Lines of Inquiry - Part 2

Having got a small amount of feedback using a social media site, I have once again slimmed down my lines of inquiry and am now able to split them up in to smaller inquiries. These will be more focused on one point and may go deeper into the subject, rather than just being a brief overview:

 

Having asked both professional dancers, and dance teachers: the two realms in which I am currently working, there was a massive response to two of the lines in particular.

The dancers having been through a vocational school and now in employment, very much sided to:

“Schools and Colleges: Am I here because I deserve to be, or to pay for another?”

They felt very strongly about this and had much to say about it, however, not quite following the title of the inquiry. So pulling that together, everybody was talking about statistics and got into quite a heated conversation (I cannot say debate as it was mostly one-sided). And I came up with a hypothetic ‘statement’ that many agreed with:

 

Let's say for the past ten years 1000 students have been through a British, vocational school (that having talked to many people often give the impression that at the end of their 3 year course, you are almost certainly going to get a job in this country). They all paid 30k a year fees (either through parents, sponsors or the taxpayer) and acted as a pawn in the institution for 5 years. The money and the work contributed greatly to the interests of the school, the school benefitted a lot from the paying, working student body. BUT out of the 1000 students who participated, maybe 100 are currently employed in a British company and maybe 200-300 are employed in a company. Maybe 200 more are employed in a profession where their specific education at the school has benefitted them. However, that leaves 40-50% of students who will have benefitted equally (or maybe more) by attending a school other than white lodge, and yet they paid the same amount of money and invested the same amount of time.

Is this 40-50% ‘waste figure’ necessary to be able to find the 100 students who will achieve the goals that the school advertises? Or is the school acting irresponsibly and taking advantage of good-natured, ambitious students?

 

I realise that this is only one part of it and is only hypothetical as it is compiled of made up figures, but it is not the figures that I am particularly looking at as the can actually be obtained, but the unrealistic outcome that many feel that the school had given them. For this reason I decided to change the title of this line of inquiry to:

“Vocational Schools: Am I here to use the institution for the betterment of myself, or for the sake of the institution itself?”

 

 

On the other hand, those in the teaching profession sided very much with the:

“Health and Safety: Help or Hindrance?”

Many of them comparing nowadays to when they learnt to dance, and the lack of disciplinary measures allowed in to workplace. They also went onto talking about how it is detrimental to dance itself as there are times that you are unable to physically touch a child in order to correct them, or you cannot use methods that you may have done before if you had an unresponsive child, or cannot comfort a child if they are upset. Many of them state that there are times that they ignore the health and safety measures put in place as they believe that following such measures would be detrimental to the child! This is a line where I feel I would get more satisfaction from and would be able to look at from a fairer point of view, as I have not taught for very long, and feel like I am surrounded by enough teachers with clear views and enough experience to build up quite a presentation.

However, my previous title did not actually specify where the health and safety is a help or hindrance, so with that in mind, I am going to look solely at those in amateur training, therefore, my title becomes:

“Health and Safety in Amateur Dance Training: Help or Hindrance?”

 

I may in time, break these down a little further, but I think I shall, at current, decide which path I wish to go down.