A Teacher's Touch

By Janette Brown

You never know what role you play

Last year, the phone rang at my studio and a young lady asked me if I remembered her from many years ago. I was shocked to hear her voice, and I did remember her. Carolyn (not her real name) had danced with me 20 years ago, starting when she was a dimpled, curly-haired first-grader. Then at age 13 she had disappeared. I had not been aware of any discord in her family, but she told me that as a child she had been abused by her mother. She and her sister had moved across the country with an aunt to get away from her mother.

Carolyn explained that she had gone to college and earned a degree in dance education, and that I had inspired her career choice. She said that when she was a child, the only place she ever felt safe was in my dancing school. There, she felt she could escape and forget about all of the evil she had to face at home. Even though she knew that I was not aware of her problems, she felt secure and loved within those walls. Carolyn eventually opened her own studio. After her first recital, she told me, she stood backstage and cried. Her husband asked her why she was crying, since he thought that the show had gone well, and she told him, “Now I’m just like Miss Janette!”

I was touched to hear that I had had such an impact on a young, struggling child. By the time Carolyn and I got off the phone, we were both crying. We have remained in touch, often exchanging pictures of our personal lives and from our studios. This former student has inspired me to continue teaching at a time when I was thinking of retiring. Her phone call made all the years of hard work and heartache worth the struggle. Teachers don’t always know what is going on in our students’ lives or how we might influence them. If we touch just one child, that is more than enough.

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