“If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.” ~{Lewis Carroll}.

….and that is the question. Do we need the world to go around faster? Or should slow down and take the time to reflect on certain aspects of teaching children?

I’m talking in particular today, about ‘consent to adjust’. Not just in dance, but in all physical activities for children.

I personally think adjusting students manually and spotting them during pas de deux, is vital to their development and safety. I was physically adjusted, poked, prodded, aided and it helped me understand my own movement hugely. I can honestly say 99% of the adjustments I received were methodical, kind and felt safe and entirely necessary.

Then there is that 1%. I had one teacher as a young teen, who felt unsafe. This teacher was ‘creepy’ I cannot put my finger on it. I knew it felt wrong when they touched me.

However, I had never even considered that I had a right to ask not to be touched by them in particular. I never even considered that I had any rights atall, this was an adult and I was under their supervision. I went along with it. It still brings a sense of discomfort to this day, whenever I think of this teacher.

So what is the answer? How do we navigate this in youth activities that rely on physical touch?

I just know, that around the time of the ‘me too’ movement, I began asking youth, before I adjusted them. I realised I was now the trusted adult. I began to describe the corrections verbally instead, in much more detail.

It hit me like a tonne of bricks. I need to ask each and every child before I manually adjust them. I needed to tell them exactly what I was doing and why. I needed to discuss adjustments and let them know when I approached them that I was going to ‘hold their head and neck in place’, or ‘lift their foot out of their pointe shoe’.

It’s been drilled into us, that touch is the only form of teaching a child how to ‘feel’ the safe physical way of doing an action.

In fact, Spotting is vital in acro and pas de deux. Therefore it needs to happen. Yet, we need to constantly remind the children in our care that they have right to say ‘no’.

Teachers, what are your thoughts on physical adjustments? Have you started to shift the way you teach?