Moral Panic Mode: ‘Becoming’ vs. ‘Being’ Theories of Researchers

In order to make sense of the relationship children have with the media that surrounds them it is only natural for researchers to define theories. One of the main developmental theories was defined by Jean Piaget, it’s called the “cognitive-developmental theory” (Scheibe, 2007).

The theory focuses on the fact that children actively construct their understanding of the world through “the ongoing processes of assimilation (incorporating new information into existing knowledge) and accommodation (reorganizing ways of understanding to take into account new information) (Scheibe, 2007,65). In plain English: taking new info adding it to existing info and then shuffle it around to make sense of the new info so its one complete and happy information puzzle.
This theory describes the different stages of development from “being” a kid to “becoming” an adult. Trust me, the “becoming” part is still confusing.

Coinciding with the cognitive theory there are two approaches researchers have developed when analyzing how the media effects children. Both are vastly different from each other in that the “becoming” theory values the comparison to adult thinking and the “being” theory completely dismisses it as a thing of value (Lemish, 2007). It’s OK, reread that again. Phew, much better.

Roll up those sleeves, let’s dig a bit deeper.
There are two different approaches when researching media and its effects on children. BECOMING: The first theory researchers use is the “becoming” approach, which views children as in the process of “becoming” an adult. This approach is more quantitative and measured by numbers. In general, they test the abilities and skills in comparison to the “ideal model of the adult thinker” (Lemish, 2007, 76). This approach is also called the “the deficiency model” because it “assumes that the child is ‘deficient’ in comparison to the adult.” For example, researchers my count how many times that child behaves in a specific way in response to viewing television. In this type of study the researcher has control. They can choose the kind of programming the child watches, the skills tested, and the toys that exist in the room in order to prove their hypothesis (Lemish, 2007). The major strength of this method is “its ability to examine long-term, accumulative influences of media use on a very large number of children and to offer insights that can be generalized to other situations” (Lemish, 2007, 77)

BEING: The other theory is the “being” approach. This approach is more qualitative research because it observes children in their natural environment like their homes, schools, playgrounds and recently the Internet. In this approach researchers often dig deeper. Not only do they observe the children from an outside-in approach, but also the inside-out approach and actually talk to the children, this type of researcher is called an ethnographer (Lemish, 2007). Researchers focus on seeing the children as “beings” in their own right, at all stages of development without trying to link them to the adult thinkers (Lemish, 2007). Because “what is perceived as central or important in a medium or a text for adults is not necessarily so for children” therefore making the comparison to adults irrelevant and “misleading” (Lemish, 2007, 78). Unlike the “becoming” theory, which focuses on the deficiency of children, the “being” theory focuses on the competency children have with the media. Researchers in this approach believe children can actively make sense of what they are seeing on television in order to develop their own thoughts and opinions about the world around them.

Conclusion

The moral panic that adults have on the media and its relationship with children will always exist as the society grows and changes. However, the panic will vary, as discussed, depending on the “type” of adult, whether a parent, a journalist or documentarian, a marketer, a researcher, or if they’re fancy all four. Parents will always have concerns. Journalists and documentarians will always have an opinion, though they aren’t supposed to. Marketers will always have a product to sell. And Researchers will always have something to prove. At one point in my life I may take up all of these different professions. So, it’s important to be able to distinguish the various perspectives in order to remain objective and not get caught up as an adult in this moral panic.

Moral Panic Mode: Journalists/Documentarians

Where Media (with the help of Marketers) blurrrr liiinneeess between was it culture and what is commercial!

So far we’ve covered the Moral Panic of Parents and Marketers now it’s on to the media!
Journalists and documentarians have a lot to say about how kids are being targeted by marketers in their daily lives. The documentarian chose the commentary wisely for his film, “Consuming Kids,” which I’ve talked about before. The overall theme of the documentary is disapproval of the media and how it is exploiting society’s youth. Experts in communication articulate their opinion by trashing the media industry and the marketers that take part in commercialization. More specifically, they articulate their frustration with the single-minded approach to marketing, that the basis of all commercial logic is sales (McAllister, 2007). But the fact is the marketers are succeeding. However, the experts cannot do anything to stop the marketers’ grimy yet successful tactics. Sad but oh-so true. During the 1980s the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission were stripped of their authority to regulate children advertisements, which is when marketers decided to run rampant stripping children of their innocences.(McAllister, 2007). Ever since then, researchers, which we’ll learn about a bit later, claim that marketing agencies have been working to blurrrrr liiiiiines (hey, hey, hey…sorry I couldn’t help it) between what’s culture and what’s commercial within children’s media. So essentially agencies’ goal is to make Culture = Commercial and Commercial = Culture to which they are one in the same and we all nod in agreement because we can no longer tell the difference.

