Mailbox MissivesThe Student Rustlerby Shira
I am a student/performer. My teacher does workshops at a particular studio. The
studio informed her that another teacher would like to meet her. Teacher #2 started soliciting her students, right
after my teacher's class was over. She claimed she was coming to the workshop to observe. Well she never showed
up until after the class was over. But that is not all, this woman, behind my teacher's back, already booked the
space and advertised it. She (in my opinion) was very under-handed. She was getting names and numbers of my teacher's
students, blatantly, right in front of her! This woman was also criticizing my teacher's style of dance, even though
she had never even seen it. You already know the answer to the question you asked. Of course, what Teacher #2 did was absolutely, positively unethical, underhanded, rude, and slimy. I hope your classmates all recognized just how unethical her tactics were, and realize if they get involved with her, it will be only a matter of time before she stabs them in the back, too. If I were in your position, then I would probably say to my classmates (where my teacher would be able to overhear it), "Can you believe she did that? I wouldn't trust her any farther than I can throw her!" Or something similar to that... There's nothing wrong with someone who moves to a new community trying to set up
her own dance business, even if there's already someone else teaching there. Even booking times of her own in the
studio isn't necessarily unethical -- if it's the only studio in town or if it's the most affordable one, that's
fair enough. Competition is a way of life in a capitalist economy. Of course, if there are many studios in town
and they're all pretty much equally affordable and equally desirable, then her decision to choose the exact same
studio as your teacher looks rather suspect. The problem in this situation was that the newcomer lied about her
reason for coming to the workshop, attempted to steal the students that someone else had worked hard to develop,
and tried to disrupt people's loyalty to the other teacher by making negative comments. She's using tactics designed
to damage someone else's business in her attempts to build her own, and you're right to be offended by that. |
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