The Ballerina Dilemma
As I continue my PTO this week through next Monday, I have pre-posted blogs to run in my absence.
Several years ago, I was in a presentation by several young alumni. They were making a presentation to students sharing what they wish their 23 year old selves knew when they were first starting Wake Forest. All of these young alumni had been exceptional students – high achieving academically, involved in lots of extracurriculars, well-regarded.
One of the pieces of advice given was [paraphrased] “I wish I had been more present and in the moment instead of always thinking ahead and worrying. When I was in class, sometimes I was worrying about whatever was coming next or some other activity or person, instead of just enjoying the moment. I could have been really focusing on the material I was learning, but my mind was in a million places instead.”
Another said something like this [again, paraphrased] “I wish I had realized that the difference between getting a 93 and a 94 on something is really not that big a deal, and I could have used the time and energy on something else.” In other words, it was not worth driving yourself crazy just to get that one extra point (and one point normally doesn’t have an enormous impact on your overall grade).
Thinking about the perspective of young people and what we see anecdotally of this generation – huge ambition, eager to please, high achievers, but with an aversion to risking and potentially failing – led me to remember a conversation I had with a Wake Forest related friend. She is a former professional ballerina, a weapons grade talent who had danced in major US cities and toured the world with prestigious companies. She is teaching ballet now, and she was telling me once that one of her biggest struggles was to get her students to attempt big jumps and complicated moves.
She said to me [more paraphrasing!] ‘The students don’t want to try because they are afraid to fall. Do you have any idea how many times I fell flat on my face, on stage, in a tutu in a performance? More times than I can tell you.’
My ballerina friend’s point was that she was willing as a student and as a professional dancer to try, to be bold – and I’d bet you a Camino Bakery coffee that 99% of the time she executed the moves perfectly. Her fear of the potential of failing was not enough to keep her from making the attempt.
Which is something she wasn’t seeing in some of her students. They don’t want to try, lest they fail. And unless these students try, they will never reach this ballerina’s level.
How can we help our students figure out that it is worth it to take the ballerina’s leap? Even if they fall, they will have learned something. Is it better to keep your tutu pristine and unwrinkled? Or is it better to try that jump, even if you stumble?
Therein lies the Ballerina Dilemma.
— by Betsy Chapman, Ph.D. (’92, MA ’94)