Michael Brody, a child psychiatrist featured in the film, went so far as to call marketers pedophiles. Ick, right? Because marketers often struggle between what is morally right by the children and the common goal of the company which is to make as much money as possible. Children’s imaginations are in jeopardy because marketers are telling them that their brains aren’t good enough. For example, one expert in the film said that kids couldn’t play Harry Potter unless they have the official branded wand because it’s not good enough to pick up a stick off the ground (“Consuming Kids”). Seriously, kids it’s called an imagination! Where did all the imagination go!?! If Justin Timberlake can bring “sexy back,” I think Ms. Frizzle and her magic school bus should be responsible for bringing imagination back, yeah!

An exception to media scheming along side marketers, perhaps are the documentarians, who often try to expose truths. Fully aware of the shock-and-awe history of documentarian Michael Moore, his point in “Bowling for Columbine” is to expose the public to the truths of media and debunk the previous coverage that resulted in American adults being “exponentially misinformed” (Mazzarella, 2007, 54). Those appearing in the documentary do not seem to be blaming kids but the media for their destructive behaviors. The film starts with claims that the media was significantly to blame for the behavior of teens, namely Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, gunmen in the Columbine School shootings. Many were blaming their behavior on one musician, the “poster boy for fear,” Marilyn Manson. Moore is out to prove experts and those easily influenced by journalists and politicians that they may want to reconsider blaming Manson.

In an interview between Moore and Manson, Manson said that he “represents what everyone is afraid of because I do and say what I want.” The shooting served as a distraction from what was really happening in the country. “Our president is shooting bombs overseas, yet I’m the bad guy because I sing some rock and roll songs. And who’s the bigger influence the president or Marilyn Manson? I’d like to think me, but I’m going to go with the president,” Manson said. This statement is an example of the adult society in moral panic, “that at root the moral panic is about instilling fear in people, in so doing, encouraging them to try and turn away from the complexity and the visible social problems of everyday life” because it’s easier to identify Manson as a simple solution to a complex problem (Mazzarella, 2007, 48-49). Manson is convinced that the media is a campaign of fear and consumption. The news is nothing but bad news and then break to commercial where marketers want to sell the viewer products. If everyone is kept afraid they will consume (“Bowling for Columbine”).

Journalists are constantly fueling public concern with panic (Mazzarella, 2007). Journalists often forget that not all people that are goth, or in a specific subculture, live the hate lifestyle. The media is powerful and controls how society stereotypes certain groups in society, if they choose to define them or not. For example, the news often mentions the gangs or enemies that exist in inner cities, however rarely is there mention of the enemies that exist in suburban areas (20/20 “Phenomenon of The Goth Movement,” 1999).

Moral of this Panic Mode: Don’t believe everything you read or see, don’t judge a book by its cover, don’t fall victim to the traps that media set up for us through sneaky marketing. Instead take a step back, examine, analyze and decide for yourself! Use your own smarts! And remember that the media is there to not only inform you but in most cases is there to attract your attention and get you to form new opinions or stick with old ones.

What do you think of documentarians exposing truths and debunking media stories? Do you have any favorite documentaries?! I’d love to hear suggestions. Comment below.

Moral Panic Mode: Marketers

In television commercials, marketers put their best skills to use: making sure the kids rule. The characters, whether animated or not, are often young, thus making them really relatable to the target consumer, kids. Duh. Because no kid wants a parent telling them what to do, amiright?

