👉🏼 When what’s NOT working feels heavy, try this:
May 2026
“Go to your room and write a list of things you’re grateful for, and don’t come out until at least one page is full!”
Yep, that’s what my mom used to say to me when she didn’t like some negative teenage attitude I was giving her. I would harumph to my room, but I always felt better after that list, even if I was annoyed at first.
There were so many things to be grateful for.
There are so many things to be grateful for.
Teenage me with my mom in our backyard.
As a Dance Teacher, I’m always trying to get the best out of my students in terms of their dance technique, behavior, dance class protocols, and their actions within our school community. That often comes in the form of redirecting them and guiding them to do things in a professional and organized fashion.
I found myself having a daily audible sigh, or even a teenage eye roll, when students were absent the few weeks before our spring performance. I had specifically said over and over, and written to families about being present in school for these final rehearsals. (I’m not interested in making dances where people don’t matter. You matter. There are formations and partnerships and people counting on you for their entrances and exits.)
STOP
I stopped myself at one point and realized out loud to my students that that was not my intention to highlight the problems in that way. I reversed my tactic and told them how happy I was that they were there, present in class, for our rehearsals. I let them know the contingency plan for each piece based on who was missing that day. That’s the reality of Dance anyway: if you aren’t at a rehearsal, the piece still continues and you might not be in a section of the dance, or your spot might be swapped, or some other solution.
Always a student. PC: @beccavisioncreativestudio
In addition to bringing my attention to the majority of the students that were present, I began focusing on all the students who were stepping up into their performance roles onstage and backstage. I gave compliments to these students in front of the whole class, and guess what? They clapped for each other and congratulated the student(s)!!!
There is a lot of stress that comes along with the performance schedule, but there is always time for complimenting people.
This was brought home to me personally after the performance when many adults in my building congratulated me and went out of their way to compliment both the performance, and the Dance program I have built. Now guess what? That motivates me to keep going.
Positive reinforcement is the name of the game. This doesn’t mean that we don’t give corrections and notes and fix things, we do that alongside the compliments because that builds a community we want to be a part of.
Now go write your gratitude list and let me know how it goes… ❤️
Gratitude list.
This idea of a gratitude list is a great assignment for ourselves and for our students. You could try it with them, too. You could make the prompt specific, or leave it open for them. My students have Dance journals in the classroom and I have them write reflection assignments, other Dance Class notes, and any choreography notes they need in their journals.