- Jan 5, 2011
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"the expectation would be to graduate from one level to the next each season. If we can't make that happen" ... "we failed as their teachers."
She did not say the student was a failure, nor was she blaming the student. She was blaming herself. She used the word fail to continue her analogy to elementary school. When you do not progress a grade, you fail the grade and repeat it. There is no other term for it. She was not calling the athlete a failure.
CEA sets the bar high for their athletes. The athletes are motivated, work hard and strive to meet the high expectations. I like that, and I wish I had been coached under a similar system in dance and other aspects of my life.
Many gyms set the bar high for their athletes, including the one we're at. And we do like it. Not really sure what that has to do with this quote though. I actually like CEA just fine; I was offended by this post. I see that she is blaming herself (and her staff). But first off, I am clearly not the only person who took it the way that I did, given the number of posts here. Secondly, quite frankly, I don't think that anyone should be called a failure because someone didn't progress to the next level.
To be perfectly honest, the pink part was not really the part that upset me - I merely thought it could have been worded better, but I think we're all guilty of posting things that could be worded better. The part I had in green ("It is funny to me to see the celebration that exists on teams of athletes who have been level 2 for 3 or 4 years. To us, that is the equivalent of celebrating the same spelling test words for the 4th year in a row and being excited about knowing them.") had me beside myself. I'm sorry, but I'm not really sure why we aren't talking about that part more. I've tried to read the whole post again and again to wrap my head around why that part was even necessary...and to try to see a different intent, but I keep coming up blank.
Saying that you find a team celebrating a win "funny" is just rude. No way to spin that. I mean let's say I came on here and said something like "OMG...I saw someone say they were happy to get third @ Worlds and I thought it was so funny. They got first last year and had so many of the same team members. Isn't that like learning the same spelling words for a test and getting some wrong the second time?" Wouldn't I be strung up by my thumbs? How would that be different? It's rude to say someone is "funny" for celebrating a win. Can someone pleeeease tell me how that was ok to say?