Though I hate to admit it, marketers are smart because they realize that children are the primary consumers because of their direct buying power or the “I want it now forever always” and indirect buying power through their parents or “Please can I have it now forever always.” Kids are drowning in brands; the most popular are toys, cereal, fast food, candies or sugary snacks. The marketers’ task is to create a commercial that establishes an audience, sells a product and embeds values to children in hopes of creating a “cradle to grave” brand loyalty (Jennings, 2007). And somewhere in between the cradle and the grave we become zombies who succumb to this very formulaic (and successful) approach to marketing.

~~Marketing 101:~~ Baby Whispering 101: Marketers use different production techniques when selling products, knowing full well children cannot decipher between reality and fantasy until about the age of six (Chandler and Griffiths, 2000). However, different tactics are used to appeal to boys and girls and usually marketers bring in back up in the form of psychologists to determine how young boys and girls brains function. The most obvious tactic: voiceover. Eighty percent are male because they appeal to both genders when used in a mixed target audience (Chandler and Griffiths, 2000). Therefore female voiceovers are only used for girl-based commercials. Because sciences of psychology and brains.

Marketers can format commercials to create underlying messages while simultaneously selling a product to children. Sneaky, Sneaky. Social standing is a main message that is portrayed through kids’ commercials.
Are in you in? or Are you out?
The commercials define not only who they are as a person through their own eyes, but also the eyes of their peers. Kid culture, though accelerated, has been focused around what is “cool,” or socially acceptable. Ok, yes, “cool” is a dated word, but necessary in this context. “Cool” is anything that the marketers deem as a must-have for social survival. But that One Direction album, “MOMMM I NEEEDDD ITTTT, IT COMES OUT TODAY AND I NEED ITTTT!!!”
And purchasing the must-haves leads to happy and fulfilled lives. Some messages are more direct than others. So essentially that One Direction album will make me the happiest ever, well until the next boy pop band comes along. Although, maybe there’s a point that I’m just now realizing. It could be a boy band thing, or a music thing in general, but at the age of 25 I’m going to be going to a Backstreet Boys concert this weekend, which will make me the happiest and satisfy my craving for nostalgia. Could a musical group be a brand? Absolutely, and apparently one that has been a must-have in my musical library since the Discman was invented. Now for claiming BSB has made my life fulfilled, would be a little ambitious, but then again Sunday I’ll probably have that frame of mind of life being fulfilled at that very moment. Maybe, I want it that way, and I don’t have to tell you why? (see what I did there?)
Ok, Ok but for commercial examples there’s Sketcher’s Pretty Tall Shoes which labeled the message of beauty. The product was branded with the words “pretty” and “tall,” telling the consumer what is beautiful. Pretty could’ve had a double meaning, as in they’re pretty tall in height in addition to the beauty standard. Hidden messaging, is all around.
Sketcher’s just keeps winning in the ridiculous shoe department with their recent Daddy’$ Money shoes, which essentially is the same thing as Pretty Tall shoes with the hidden wedge, just geared toward teenagers, and with the $ sign you would think they’d be sponsored by Ke$ha (Now who’s the genius marketer, ha).

It doesn’t matter if the product is food, clothing, or toys, children are trained by this “hypercommercialized” marketing wave to be vulnerable and give in to the messages. It’s time to snap out of zombie mode, people! We need to educate our kids and ourselves to the reality that kid culture has morphed into one of the largest consumer cultures allowing advertisers and marketers to run rampant!

What ridiculous ads have you seen for kids lately? Share them in the comments. (extra brownie points (yum), gold stars and confetti for YouTube videos links!)

Moral Panic Mode: Parents

Kid culture is a relatively new(ish) phenomena defined by adults, (yup, guilty) who often have a clouded perspective of today’s youth. Adults view kids through the lens of moral panic. A moral panic occurs “when the official or press reaction to a deviant social or cultural phenomenon is ‘out of all proportion’ to the actual threat offered” (Mazzarella, 2007, 48). In addition, it is when a group is defined as a threat to the values of society and interests (Mazzarella, 2007). The purpose of the next 4 blog posts is to define how…

1) parents, 2) marketers, 3) journalists/documentarians, and 4) researchers aid in the development of the moral panic between adult culture and kid culture.

