Ethics and selling dance

[D-spot]

Summary.
1. No dance experience required.
2. Sell towards poor self esteem and/or relationship issues
3. The better you hook into their issues the more you can charge and the more lessons you can get them to buy

Pretty standard operating procedures for many studios.
Comments?

 

[Sagitta]

hmmm.... that's the way it goes in any aspect of life. There always are people who are unethical. Take for example me renting a room in my 2 bedroom. I could easily have charged more and got my housemate to pay for more then 50% of the rent+cable etc based on the market around here. However, I have the larger room. So I always have asked my housemates to pay less then half. :cheers:

 

[D-spot]

One instructor is proud of the fact that he doesn't teach his students technique or lead and follow. He just hauls them around the floor.
Of course, he expects the other teachers to dance with them during practice sessions. His students can't effectively dance with other students or teachers. As they are inexperienced (and will remain to be so) they aren't in a position to discern the problems with guy is handing them.
Another instructor only teaches her students new steps, again with no technique or lead and follow. Again, her student is in a position of being far worse than he could otherwise have been. This is despite his paying $50,000 or more for his lessons.
Ethically I find this obscene.
I also think that this is bad for the dance scene, but little can be done.
Or can it?

 

[Throwaway Overshare]

Yes this is all quite bad. But what can you do about it if you can't afford to make enemies of those who benefit from it? The worst part is studio owners who are good enough teachers not to need to bother with these games themselves, but who have less qualified employees who do it with social students. The owner doesn't want to waste much attention overseeing that aspect of the business but expects income from it. This may not be quite as bad as abuse by design (sales classes and all) but more abuse by neglect. It means you can't refer beginners to your teacher's studio unless you are shure they will actually get your teacher and not an underqualified employee.

 

[squirrel]

I know of such instructors here too... I see their students completely unable to dance...

 

[Twilight_Elena]

Ugh. :x How dissapointing. I haven't danced with a teacher of my franchise yet that wasn't good. Guess I'm the lucky one.

Twilight Elena

 

[D-spot]

And there's more.
How about enticing students with tax refunds.
Okay, the refund is dependent on the person 'training' to be a dance teacher to qualify. So, the studio is encouraging people to lie to the tax man. (okay, so perhaps, it ain't so bad). But seriously, I wonder where people stand if a third party encourages tax evasion (or is it tax evasion, in Canada).
As you can see, I reckon this studio is ethically deficient.

 

[Spitfire]

Something I mentioned in an ealier thread; I knew an instructor who told me she left a studio when they wanted their teachers to persuade students to mortgage their homes in order to pay for their lessons.

 

[Ms_Sunlight]

It would be surprising if there were no "cowboys" in dance teaching. Like many other professions -- builders, hairdressers, car salesmen, alarm fitters -- there are going to be people with more integrity and people with less.

Do you not think that, as a dance student, you should be an informed consumer just as much as you would be when commissioning any other service?

 

[pygmalion]

Something I mentioned in an ealier thread; I knew an instructor who told me she left a studio when they wanted their teachers to persuade students to mortgage their homes in order to pay for their lessons.

Ye gods!! :shock: :evil:

 

[Swingolder]

It is the same with some, not all, I hope, of the "trade" or "business" colleges. They promise so much, charge an outrageous fee, teach little and don't come through with the promised job offers. And to make it worse, many of the students are paying through government loans and grants. A friend took a medical assistant course and spent most of a year sitting at a computer doing "assignments" without teacher assistance. She could have bought a couple of good used textbooks and learned the same thing. Being a veteran, the government paid the over $10,000 cost of this.