Nicole Billman Adam Padgett English 1101 November 19, 2012 Respect for Pointe Shoes and Tutus

Dancers are not just insanely flexible human beings. Dancers are not just designed to do multiple turns at one time and stand effortlessly on the tips of their toes. Dancers are not just taught how to dance just to dance. In every flexible human being stories are told, emotions are expressed, and minds are inspired with every turn on each tip of each toe. To understand the way dancers view their world as such I went to observe a higher-level ballet class here at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. After my observation I gathered much more than just dance moves and pink leotards. The dance studio held more than just ballet bars and shiny wooden pallets perfectly assembled for a dancer. Every dancer strived to hold their focus on improving their own skill. Showing respect to the professor was second nature. There was an equal amount of respect for the pointe shoes and tutus. It became apparent to me that there must be a correlation between this learned behavior exhibited in each dance student and a good amount of experience in this strict recreational activity of ballet. From my experience with dance, most students begin dancing before they even learn how to walk so participation in ballet classes was established at an early age. Our generation of teenagers seems to have a rapidly growing lack of respect that should be shown toward adult authority. The lack of discipline and inflated sense of self-importance were not displayed while I was observing the ballet dance class. By putting two and two together it was obvious that requiring children to participate in strict recreational activities at a young age will help them show more respect as teenagers.

It is monumental that the lack of respect for adult authority is being recognized on a national platform. Society fails to stress importance on simple actions that could be performed to help diminish this issue. As I observed in the ballet class, every dancer acquired the now desired skill to be respectful to their professor. Lets call ballet the strict recreational sport and say as we did in the above stated thesis that involvement in the sport starting at a young age has given these dancers the skill of respect. Buse and Enosh, the authors of Youth Experience; Effect on Participation in Recreational Activities, are just two individuals who believe in elevating the participation rate in recreational activities at a young age. They explore the idea that an individuals personality, interests, and behavior patterns are laid down in the formative years and that recreational activities play a key role in shaping and molding certain skills to be used later on in life. A survey taken in late October of 1972 on socioeconomic profiles of family participation in recreational activities comprised data from a sample of households drawn from nine different states. It aimed to examine not future behavior but the current behavior in youth affected by outdoor experiences with their family to calculate the impact on further participation and behavior. An even further explanation was given by trying to support their hypothesis with different models of indirect and direct effects of participation in recreational activities on the youth. The model is in no way thorough and may be a tad skewed because there are certainly several other causes and influences for why children participate in outdoor activities, what they learn from them, and how large the possibility is of them continuing their participation in said activity. Its full ability to back up Buse and Enoshs hypothesis is slim but it gives their audience a visual example of what their article is about. Although we are not concerned with the continued participation aspect of Buse and Enoshs research, their data proved helpful in

verifying that earlier experiences influence the development of behavior systems and the stability of such behaviors. If an individual with no background or knowledge of dance were observing the same ballet class as myself, they would instantly be able to say that the dancers most likely had been taking ballet since they were able to walk. Being a dancer, I can verify this statement. It takes a great deal of discipline and time to develop the skills that ballet dancers are equipped with. Although this may be the case, it is hard to say whether or not they took a break from dance. We can now start to question how they remember to apply these learned skills later on in their future dance career. Madeline J. Eacott and Alexander Easton, two contributors to the Department of Psychology in Durham, proposed another concept of why respect is hard to come by in the teenagers of todays generation. At a discussion meeting in early February of 2011, both Eacott and Easton posed to a variety of speakers attending the meeting an idea called Remembering the future which is later clarified as an approach to what we understand about the relationship between past and future in relation to human and non-human behavior. An influential theory that has been associated with remembering the future is that of mental time travel. There is careful consideration when relating these two ideas with each other. Eacott and Easton review and question this notion and propose that both episodic memory for past experience and thinking about future personal events form a continuum. For example, being a part of previous natural disasters can greatly affect how one goes about their day in the future as if they are preparing for the same natural disaster to happen. According to Eacott and Easton, if a child could learn how to properly respect their authorities then applying that episodic memory should prove to be easy once that child becomes a teenager. Their past experience with being punished for ill behavior should almost make the child want to only show respect towards their

elders. To instill future-orientated thinking in children Martin-Ordas et al, one of the meetings attendees, used verbal and non-verbal tasks to pin-point the use of episodic over semantic memory strategies. Episodic memory is a type of long term memory for specific events and experiences. Semantic memory is also a type of long term memory but instead it is more concerned with the recollection of ideas, meanings, and concepts. So instead of applying the memorization of ideas and concepts that an individual has learned from their past, they would apply their experiences from autobiographical events that can be explicitly stated. Not only would these tasks that Martin-Ordas used choose the episodic memory strategy over semantic, but they would almost divorce themselves from each other and from setting future goals of with different behavior. Instead, people would pull from past experiences and behavior to influence their future. The evolved purpose for future-orientated thinking that Eacott and Easton indicate in the meeting may cure the teenage society of todays generation who lack the ability to properly show respect. Another interesting idea pertaining to effects of participation in recreational activities is proposed by two individuals that are dedicated to juvenile justice system and recidivism prevention. David K. Howard and Lorraine C. Peniston focus on exploring the role of recreation as a preventative and treatment device that can assist youth in developing and maintaining a satisfying leisure lifestyle (Howard and Peniston, 3). It is no surprise that both youth with and without disabilities who do not have a sufficient opportunity for healthy recreational involvement are at risk for delinquency and involvement in juvenile courts (Howard and Peniston, 3). Barriers preventing children to fully participate in an activity include physical and/or emotional obstacles as well as certain disabilities. Howard and Peniston touch base on the fact that teachers, coaches and recreational personnel have begun to exclude children with disabilities

from participating in leisure activities. Personally I understand the reasoning behind the exclusion from participating in sports just because a child has a disability.