Dance Education;
More than Just Teaching the Steps
By Tonya Goodwillie
Teaching dance has been a part of my
life for as long as I remember. Even at
an early age I was teaching and choreographing for my friends on the playground
at recess. Sharing my love of dance with
others is my passion and I am fascinated with seeing my students’ growth and
discoveries through dance. I am proud of
the teacher that I have become thus far but am constantly challenging myself to
improve and expand my abilities as a dance instructor.
This paper is being written as a
result of my exploration about teaching the brain as well as the body. I believe this process will take a lifetime,
therefore, the content of this paper is based on my experiences and research
thus far. As a disclaimer, these are my opinions and what works for me at this point. I do not think that every teacher should
teach like I do, but I do think they need to have the knowledge of how their
students’ brains work. By having the
scientific information about how people learn, they can then experiment ways to
teach that work for both themselves and their students.
When
first researching and conducting interviews for this project, one specific
piece of advice was given to me that stands out in my mind. I was told to decide what is important to me
as a dancer and decide what exactly I want to impart on my students.
Stephanie
Scopelitis, from Pacific Northwest Ballet, calls this process “uncovering your
personal pedagogy.” These words will
continue to stay with me as I continue my teaching career. Every teacher needs to decipher what teaching
tools works best for themselves and their students. Teaching is a learning process for the
teachers. It is a constant experiment to
teach with a variety of tools and to monitor the students’ interest, recall and
improvement. A great teacher can read
his/her students and know when to make adjustments to their approach.
This
paper is my way of determining my personal pedagogy and defining what is
important to me as a teacher. I know
that many of my students will not go on to be professional dancers but I want
them to continue their love for dance and the performing arts even as they go
onto other careers. It is extremely
important to me that I involve all different types of learners in my dance
classes. I do not want my students to
feel that they are not good at dance just because I am teaching it in a way
that they cannot relate to or understand.
It is also essential for me to take my student’s safety and longevity in
dance into consideration when I teach. Injury prevention and anatomy education
is key when teaching students how to use their bodies as instruments for
movement. These two concepts are not
listed in a syllabus of steps to teach and are not anything that can be
demonstrated at a recital or competition.
They are simply the foundation of my personal pedagogy.
Pedagogy
is the science or profession of teaching.
The process of how the information is related from the teacher to the
student(s). The two important factors
listed above are not actual pedagogy teaching tools but more so my motivation
to determine what and how to teach.
Gaining knowledge about how the brain learns and what types of learners
exist helps me to develop ways to relating information to all my students. Of course, I teach the steps, have a syllabus
to follow and the incorporate the concepts that all dancers need to know such
as; core support, rotation, use of breath, musicality, expressivity, etc… However, I am more concerned with how I am
getting the information across to my students and how much they will retain in
the long run. This is a win/win
situation for both myself and my students.
By learning about the brain and
how it best learns, we discover that memory is best triggered when there is a
deeper understanding. If a student is
given reasons and explanations of why something is right versus wrong, it will
make sense to them and they will retain the information. This will be discussed more in-depth
throughout this paper but needs to be mentioned as a supportive argument why a
teacher needs to learn about teaching.
What are the benefits for our students having a deeper understanding and
better memories? A deeper understanding
behind movement will create rich, fulfilled movers who are not just creating
the shapes and mimicking. They are going beyond what is asked of them and truly
dancing from the inside out. This will
essentially change the overall quality of the dancers that exist.
Benefits from a dancer having a better memory
seem all too obvious in the sense of remembering steps and choreography. On the other hand, having a deeper
understanding of ‘why’ and being able to retain information will eventually
lead to self correction and overall technical improvement. I have suffered from the issue of students
making the same technical mistakes repeatedly even though I remind them about
it until I am blue in the face. It is
not until they understand exactly how and why they should make the correction,
that they then can make it themselves without my constant reminders. This approach will cut out the general
frustration of both the teacher and the student and will help the student
improve at a faster rate. On the whole,
the technical abilities of our dancers with rise with the ability to
understand, memorize and self correct.
No matter what age you are, your
brain is an organism with constant changes in growth, activity and
connectivity. Our experiences and
influences within our environment lead to these regular re-organization in our
brains so that it is never static and is always ‘reprogramming.’ (Jensen,
2005) Our brains simultaneously lose
connections as it creates new connections (aka synapses). The brain can adapt
to one’s environment by being purposeful and making room for what a person is
specializing in. For example, researchers
found that the part of the brain that is involved in keeping rhythm and musical
time, the cerebellum, was 5% larger in musicians than in the general
population. (Gaser & Schlaug 2003; Hutchinson, Lee, Gaab, Schlaug, 2003)
The brain receives input from the
five senses and the incoming information is then received by dendrites,
branch-like wires that grow out of the cell bodies. This new information is
then processed in the thalamus and other lobes.
The new data can be held in the frontal lobes for 5 to 20 seconds before
it is either stored or discharged. Most information is discharged due to lack
of relevance and/or lack of compelling material. Within the processing, if it is considered
vital information, it will be organized by the hippocampus and then stored in
the cortex in the same lobe it was originally processed in. When learning takes place the following
conditions in the brain are the result: existing connections are modified,
synapses are eliminated based on what you don’t use and the process of
synaptogenesis (new connections) occurs.
Our genes affect our brain by
forming its original ‘blueprints’ but then our environment eventually enables
our brain to develop, refine and customize.
