please help. I teach a baton and dance class. the last few years our group has grown smaller in size which causes us to combine classes in order to have enough members to compete in certin events. The problem is .. some.. well.. one particular girl who is the oldest on the team is not crazy about having younger and less experienced girls on the same team. The student could be a wonderful role model to these girls ..she is a great twirler .. dancer and always knows all the counts(sometimes better than the coaches). instead .. she is rude obnoxious and some times down right mean to the other girls. I feel a certin responsibility to her because I know she is only wanting whats best for the team. but she is a no holds barred type of kid. at times I being a coach.. feel like I am being challanged by a bully.. and she LIKES ME!
anyone else ever have one of these?

Yea, some kids are like that. She does seem to need encouragement and support. Maybe you could give her a leadership role of some sort. Or allow all your older more experienced ones some privledges, like special parts that the younger ones don't have. But you can't allow her to bully the younger kids. For some of them it would be scary to come up and work with the older ones. For others it may have been exciting but when they find the older girls being mean to them they may lose their enthusiasm.

You need to have a talk to her and tell her it is innapropriate. If it continues you need to look at having a negative consequence, like missing a show or competition.

yes .. you are right. In our show floor corps they do have special parts and are considered the elite members of our team. This girl in particular does not have the best of home lives. but she is not concerned that any one including the coaches feels like they don't measure up to her expectations. She has a special liking to me, I feel like this could be one kid I could make a differece in. I just dont want to send her the "your not as good as you think you are" message. but then again negitivity is a contagious desease. maybe she needs to be aware that these girls look up to her. she could make the difference in one of there lives if she tried!! Thanks for your post!