5a

Ethics
I have never really used or understood the term ethics until now but I now realise it is surprising as it is apart of all our lives, personal, professional, religion etc... For the decisions we make or our actions in life, ethics is apart of. Before making a decision we systematize, defend and think about the concept of right and wrong. Also understanding our ethics are different compared to other cultures, countries, religion, and we have developed and moulded our ethics to the way we live today but sometimes tension and conflict can occur.

Relevant to Dance
Bringing this into the dance world and personally my professional community at work I have been thinking how ethics comes into my job.
Firstly talking about how tension occurs, I had one example that sprung to mind. The week before Christmas holidays we tend to let the students have a fun lesson if they have worked hard and know their pantomime dance and promise to practice over the holiday. As the teacher I also need to check all of my students in that class celebrate Christmas festivities with their family, certain religions such as Jehovah witnesses do not celebrate this holiday so it would be unkind of me to play Christmas music or play Christmas games etc...
Another example I know is when I was a child dancing, some parents complaining about costumes being too raunchy. Personal ethics on how children should dress and what is acceptable as ones parents' opinion is different to another. We teach Irish at my dance school and the difference between the lengths of their Irish skirts can be very different, I know one parent that makes sure her child's skirt hem is below the knee.
Professional codes of practice are there to make sure we keep the high standard of our profession, the dance world is very competitive and I know other schools from my local area have different ethics compared to the one I teach at. One local dance school around here has a bad reputation for 'stealing' other dance schools choreography, copying designs of costumes etc...Whereas my dance school I teach at and others in the area find this not in our ethics.
At our dance school have a uniform which most dance schools do as well. We try and remain strict on this rule as it keeps the class looking smart, well organised and everyone is the same. You always have one child in the class that has the newest dance wear and other students that do not really own any dance wear.
As most dance schools we always make sure the students warm up and cool down at the beginning and the end of class to prevent injuries. Also knowing if children have allergies or different dietary needs, as a new student joins our dance school we have special membership forms for their parents to fill in, we now have a new app on our phones (for teachers) which we can do the register off of, an emergency contact number and any other special information that we need to know.
When I first started reading reader 5 I thought it was all very deep and meaningful and only happened in big decisions but when you start breaking it down and I linked it to my professional community, ethics is in everything! Ethics keeps the high standard of teaching, morals and what my boss believes her teachers should do obviously keeps her school popular and that's why students go there. The lady I work for also thinks students should be loyal and dedicated to one dance school but we do not restrict or insist students to do so. I understand it is hard when extra rehearsals clash with a different dance schools timetable and choosing between them can often cause tension but I personally believe this is unfair as some dance schools just teach ballet so they need to go elsewhere to be taught other genres of dance. Ethics is something I always knew was there but did not think too deeply about, but now understanding the importance of ethics and the differences between personal, professional and organizational and knowing I always have and always will use it on a daily basis, meaning you always think about what is the 'good' decision to make? Who will benefit from it more? I use it when planning my classes, weather I break down and spend time on one exercises for a new student or if I run through everything quickly as I have students working towards an exam? You do not want to put off the new student by letting her drown in a lot of syllabus work she does not know yet, but at the same time I have students working towards an exam and I need to make sure they know everything in that grade. This is always a hard balance to find and keeping everyone happy and enjoying the class at the same time.