The Problem
This webpage analyzes the issue of a curriculum in The Ballet Studio. Without a curriculum, teachers of different backgrounds have been teaching different principles, leaving students with a disconnected foundation of training. Teachers often have competing ideas of what should be taught in levels, which creates rifts between faculty where there should be collaboration and cohesiveness. If the school continues to ignore this issue, many students may seek out other schools which contain a more united teaching philosophy. The school is lacking in unity, centralized focus, and consistent training. There are four distinct areas where the lack of curriculum presents itself.
Faculty Backgrounds:The faculty backgrounds and artistic diversity are creating a confusing learning environment for students. Though all of the backgrounds are legitimate, without a central concept in place many students get confused. These differences spark disagreements between faculty members as well.
Level Placements: Because dancers sometimes take several classes a week, they have a number of teachers. When the time comes at the end of each year to do level placements, different teachers may have conflicting reports. A base of information and standards would help to ease the conflicts. As it stands, teachers havedifferent standards for each level.
Parent Expectations: These placements also affect parents and their conversations with teachers and administrators. Without a standard to reference when explaining decisions, teachers are left to justify their decisions without any formal reference. While teacher decisions are trusted by the school, it can be helpful for parents to see that there is some standard being utilized to explain each level. The gap in knowledge from teachers having conflicting ideas regarding level standards reflects poorly on the school.
Mission Statement: The lack of a curriculum also highlights the weak mission statement of the school. Without a solid consensus on teaching principles and goals, the school remains disjointed. By building a curriculum we can close the gaps left in the mission statement. We will have a stronger presence when it comes to current and prospective students. While there may be some disagreements at first with aspects of the curriculum, it will prove more beneficial to have a united perspective as a school and a ballet studio.
Policy Options
Option 1: Strict and Clear Cut Curriculum
This option involves creating a detailed, specific curriculum for each level. Levels would have established guidelines for what is taught and what needs to be accomplished to succeed as the levels progress. This would be similar to professional schools that have created curriculums for all of the ages taught. For example, The JKO School (the school of American Ballet Theatre) teaches the “ABT National Training Curriculum”. The ABT website provides more information about their curriculum: http://www.abt.org/education/jko_school.asp
With a technical and specific program such as this, The Ballet Studio would be able to address the lack of a curriculum in a professional way. The most difficult work would occur when deciding what stylistic aspects to incorporate into the syllabus. For this, it would be necessary to involve the faculty members as much as possible, to ensure that all voices are heard. This version of a curriculum would change how many of them teach currently and therefore needs to be handled very carefully. Any decisions about emphasis or focus would have to be decided by the Director and considered final. From there, teachers would discuss how to further structure classes and levels.
This option requires either a lot of decisions made by the Artistic Director or many long group meetings. Because of the level of specificity in this curriculum, it may not be possible to involve the faculty in the preliminary decisions. An outline should be presented to them to give a platform to start on; otherwise disagreements will likely ensue over artistic and technical ideals.
Option 2: Divisional Guidelines
In this scenario, guidelines would be based on divisions, rather than levels. As it stands, each division contains 2-3 levels and is organized by age groups. Establishing a syllabus based on this breakdown will allow more artistic freedom for teachers. Teachers can collaborate in groups regarding their respective divisions, and then come together to ensure that the divisions are providing a proper basis of technique for the division above. There will be overlap in teachers, but that would prove beneficial and ensure connection between divisions.
Though more flexible, this solution may require more hands on work from the Director to unite ideas while also maintaining guidelines. Again, multiple faculty meetings would be required to manage the implementation. The curriculum would then have to be translated into a written format so that goals and necessary achievements are understood. This solution may also provide a looser approach to age guidelines in levels because students will be considered part of a larger picture. They can move through levels based on age, with a general consensus that by the time they move divisions, they have reached a certain level in technique training.
Option 3: Faculty Collaboration
The third option involves no distinct syllabus created, but instead uses consistent and regular faculty meetings to build a cooperative teaching environment. The meetings have to address the issues that a curriculum would, without physically creating one that all faculty members must adhere to. By having steady conversations between teachers, many of the problems of consistency students feel could be addressed. Simply discussing classes with other faculty who are teaching the same level or those around it can be a huge benefit. Perhaps the student has behavior or technique issues that their previous teacher addressed in a certain way. This insight into their previous years is extremely helpful in understanding how to solve problems or further challenge a student.
This interaction between faculty members would create a cohesive ballet school and a stronger presentation to parents, without limiting the ideas each teacher possesses. Cooperation between faculty members is a crucial aspect of this solution and should be organized beforehand. A possible method could include teachers filling out a questionnaire beforehand, to get a better grasp of what each teacher is doing. Then, ideas can be presented in a meeting along with the goals the school would like to accomplish. Teachers can weigh ideas and concepts, making sure they understand the greater picture. Following this initial meeting, faculty members should meet at least three times a semester to keep this effort intact.
Summary Chart 
This chart visually represents the three options and the components involved. Each component is ranked as high, medium, or low. Faculty freedom regards how much artistic freedom each faculty member will be exhibiting in their class structures, yearly plans, and any other teaching aspects. We see that it is low in the strict curriculum, medium in the divisional, and high in the faculty collaboration. Faculty effort refers to the amount of time and work teachers will be required to put in developing and preserving the new curriculum plan. Overall, faculty members will need to be more involved regardless of the scenario selected. The strict curriculum requires the lowest amount of effort because the curriculum will be given to them without a great deal of deliberation. However, there will still be work involved in maintaining the standards and remaining updated on the material. Divisional guidelines requires a medium level of effort from faculty members because the level of detail in the guidelines is low, but will require more meetings and discussions between teachers to make it successful. Of course, the faculty collaboration option requires the highest level of effort because the time spent in meetings and discussions will increase a great deal. Admin effort refers to the amount of work the Director and administrators will be required to put in. Again, it is understood that an increase in workload will be necessary within all options. The highest level of effort will be required with the strict curriculum, because the Director would need to make all the final curriculum choices. Additionally, the amount of communication to the families explaining the changes would be labor intensive. The second and third options both require a medium level of effort from the administration. Most of the effort in these options involves organizing the faculty meetings and correspondence. Student adjustment involves the level change the students will feel directly and how much communication they need to prepare for the changes. The strict curriculum differs the most from the current system, and would require the highest level of adjustment. The guidelines and collaboration options have a low impact on the current system except to improve the weaknesses.