Distribution of media like CDs and DVDs has led to parents forming groups against these dispersal tactics. Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC) came on the scene in 1985, started by high profiled wives such as Tipper Gore, (ex)wife of then-senator Al Gore. Tipper Gore was shocked when she first heard the Prince song “Darling Nikki,” because the song references masturbation (Mazzarella, 2007). Though at the time the PMRC aimed to require all music, though predominately focused on heavy metal rock, to have a warning label if it contained explicit content inappropriate for children. Their passion spread to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In 1990 the RIAA adopted the “Parental Advisory/Explicit Lyrics” label that we now see when visiting record stores (Mazzarella, 2007). Though the high profiled wives and mothers were able to have their voices heard around the country, most parents don’t have the luxury. And with the popularity of online music sales through iTunes, Spotify, etc. the world of music (TV, movies, etc) is WIDE open for kids with a computer or smartphone and a wifi connection, see: EVERY kid, has access to any and all music.

Parents are forced to create their own rules for use in their household from music and television to the Internet. “One approach is through ‘restrictive mediation,’ a practice in which parents make rules about amount or time of viewing allowed, define forbidden content, and use media as part of a reward or punishment system” (Bachen, 2007, 242). The younger the child the more rules are placed on when, where and for how long use can take place. Parents of adolescents may lower their guard when it comes to displaying their favorite media characters, simply because they have more control over it in the home. By letting their children take part in “adolescent room culture,” the bedroom becomes a place where he or she “engage in identity work and investigate their future possibilities through media,” (Fisherkeller, 2007, 229). However, as parents become more familiar with the medium, particularly the Internet, rules may evolve (Bachen, 2007).

“Parents are deeply fearful about the World Wide Web’s influence on their children, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s national survey of parents in computer households in the United States” (Aikat, 2005, 3). The Internet is a main concern because of the wide-range of freedom it gives children (Stern and Willis, 2007). Yet another reason why Facebook should have never left their college niche. “Teens have more autonomy to do, say and go where they wish than they have had historically” (Stern and Willis, 2007, 217). The three ways teenagers use the Internet is for communication, information seeking, and content creation. They communicate with their friends through ~~Instant Messaging,~~ (awww RIP, AIM) Facebook Messaging and Text Messaging with the phones they now have and the ripe age of eight. Damn you societal norms. They also use the Internet to seek information for school assignments and often complete those assignments now completely online. Now, more popular than ever kids are posting photos via Instagram, tweeting tweets they shouldn’t be during school hours and maybe writing the occasional blog post. Despite these uses parents are still concerned with access to “inappropriate” content.

Having the world’s information at the thumbs of your kids is scary sure with websites that have content about “eating disorders, bomb making, alcohol, smoking, and most of all, pornography,” parents are concerned teens who are seeking information about these topics will find an overload of information easily and those teens not seeking this type of information may accidently stumble upon it (Stern and Willis, 2007, 218; Aikat, 2005). For example, whitehouse.gov is the official website of the government establishment, but an unknowing teen may accidently type in the dot com (.com) address only to find explicit content. Note: It’s no longer an explicit site like it was when I was in sixth grade, but for the sake of argument…that example will do. Right? thanks.

But I have also found in recent talks with parents (disclaimer: I’m not a parent) that the “everybody’s-doing-it syndrome” is taking over. And as a parent it’s getting more difficult to just say “no” to requests like “everyone has a cellphone, mom” which can quickly elaborate to “everyone has a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, insert all the social networking tools here.”
So as a parent…what do you do? Do you give in? What age is an appropriate age to allow your son or daughter to handle the responsibility of a cellphone and online communications. Parents, I want to hear from you! Leave a comment!

Screw Beauty Standards, Natural is Gnarly

Photo by Marc Erwin Babej. Click the photo and scroll to the bottom of the article for a slideshow of the other striking images.

Have you ever looked in the mirror and said, “When did that wrinkle appear?” Or “If only my nose was just a little smaller”? Probably, if not for those two reasons something else. I’ve said it before, we are cruel to ourselves as girls and women trying to live up to the “standards” that are laid out by the media. We’re trying achieve that Barbie look, and not realizing it’s impossible until it’s too late. And for the love of flying monkeys can someone create this real-life-beauty Barbie so our girls can get a dose of what real beauty looks like!

