Ethics and my practice

Until our Skype call I'd never really thought about ethics and my practice together.  Of course its obvious they go hand in hand but my ethics in the classroom are more of an unconscious instinct. I don't consciously go into my classes  thinking about ethics - its already in me and is who I am.  As it is with everyone - it's part of what makes us individual.
It got me thinking how I came to have the values I do?  What impact do they have on my students and how important is it we teach with good ethical standards?

Parents/ caregivers are the biggest influence to us in early life but as we grow sources outside the home contribute to our own individual ethical standards.  Certainly for me my dance teacher was a huge role model in my formative years and shaped a lot of the ethics I have in my practice.
Life experiences develop our sense of what is right and wrong from a early age. In the home, at school, with friends and then later from the people we work with to the companies we work for.  In The Arts we are often fortunate enough to travel with our work which offers even more influence.

In turn the ethics I now have are a reflection of my past and are what I pass onto my students in the delivery of my class.  I am a mix not only of my learning of good ethics but also of those unethical behaviours I consciously choose not to use. It was only this week a friend of mine told me her daughters ballet teacher has sellotape in the classroom and if the children talk too much she will tape it across their mouths (this is in Asia not UK).  From this I automatically made assumptions of the teacher.  I joked with my friend that she sounded like an old school teacher and asked if she also had a stick? It turned out she was an older lady and did have a stick! These assumptions were made based on behaviour I had seen in the past from other teachers. We are indeed a product of our past experiences and our past experiences are what make us who we are.  We transfer these experiences into our practice.

When we teach we are in trust of the dancers instrument and (especially when the student is young and less knowledgeable about their body) the impact we have on those instruments is huge. If we teach with with a low ethical standard (this could be someone who is unqualified for example or has learnt unethical behaviour on their own journey) over time we risk many things. For example how the student may feel mentally about dance, how capable the student will become and in worst cases serious injury.  The impact we have can potentially be detrimental to our own careers as teachers but also to those students both mentally and physically.

For want of a better description I can only describe looking into this subject as a stream going into a river going into an ocean. The more I read the more rivers appear and the more rivers the bigger the ocean!  Ethics are intertwined and linked to everything in our everyday.  I have kept this blog brief (unlike my notes!) but have found reflecting on my own ethics in my practice and how my ethics came to be really quite fascinating and something I will continue to delve deeper into. If you are interested in how you came to practice the way you do I implore you to do the same!