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People who just don't understand!


taxi4ballet

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  • 2 months later...

Ugh I know just what this feels like! I'm only in Year 9 (auditioning for lower schools/associates, at a grammar school currently) but all my family are 'normal things' - doctors, teachers, nurses etc) and when they invite their friends over for dinner I get "You want to be a BALLET dancer? But you're bright!" All the time! My response is usually "Ballet dancers are very intelligent." They then look at my dad (who is a lead consultant) sympathetically. I wish people knew just what it took to make it as a ballet dancer... The hours a day, the tears, the bloody toes, the sweat, the money and the devotion and hard work and love. And still we might not make it if our bodies are wrong!

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Ugh I know just what this feels like! I'm only in Year 9 (auditioning for lower schools/associates, at a grammar school currently) but all my family are 'normal things' - doctors, teachers, nurses etc) and when they invite their friends over for dinner I get "You want to be a BALLET dancer? But you're bright!" All the time! My response is usually "Ballet dancers are very intelligent." They then look at my dad (who is a lead consultant) sympathetically. I wish people knew just what it took to make it as a ballet dancer... The hours a day, the tears, the bloody toes, the sweat, the money and the devotion and hard work and love. And still we might not make it if our bodies are wrong!

A relation of mine once said. ..well it's good for her to have an interest. An interest?! More like part of her life!

 

You keep going.

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I can relate to that one - DD's school report said more than once that she should take up a physical pursuit outside school to maintain her long term fitness! At the time she had an advanced 2 ballet class immediately followed by advanced 1 modern so I suggested her PE teacher might like to come along and see if she could keep up! Sadly she never did.

DD did gain a lot of kudos mind you when she got into a push up/sit up contest at school and put the entire senior boys rugby team to shame. I think a few people realised that dancers are both fit and tough after that.

I didn;t make that mistake in my teesn  as  fortunately  we used to get put through it a bit  by the  pe/ dance teacher who  choregoraphed  the musical theatre stuff  school did  as an extra curricular ( while the dance stuff wasn;t technically difficult , MT  has it;s own physcial challenges in terms of  the singingd and dancing )...  but i was one of the few guys laughing  when   during my time in the TA  soem ofthe roughty toughties  were a little to loud and  a little to scathing  aobut  aerobics and  ballet  ...  the PTIs  and an aerobics instructor soon put paid to that ...

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Coupled with they want money for my DD to go on a week long field trip next summer. Wellies are not my DD choice of footwear. :P

 

Edited to add:

 

How would these schools react if, after selecting options at a relatively young age a student has a "light bulb" moment a year later and discovers that her chosen subjects are not compatible with their uni/career choice. I would be very surprised if schools didn't accommodate those students. Performing Arts in all forms should be no different. 

 

On speaking to a lovely lady at the local education dept, she reported that "those students that drop a subject at this stage, do not improve the grades of their other subjects as they waste the extra time achieved on their timetable"!!!!  They obviously do not know my DD

 

Balletbean, I know this post was ages ago, but you struck a serious nerve with me!

 

The secondary school I went to here in Germany offers a bilingual (and an athletic, quite like the basketball program of one of this forum's non ds) 'approach' - for lack of a better word - alongside your standard school concept that you can go for when you first enter the school for year five which goes all the way up to year nine. After that our equivalent to the upper school starts.

 

Now, I was neither sporty when I was ten years old, neither had I made very good experiences with English classes in my elementary school, so my Mum decided not to put me in either of the two classes, as they were called. At first that seemed to be the only decision we could have made without me ruining my grades, as I couldn't run two laps, or get good grades in English.

 

Fast forward two years and I get nothing else but A's and A*'s in English until the day I graduate in year twelve. When I asked my head of year at the end of year 9 if there was a possibility to take the History and Geography class in English like the originally bilingual kids (most of them opted out, btw) I was told no because of the choice that my mother and I had made when I wasn't even technically enrolled at the school. But the thing is, I know how I was as a little child, if I had been faced with the amount of English then, I never would have gotten to the level I am now. I just had to grow into it in my own time.

 

They told me that the bilingual kids had been learning English vocabulary for history and geo for several years nowand that I would be at a disadvantage, even with my English teacher backing me up. I was also known for my knack for languages, and that I picked them up crazy fast, as I also took French all the way from year six until the end and never had any problems. (I am being petty here, but I did know the vocabulary that was needed. And I was ready to prove it to them in a test but they wanted to hear none of it!) If they'd let me take those classes I could have a bilingual school diploma now, giving me better chances on the market. Oh well.

 

Joke's on them, though, seeing as I am starting my first job come February - in America! (And I am considerably fitter than I was at ten years old, mostly thanks to ballet :D)

 

I guess what I'm trying to say here is, that even though your children might find out later on in their school career that they have this skill that they never knew about or that they're not as hopeless in that one subject as they thought, there will be ways to work things out in the end. Maybe not through their school, but with personal efforts and dedication. And that I am still annoyed by not getting to take these bilingual classes. That, too :rolleyes:

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Thank you Peccopa for your reply, 

 

Any information/experience is never too late to share with others on this forum. We are all here to learn from others that may be a few months/years (or more) ahead of us in the 'journey' through life as a parent. I have learnt so much as a parent from my eldest 2 ready to take on board for my youngest 2 children. As we love to say 'hindsight is a wonderful thing'.

 

Thank you once again and good luck for your new adventure in America :)  

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Absolutely! If only I had a pound for every time I've said "No, she isn't going to be the next Darcey Bussell..."

Me too!!  The amount of people who say and how's "Darcy" doing?  (Not my daughters name by the way).  Drives me crackers as she doesn't even want to be a ballerina, but a contemporary choreographer long term.

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