As a dance teacher and examiner I am confronted with ethical issues on a daily basis. There are issues about health and safety, copyright, career choices for my pupils and parental issues, to name but a few. I will mention some of the situations that have occurred in my career as a teacher and as an examiner.
When I teach I have to ensure that my classes and music choices are age appropriate and safe and inclusive and there are rules that I have to comply with to ensure this happens. I have to provide a safe environment for my pupils to train in, so the room should have a suitable floor, be ventilated and kept at a suitable temperature. The size of the room should adequately accommodate the amount of pupils I am teaching and have the necessary fire regulations in place. There should also be first aid facilities and a qualified person to administer them.
This was fine when I taught in my own school, but I can't regulate the conditions of the rooms I have found myself teaching in when I have travelled and done coaching or workshops at other schools. There have been occasions when I have arrived to teach at a venue and it wasn't really suitable but I haven't ever said anything because I don't want to offend anyone. I just get on with my teaching, doing the best I can within the surroundings. It could be argued that this isn't the right thing to do and that I shouldn't teach in an environment that I know doesn't comply with the safe studio guidelines, but, would it be right to criticise someone else's school and refuse to teach when you are an invited guest? I have tended just to adapt the class to make sure I observe safe teaching practice.
When I am examining the rooms should all comply with the safety standards, but, in several cases they don't. Quite often I find myself in freezing cold church halls with floors that are not suitable to dance on, or studios that are so small that the candidates can't really move adequately in them. Technically speaking I could refuse to examine the candidates because the teacher has not observed the examination guidelines but I don't. If I did refuse to examine I would disappoint so many children who have worked so hard for their examinations and parents who have paid a lot of money for them to enter and teachers who have also worked very hard and may have tried, but failed, to find a suitable venue.
It does pose an ethical dilemma as to whether an examination should take place if the room does not exactly meet the correct criteria. If a child was injured during an examination because the floor was not deemed suitable for the type of dance they were doing, maybe because it was not a sprung floor, or because it had a slippy surface, then would it be the teacher who was at fault for using the room or the examiner for allowing the examination to go ahead? Obviously if the floor was treacherous then the examinations could not go ahead, but, in most cases, the risk is minimal, so I proceed with the examinations and then send in a report to headquarters.
I recently had to prevent an examination on health and safety grounds. The child entered the room with an ankle support on and the teacher had not mentioned anything to me about the child's injury. When I asked the candidate about it she replied that she had sprained her ankle about a month ago. She also added that the doctor hadn't really wanted her to do the exam but that it felt ok and her mum had said she could do it. I was faced with the dilemma as to whether to go ahead against the medical information the child had just imparted or stop the examination. In this case I felt I had to call the teacher in and tell her that, unless a doctor's note could be produced to say that she was fit enough to do the examination, I would be unable to examine the candidate because there was a risk of increased injury and I could not permit this.
As a dance examiner I have to make sure that I observe the correct protocol and behave in a professional manner as I am an ambassador for the society I examine for. I have to ensure that I do not enter into discussion with any teachers about their pupils during an examination session or at any time afterwards. I also have to make sure that I do not impart any information that is discussed at examiner's meetings to any dance teachers who are not examiners for my society. Also I cannot examine the pupils of any teacher that I lives locally to me or any pupils that I have coached recently.
One of the dilemmas I am confronted with when teaching is whether to correct a child by touching them. When I first began teaching there were far fewer rules to comply with. I wouldn't have thought twice about physically helping a child adjust her posture, or find her turnout muscles, for example, because it was accepted that this was a necessary part of teaching dance. Nowadays it is not considered appropriate to correct a child through touch and we are supposed to ask the child if we can touch him/her in order to make a correction before doing so.
Dance is very physical and not all children respond to verbal corrections, possibly because they don't understand what you are asking, but, if shown on their own body, they can feel what is required and the correct technique can be achieved far more effectively. I teach pas de deux and it is impossible to do this safely without being able to touch the dancers.
When I had my own school I had a set of rules that the parents had to sign and agree to adhere to. One of the rules stated that:
" As part of their dance training and in order to maintain safe teaching practice, it is sometimes necessary to touch the children to help correct their technique.This will always be done in an appropriate and professional manner. "
When I first began working peripatetically in France and Italy delivering classes and workshops I had to ask each school I worked in what their policy was with regard to physical contact with the pupils. Interestingly a lot of the schools did not have any such policy but, because I am now used to how we do things in the UK, I have opted not to use any physical corrections in my work here in case of any potential future reprisals.
Another issue I have to contend with is videoing and photography. In the UK we have to make sure we have the parent's written consent before we can photograph or video a child and they have to know what the purpose of it is and where the videos or photographs are going to be used. I have already mentioned in my blog "The Importance of Audio-Visual in Social Media" about problems that have arisen with regard to copyright when my pupils have posted videos of their dances on Youtube. The schools here in France and Italy mostly don't seem to have a policy regarding this.
We are so health and safety conscious in the UK so it is interesting to note that it is not the same in all countries. At first, when I started working abroad, I found this quite refreshing, but, on reflection, I think it places me in quite a vulnerable position because there is nothing to protect me should a parent make a complaint about my videoing their child for example.
