The Dance Catastrophe

This summer, we signed Addison up in a starter ballet class at our community center for $30 for the entire summer. The first day we were able to watch and meet the teacher, who was a young girl from Tech, and then the rest of the summer we had to sit out in the hall sitting area in expectations of seeing our little dancers the last day of the summer! I was so excited that she was able to show me a few little beginner dance moves and that every Wednesday night she was so happy when she arrived and left the class. This last Wednesday was her last class and I was eager and video camera ready! To my surprise, I was about to scream the entire time I was in there watching this train wreck of a class. I was very very proud of my daughter for being so well behaved and avoiding bad behavior temptations the entire class. I will simply list the issues I had with this class and I refuse to show the video because I do not wish to be reminded!!

1. There were little girls in this class that are allowed to do whatever they want and the parents sat and laughed and had no problems with the fact that their child wes not following the minimal directions given and not participating in the activites.
2. There was no class room management going on at all!! The teacher in me was ready to go crazy on this situation.
3. Where was the dancing? I saw a teacher read a story about a ballet dancer, I saw 2 dance moves, freeze "dancing" or running, and jumping over a piece of material.

I was really really expecting so much more from this and I have learned my lesson on signing her up for community center activities and expecting a great program to come out of it. Here are a few pictures of Addison in her super cute ballet leotard. The photos do not really show the chaos.

We have signed Addison up for a REAL dance class...I hope.  She will be at the Dance Gallery every Tuesday evening to learn tap and ballet.  We will get to have a class viewing the first class of every month so that I can see what is going on and they also have cameras in the classrooms so that we can watch out in the sitting area on all other classes. We will have a big recital at the end of the year, as well! My mom made Addison a dance bag while she was here this week! It is perfect! I really really hope this is better experience for me, Addison will be fine in whatever we do as long as she is having a fun time.

Much Love,
The Reynolds