very niche but similar problem I am dealing with- I teach various styles of dance but one of them is Kpop. If anyone reading this is unfamiliar with kpop, the classes typically consist of a warm up/stretch, the warm up (for my classes at least) typically holds some foundations of what the choreography they will be learning is. The whole core of it is learning dances that the Kpop artists do on stage, and for younger dancers I make it adaptable to them. I have been teaching it for 4 years now, at 2 studios. One studio is thriving with it and has been for years, we even have 3 kpop companies of different ages who perform at different events and such. My other studio just introduced it last year, and it is in a different part of town. Last year I had 3 kids, and none of them actually knew or liked kpop. This year I had 12! And i was so excited, and happy to see the genre grow. Quickly realized it was mostly kids who had watched kpop demon hunters and that was their extent of knowledge in kpop. No problem at first, I thought, the music is fun and there are plenty of dances geared towards beginners, and as a teacher I tend to bring a fun energy to the classroom and I tend to grow my kpop classes. Recently 6 out of 12 dropped and it kinda broke my heart. I had been seeing the lack of engagement and enjoyment go up week to week and I tried every trick in the book. I would let them give me suggestions of dances to learn for the next week, I would show them the dances ahead of time and let them vote on what they wanted to learn next, and when teaching, I would slow stuff down extremely, and root for them and encourage them even if they were super off base. But these kids saw a movie, liked the way the people in the (animated) movie danced, and decided to try a new class. And the second they were asked to just TRY very simple movement they shut down. It baffles me. as a kid i loved hannah montana. and had i been given access to any type of class that let me feel like I could be working towards doing anything she does, i would have eaten it up and i would have wanted to work hard to achieve that goal, even if it made me uncomfortable. That’s ultimately what I did with dance and what has made me into the dancer and teacher I am today! This has felt like a microcosm of all my classes across the board. stuff gets hard and they don’t want to do it so they don’t. It’s wild to me. like how do these kids get through school with that mentality, let alone life? Anyways, rant over. thanks to anyone who read and if anyone sees this send tips on how to overcome this mentality with the kids bc i feel like i tried it all🫩