I do think we have gone a bit too far with regard to health and safety issues in the UK however. I used to enter my pupils for dance festivals. In the last few years the organisers had sent round a huge list of rules that all parents and teachers entering their children in the festivals had to comply with. One of these was that anyone in the changing rooms had to be CRB checked. This meant effectively that a parent could not dress their own child unless they had been CRB checked, which I think is absolutely absurd and a gross infringement of that parent's rights.
It also stated that no-one of the opposite sex could enter the changing room. I can see that this could be a matter of concern for some parents if a man was present whilst girls were changing and visa versa, but it created all sorts of problems, because there were mothers wanting to change their young sons and fathers who wanted to help their young daughters, either because the other parent was working and unable to be there or because they were single parents. What in fact had to happen was that each school had to provide CRB checked chaperones to dress the children. Inevitably some of these were parents of the children competing so this then created ill feeling amongst those parents who were not permitted to dress their own child.
As a teacher I had to placate parents and explain the reasons for the organisers making these rules, whilst, at the same time I didn't agree with the rules that were in place so I felt that I was being hypocritical. I strongly considered whether it was worth all the aggravation in the future or whether I should consider not entering my pupils for dance festivals.
Competitions also presented me with more ethical dilemmas when I had my own school. I asked myself questions such as 'is it fair to select some children for competition training over others?' Not all pupils are capable of competing and some are naturally more talented than others, but is it right to provide them with more opportunities than those who are less talented? On the other hand competition stretches the talented pupils and gives them exposure so shouldn't that talent be nurtured and given every chance to excel?
Competitions also created problems with regard to the parents. There were cases when over eager mums would produce with pride fluff ball tutus purchased at enormous expense or lovingly made by hand with comments like 'look isn't this lovely?' They would then ask if their child could do a ballet solo and wear the prized article. I had to be very tactful and either explain that the tutu wasn't quite suitable or that the child wasn't quite ready for a ballet solo just yet but the reality would often be that they were never going to be able to wear that tutu or do a ballet solo in a competition.
There were other times when parents would think their child should have won and ask if I agreed with them. This would place me in a difficult position because there were times when I did agree and times when I didn't. If I had said that I agreed with that parent then I would be implying that I didn't respect the adjudicator's decision and therefore would be undermining the competition. If, on the other hand, I said I did agree with the decision when I didn't then I wouldn't be being truthful. I tended to hedge in situations like this by saying that it was only one person's opinion and that what I thought, in this instance, was irrelevant because that was the opinion of the adjudicator at this time. This way I was neither agreeing with nor disagreeing with the parent.
As a dance teacher you have to be tactful and diplomatic but I also think it is better to be truthful. I think it is unethical, for example, if a parent asks if her daughter will make it as a ballerina and that child has the wrong physique for ballet for you not to be honest with the parent. I would always make the parent aware of the rigours of the professional dance training and emphasise how it is essential for all dance, but particularly for ballet, that the body is able to withstand the training and that not all people have the right body type to be able to do this. If the child was very young I would always add that, of course, at this stage, you don't know yet exactly how the child will develop, and make them aware that, even if a future career as a ballerina isn't possible, the child will derive so many benefits from studying ballet.
I would not want to squash any child's dreams so would not give this information to the child themselves unless they were old enough and at a stage in their life when they had to begin to think about career choices and had asked for my advice. I don't think it is morally right to tell them they can be anything they want to be if you know that they are physically unable to achieve their goal. Having said that, I would never stop a child/student from auditioning for a vocational school because I thought they weren't capable of being accepted because then they would always wonder and also possibly blame you for preventing them from following their dream. Sometimes it is better to let them find this out for themselves. I would always, if asked, try to point out alternatives and not fill their head with false hope.
In talking about a dancer's physique to students wishing to pursue a career in dance I have to be extremely careful what I say as young people are very image conscious and dancers in particular have long had associations with eating disorders in their attempt to seek the 'perfect' dancer's body shape. It is unethical for a dance teacher to tell a pupil that he/she is overweight, even if this may be the case, because it can cause psychological problems which could lead to eating disorders developing and the dance teacher could be held responsible.
I have worked in vocational colleges in the past and it used to be the case that they made their pupils very aware of their weight because the harsh reality is that you do not get over weight dancers and they do have to be thin and light in order to execute the movements gracefully and safely and for the girls to be able to do pas de deux. Nowadays they approach it somewhat differently and tend to present their students with information on healthy eating rather than constantly telling them they need to lose weight.
I am sometimes asked by parents for the contact details of another parent for reasons such as them trying to see if they can buy a second hand costume from them. I have to ensure that I always seek the permission from the parent before I can release any contact details because I have to comply with the Data Protection Act.
When I stop to consider all the ethical issues that I face in my work I realise just how vulnerable a position I am in but then, all professions have a code of ethics to adhere to and I think there are far more serious ethical debates concerning the medical and legal professions and journalism, for example, than dance teachers have to contend with. We are all confronted by moral dilemmas in our lives and just have to deal with them to the best of our ability at the time.
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