Trolling the Interwebz I found an article in Huffington Post, Women about the “Mask of Perfection,” a project by photographer Marc Erwin Babej. The purpose? To illustrate the difference between a women’s natural beauty and the “correctable flaws” a plastic surgeon is trained to see and thus make a living. He enlisted his plastic surgeon friend, Maria LoTiempo.

Armed with her plastic surgeon perspective and black Sharpie, Maria marked 12 model volunteers all in their twenties, TWENTIES, on the “upgrades” she would give them according to the (unnatural) standards of her profession. Interesting idea I’d say.

However, I did make me have flashbacks to movies that have girls wanting to be part of the “cool” girl group, standing on a table in their unmentionables forced to allow the cool girls to circle body imperfections. ::shutters::

Thank goodness Babej didn’t use the full body approach because I’m certain this post would have sounded quite different. Good move mister, good move.

So what are these “beauty standards” Though the article didn’t clearly map them out I think we all know what they are:
(and please let me know if I forgot any)
1. Wrinkle-free
2. Symmetry
3. Trim nose
4. Pouty lips
5. High/defined cheek bones
6. Trim jaw line

Scrolling through the images of the marked up models I was trying to hard to look for “flaws”, but honestly I didn’t see any, which is the point. These girls are beautiful and naturally so. I appreciate Babej’s project because it adds to the perspective that natural beauty is truly beautiful and for these twenty-somethings to “need” improvements to live up to the “standards” set by the plastic surgeon gods are ridiculous.

What do you think of “Mask of Perfection” and the images slap you (figuratively, of course), the viewer across the face and say “THIS EXISTS.”
What’s your opinion of the images?

More Than a Princess: Disrupting the Pink Aisle

Photo credit GoldieBlox YouTube. Screenshot by ShatteredGlassSlipper

Wandering the toy aisles of your favorite toy store it’s very clear which toys are “meant” for girls and which are “meant” boys. Girls like Riley aren’t happy about these color-coded marketing tactics. Who could blame her? The colors pink and blue have been used to label the different genders since the beginning of time we were born. Blue or pink bonnet anyone?

But in 2012 Stanford engineering graduate, Debbie Sterling, had it with these labels and aimed to disrupt the pink aisle and prove that girls are more than just princesses; they are creators, engineers and inventors. She founded GoldieBlox, Inc.—a startup toy company that combines reading with building, something that we haven’t seen much of in the pink aisle by the way of Legos or Erector sets.

To transform GoldieBlox from an idea to a reality, Sterling set up a Kickstarter campaign for the first production order, raising about $285,000, surpassing her original goal of $150,000. (Woohooo!) And earlier this month GoldieBlox started to be sold on the shelves of toy retailer, Toys R Us! (double whoohoo)!

Seeing a toy like this hit the shelves, become a reality, and inspire young girls makes me get a bit nostalgic and almost kind of jealous that there weren’t really any toys out there when I was growing up that involved a story line and building. Yes, LEGO that means you and your superficial way of inclusion by slapping a pink case around your plastic building bricks, hey look now they’re for girls!

When I was in elementary school I loved science and all the hands-on experiments we were able to conduct, measure the cause and effect, and challenge the dependent and independent variables. (betcha haven’t thought about that stuff in awhile, eh?) But somewhere around high school I fell off the science metaphorical train and landed in the creative and writing side of things, nothing wrong with that!
Growing up I didn’t really know what real career options were available to a science lover besides well…a scientist (mental picture: Albert Einstein). We attended field trips to science museums to see and learn about the great discoveries and inventions by men throughout history and were shown countless episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy (Bill, Bill, Bill!)

The saddest part? I don’t think I ever once challenged or argued where Brenda the Builder or Edna the Engineer was hiding. Because it was “just the way it was.” Shame on my naïve baby self. I accepted the societal norm without really knowing it.

