Step Around The Floor … At Rogers, Health Class Mixes Dancing With Etiquette
Four long lines of students stretch across the Rogers High School gymnasium, boy-girl-boy-girl. Physical education and health teacher Carol Carpenter’s voice comes across the loudspeaker:
“OK. Let’s review the box step. But first, introduce yourself to your partner. Be polite. Be kind.”
Soft, three-beat music with twittering flutes and swooning strings drifts out of the system. The lines walk forward, to the right, backward, to the left. Forward, to the right, backward, to the right.
“Say thank you to your partner. Gentlemen, move to your right.”
Every hour, every day of the first week of classes, Rogers students file into the gymnasium during their health class period to learn formal dancing, and a bit of etiquette. They’ve been doing so for more than a decade, learning new faces and names at the same time.
There are more males than females in most of the classes, so the guys rotate out of the lines every so often. They wait and watch, ready to enter the lines with a new partner.
“It’s really for communication, to get to know each other,” says junior Thomas Chadderdon, waiting under the giant Pirate mascot at the west end of the gym. “We probably won’t ever use this again.”
“Well, yeah, but no!,” says Matt Wells, a sophomore behind him in line. “You’ll probably use it at the prom.”
“Please be so kind as to introduce yourself to each other. No phone numbers, no addresses. Just first names, please. Gentlemen, swing your partner around to the open dance position.” “When I got here, I thought it was a little dorky, really,” says Physical Education Department head David Carson. “But just like the kids, I got to like it. What I like about this is that when the sophomores come back, they’re volunteering to demonstrate.”
He’s right. Freshmen, especially boys, aren’t enthused. “I heard that we’d do this,” says freshman Bryan Rodriquez. “I didn’t want to come, because dancing is stupid.”
But senior Robert Brummett has a few years’ perspective: “It’s not as bad as some of these kids say it is. In fact, I kind of like it. Not the first year. You know, coming in and having to get up close to the girls and all that. But sophomore year we liked it. We got good and we liked it.”
One boy waiting in line to enter is a bit hesitant. “Hey, just get in there and go to it,” a voice behind him in line says. “If Clifford can do it, you can do it.”
“Forward, left, right close. Forward right, left close. Box forward, side close. Travel forward, left close. Travel forward right side close.”
“I think it’s fun,” says Sarah Sims, a sophomore. “We get to meet a whole bunch of new people, and if we see them later walking in the halls, we can say, ‘Hey, we danced together.”’
And dancing, however painful, still beats a lot of other things that school offers.
“Most of all, it’s better than class,” says sophomore Michelle Tiffany. “In the rest of health class, they show you these nasty movies about health and development.”
The music wanders on, people look at their feet, trying to get the steps right while avoiding their partner’s feet. Then the bell rings and it’s over.
“Gentlemen, ask your partner where she’s sitting. Escort her to her seat. Say a polite thank you to each other before you leave.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo