” when they aren’t ready to. My dance teacher made us get up in front of the class in groups of three to perform a routine. There was one step I just hadn’t mastered. It felt so awkward to twist in that way, and no one had offered any assistance while I stood, invisible, in the corner. During the performance, the other class members laughed, and I laughed at myself, when I tried to force my legs to move in ways they wouldn’t. Ha ha. That was the last move I attempted in that class.

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