For this reason, I’m grateful for bold women like Sterling who are challenging societal norms and aiming to make change and bring awareness among young girls reaching their highest potential. Sterling is a game changer, she’s not only proving a toy to keep girls’ interest in engineering but also show girls in a hands on way that they can and do become engineers, just like their role model in the storybook, Goldie!
Thanks to Sterling, today’s young girls, like Riley, can feel a bit more comfortable walking the toy aisles.

More on Debbie, how GoldieBlox came to be, and proof in her engineering pudding!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEeTLopLkEo&w=560&h=315]

Thanks to Societal Norms a Quarter Life Crisis is Totally a Thing

So, July has been a bit loco, it marks the halfway point of 2013 also known as “The Year of Me” andddd I turned 25. Yep, that happened. You guys, a Quarter Life Crisis is totally real and yep, I’m kind of freaking out about it. Why? Well because my Facebook feed (pesky social media) is full of people doing awesome things that go both with and against societal norms. With: engagements, weddings, babies galore. Against: Quitting jobs to start businesses or chase the dream job, moving away and raising hell. Me? I’m floundering.

For the first time in a long time I asked myself what am I doing with my life? And for the first time I sit and ponder because I have zero clue but I’m trying pretty dang hard to figure it out.

2013 I have dedicated to me and finding new passions and igniting old ones. I’ve been learning a lot about “my” people, the Internets and my eating habits to create a healthier and happier me!

The Year of Me: Try new things, take risks and seek adventure in hopes of changing the world.

As a young professional woman I feel like there is a societal stigma that says we have to hold ourselves together and be ladies even when we’re falling apart. The awful truth? Harsh reality? I’m 25 and for the first time in my life I don’t have a plan. But I’m a planner, always have been. I have a gazillion-and-one to-do lists, post-it notes all over my desk dictating what’s on my plan for the day, week, month. I’ve been known to have back up plans for the plans. Always be prepared. That’s my motto.

Today, I’m like uhhhh what’s next in this life? (Again, floundering.) I already fulfilled my original plan.
Plan: graduate high school, get into college, study journalism, be the first in my family to graduate college, get a job in the communications/journalism industry. Check, check, checkitycheckcheck. Maybe I let fate and hard work take over? Perhaps. Sounds like a plan. (see what I did there?)

I’m learning to embrace this rite of passage before the next plan/goal/fate-awesomeness in my life comes to fruition, which is to someday have a family of my own. But for now I’m content with working on impressing myself by dating myself. Call me selfish if you must, but there is something to be said for being your own número uno in life! Olé!

Here’s a little ditty of a poem I drafted up for myself as I embark on the next 6 months of The Year of Me! Hope you can relate to it in some capacity and feel inspired to take control of the wheel in this journey of life!

This Life
By Karlyn Williams
Tired sitting side car
This life
Grab the wheel
Floor it
Wind caressing tendrils
Rounding the curves a little too
Fast
This life
Dare to be great
Dare to take chances
Just dare
This life
Drive to seek passion, joy,
Promise to pump the breaks from time to
Time to enjoy
This life
Take care at yellows
Be patient at reds for they will
Flip to green
To go
Seek your dreams
This life

What have you done this year for yourself!? What are you planning to do this year for yourself!? Share it in the comments!

The Ultimate Girl Power Playlist

This Tuesday my post is over at fellow BiSC-uit’s blog, Doniree.com, where I give you a run down of my favorite girl power songs that really rev me up and light a fire under me for when motivation is low (we’ve all been there), get me through a tough workout, and well…life in general because let’s face it: life is better when we have a soundtrack!

Go have a listen! Seriously. Go. Now. Hurry!

Thank you Doni for having me be a guest author on your Internet space and a summer sponsor!

The F Word & Why We Still Need It

As you know I get a lot of inspiration for blog content from the media. And most recently, my friend sent me an article from Buzzfeed articulating “17 Reasons We Still Need Feminism.” (as told by Cambridge University Students)

It really got me thinking again about how we think of Feminism. Is it this giant F-word that gets hushed? Sometimes. Is it a movement? Yup, definitely. Is it inspiring? For me it is!

The University students, both male and female, scribbled down their reasons why they needed feminism on mini whiteboards, held their reason in front of them and posed for a photo. (Be sure to check them out here.)

