Not wanting to add to material already covered more than satisfactorily in Dave's post on "guys who don't dance", I have to say I've been forced to think a bit lately about the politics of dancing in public. I've also been forced to recognise that the majority of the people that I work with are very immature. When you remember that I'm a high school teacher, and that I work in a school of 1,400 teenagers, it shouldn't sound surprising, but it is from time to time. Just bear with me and I'll tell you why.
At the request of some of my Year 11 students, on Saturday night I went along to my school's Debutante Ball, a thoroughly anachronistic institution that, amazingly, many teenagers, both male and female, are still quite attached to. I guess it's an opportunity to dress up and get trashed at the expense of parents and school - or maybe there's more to it that I just don't get. Anyway, it seemed important to some of my students that I go to support them, so I was the dutiful teacher, paid my $55 and went along to the Melrose Ballroom in Tullamarine for what my mother would call "an interesting cultural experience".
Now, there was a lot of sitting down, talking, and watching countless teenage girls walk across the dancefloor with their partners and curtsey before the official party. There was also a reasonable amount of dancing. At a few points I contented myself to sit and talk, rather than dance, but when some of the women from work asked me to come out onto the dancefloor, I didn't want to be an uptight pain and say that "no, I didn't dance", which would be a lie - I do, but I did feel uncomfortable at the thought of dancing in front of students, because, when you work with teenagers, you never know what will win you more respect and what will just provide them with scope to laugh at you. Anyway, I decided not to be self-conscious and got out onto that classy Western suburbs dancefloor - and found myself being the token young man dancing with a bunch of (lovely) middle-aged women. Nothing wrong with any of them - they were all very nice. But it was amazing to realise just how much my status as a teacher influenced where I danced, how my dancing was received, etc. Despite being far closer in age to the students than I was to any of these colleagues and spouses of colleagues, I was clearly designated as one of the slightly daggy old people. A bit unsettling, but not an issue for me unless it was an issue for others.
But then you see the looks that some of the students give when they see Sir dancing, and, of course, you know that, to them, seeing you dance is like (to borrow an expression from "Mean Girls"), "seeing an animal walking on its hind legs". You are no longer just a young person dancing. You're a teacher dancing.
A Year 9 boy who I've taught in the past and coached for Debating charmingly told me at school today that "apparently there's a video circulating of you dancing". I refused to react, and showed no interest whatsoever in the situation, which I think was the appropriate response to have, but I went away feeling like somehow I'm no longer just a person. Not in the eyes of my students. Even the kids that like and respect me are a little amused to think that I might dance, or be in any way human. I mean, to give them further ammo today, I arrived at school having had a hair cut (gasp!). I got my fair share of compliments on the hair (it badly needed to be cut, so it was probably an improvement), but was also acutely aware at how much I'm being watched and surveyed. I guess it's just part of life as a teacher, but it's been quite an adjustment this year to realise how much I am on display all the time - and by people who, lovely as they often are, still sometimes delight in identifying faults in you, such as being a slightly dorky dancer. And then there's the ones who are vindictive and cruel. Every school has them. We have to put up with them watching us and laughing at us too, because for them it's about power. We have it, and they resent that.
It just reminds me of how counter-cultural a career teaching is. Normally in life, we go through the various stages of immaturity that everyone goes through in growing up, then, reaching maturity, we spend the rest of our lives (mostly, aside from kids) only with mature people. But in teaching, we willfully return to the often frustrating awkwardness of youth and live alongside it, tolerate it, bear with it every day. It's well worth doing, but also irritating at times. I wonder if it ever gets any less frustrating? As one group of students grows up, we always have a new bunch of Year 7s coming along to replace them. There's no cure for it - just continual patience, and a willingness never to take yourself too seriously.
I'm sure I'll learn. And I'll probably come to embrace how my dancing seems to them. I'd always rather that than be a teacher who doesn't dance.
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