My Top 5 Favorite Reasons:
I NEED FEMINISM BECAUSE…

I can make my own decisions, and my gender doesn’t mean you can stop me
I do not want my success to make me undesirable
I don’t want to live in a society that discriminates
People still say “but you’re a man” when I tell them I’m a feminist
Everyone can make their own sandwiches

Why do I need feminism?
I need feminism because I am unwilling to accept society’s stereotypes that all too often say to give up on my dreams. I need feminism because I’m tired of not seeing female leaders or protagonists in the media. I need feminism because I want equal respect and compensation for an equal success and a job well done. Oh and this…

I need feminism because…

I need feminism because I love smashing girl stereotypes into tiny smithereens in the present in order to pave the way for the future.

Why do you need feminism? Share in the comments!

Dance Like No One’s Watching, Except Someone Always Is

I was teaching Wednesday night at the dance studio when spotted this inspirational and oh-so-true quote posted up on the white board in one of the classrooms:

“If you ever feel like giving up, just remember there’s a little girl watching who wants to be just like you. Don’t disappoint her.”

I realized the reality of this quote was right in front of me as the four classes gathered in the big studio to “share” their pieces as well as practice being a good audience.

When the “big girls” stood up to perform their contemporary pointe piece the pre-ballet girls, who are around seven-years-old, sat up a little taller, crossed their ankles and looked on wide-eyed. These “big girls” are their role models. It was true when I was growing up at the studio and it was true when I was a “big girl” and it still holds true today even as a dance teacher. And heck(!!) this quote is even true in the professional world. There is always someone looking on, admiring you from a far for numerous reasons. (that sounded creepy, but you know what I mean.)

“big girls” running their pointe pieces as pre-ballet girls watch on.

The annual recitals are this weekend and I’ve been reflecting back on what the studio taught me growing up that prepared me for success in the Real World*. I am now a part-time teacher (in addition to my full-time gig) at my “second home,” where a lot of my teachers are now my co-workers and role models.
Here are the Top 5 life lessons from my time at the dance studio from age 3-18 that I hope to pass on to my dance kiddos:

Be prompt—I am always on time for everything (actually most of the time I’m early) because in dance, time is of the essence and if you’re late for rehearsals or miss your cue on stage people that are counting on you are not happy with you. Same goes for Real World interviews, meetings and deadlines. Your time is valuable and so is everyone else’s, honor that.
Be respectful—Three Forms:
a.     To Teachers: Teachers are there to educate dancers on the discipline and tenacity needed to accomplish the art form. Teachers are there to inform dancers on the rules of the dance class and how to reach their goals. Sure, there will be challenges, maybe you don’t like the choreography, but you have to respect the teacher/choreographer’s passion for the work, because guess what? reality states you’re going to do things that you don’t want to do and you’re going to have to do it with a beaming smile.
b.    To Peers: The always challenging peer-to-peer relationships, which as you can imagine is often fueled through competition (more so than ever in recent years). This competitive spirit trains dancers for multiple real world scenarios: setting goals, disappointments, pain, failure, triumph, and confidence. However, it’s important that through these challenges that mutual respect for one another is created. This is not to say, “Hey let’s be BFFs and ever,” but realizing that if you do decide to dance professionally, it’s a small industry, you may be standing next to that person during a piece where they may have to lift you up over their head…they could drop you. Just sayin’. Be kind to each other people!
c.     To Yourself : You (proper noun, big Y-o-u) is often the hardest person to respect, but at the end of the day You are all you have. So what the heck, be nice would ya!?! At the studio, just like the real world, we are afraid of failure but the truth is you have to fail in order to improve. Can’t get your leg in a 6:00 tilt, no problem. Stretch more. Figuring out how the heck you’re going to give up sugar for 5 days during this detox? Breathe, it’s just an experiment just plan your meals ahead of time and you’ll be good! It’s all about self-love.
Be organized—When you’re shimmying off your sequins in the dark on the side of the stage and have two minutes to change tights, hair, costumes and shoes knowing that the show waits for no one, you tend to be organized. Just like in life, juggling multiple things at one time and on a tight deadline you are expected to execute the project(s) on time and with the highest quality.
More on Life Lessons Learned Through Dance Discipline