For example:
Most children are born
with the neurons to speak any language but,
because of their
environment, certain synapses are pruned and they
only speak the words they
hear daily. (Anne Green Gilbert)
The brain and body functions need all
areas of the brain to work integratedly.
An enriched learning environment will create a thicker cortex, the
growth of dendrites branching and larger cell bodies. (Gilbert, 2006)
Learning requires time. The brain needs time to organize, make use of
new information and then store the information.
Certain structures of the brain actually deflect quick processing. For
example, the frontal lobes that can only take in
The general rule for teaching is
‘Less is more. Too much, too fast and it
won’t last.’ Curriculums that are too
wide and too shallow will not provide the best education to our students. They need to be able to fully grasp a concept
and be able to apply it through decision making, critical-thinking or even self
correction. Terry Sejnowski, a
world-renowned neuroscientist, encouraged teachers to give their students a
‘personal processing time’ so that the new material can settle and
solidify. If even newer information is
given directly after the first set of new information, there will be
competition between the information as to which will be indexed in the brain
and which will be let go. While teaching
new content to learners, 2 to 5 minutes of processing is best for every 10-15
minutes of learning. (Jensen, 2005)
Once we learn new information,
without being overloaded, repetition is vital to ensure that the new
information is retained and available for recall. We create new connections in the brain with
new information and repetition strengthens those connections. Synapses are always adapting to our
activities and repetition will activate the connection process to allow for
more accuracy. Truly knowing information
will take time for the brain to process it, consider it useful information and
then store it. Repeating the information
will ensure that the information will not be dismissed and that it will be
indexed in long term memory to be recalled when needed. What is reviewed is remembered. (Jensen,
2005) Every time a motor process is repeated, less neural energy is needed to
carry out that process the next time. This is the overall idea of technique and
training our body to move without detailed conscious thought to produce it.
(Ayres, 1979)
The more we allow our students to
use a concept or idea correctly, the more accurate they will become with a
particular skill. Repetition in its
obvious state can become tedious and monotonous to learners of all ages. The solution is to use different approaches
with varied timing so that they might not even be aware of the concepts being
in use at the time. Pre-exposure can be
used to first introduce a new concept in stages, months before it is dealt with
in an in-depth manner. This is a way to
sneak new information in little by little. For instance, chaine turns can be
prepared for by early on discussing the strength of releves and pressing into
the floor with energy from the center through the legs. This way they are already learning and
repeating information that will be useful to them when they do learn the chaine
turns.
Once pre-exposure has been used
and the steps or concepts have been learned, the teacher can use these
steps/concepts creatively in different contexts to avoid the student’s boredom
of repetition. Using the step/concept in
context with other steps that need to be reviewed, having the students teach
the step again to each other, having a short choreography with the instruction
of using this certain step/concept are just a few examples of using repetition
in a variety of ways. Revision is also
an important part of repetition and should take place weeks after the step is
learned. This involves revisiting the
structure of the step/concept and reconstructing what was learned. This is important because numerous factors
can lead to distortion or even loss to significant information. Revision will help to update the information,
double check that it was learned correctly in the first place or correct what
was not accurately retained within the learner.
The only way we know that students
have learned something is if they demonstrate recall of it. (Jensen, 2005) The
learning stages are the original information, the maintenance of the
information within the memory and the ability to recall the information.
Memories are impressionable and activating them helps to maintain them. Memories seem to reside in the location of
the brain in which they were originally processed. Since memories are in so many different
locations of the brain and not stored intact, our brain then has to reconstruct
the fragments when we need to recall a memory. One set of variables is involved
in making memories and another different set is responsible in retrieving them.
Memory can be enhanced by repetition but also by the presences of
emotions. Chemical arousal within the
brain, from emotions and reactions to situations, can strengthen our ability to
recall memories and information. Recall is stronger when we are in the same
emotional state we were in when the memory was created. Retrieval failure can
occur if certain cues or states are not present at the time; thus why we can
remember things sometimes and not others. ‘Forgetting’ or an inability to
recall usually occurs when the material seems meaningless or when the
information was not learned clearly and therefore stored incorrectly, therefore
unable to retrieve. We can also forget due to competition from other
information and decay over time with the information that is not being
used. However, the most forgetting
occurs very soon after learning. (Ebbinghaus, 1985)
Semantic memories can also be
referred to as the linguistic memory. It
is developed by being talked to or by seeing something (such as movies.) Semantic memories have limitations with both
capacity and time, thus why students have a difficult time retaining
information from a teacher who only lectures.
College students who
listened to lecture knew only 8 percent
more than those who skipped
class (Rickard, Rogers, Eillis &
Beidlemant,1988).
A dance teacher needs to
communicate verbally to his/her students but should not rely upon words or just
demonstration alone. Teaching in ways to further demonstrate what they are
saying will help their students to understand it more clearly. After you have given a correction to your
students, ask them to then immediately try to apply the correction and have
them repeat the information back to themselves while doing it, (whether out
loud or to themselves.) This will put the information into their body and help them
feel what you are trying to say to them.
The episodic memory is the
event-related memory. The memory is
enhanced by sensory input and personal experiences. ‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot? Where
were you when 9/11 happened?’ The answers
to these questions are in the episodic memory.
This type of memory is important
for all teachers because it is a natural effortless process within our brain
and has unlimited storage space. By changing the normal teaching situation and
creating a different experience and maybe even triggering a different emotion,
the student will then have a chance to store the new information as an episodic
memory. Learning in a humorous situation
with a funny story connected to the material or creating a personal experience
such as a story intertwined within a movement phrase will allow them to be
connected personally to what is being taught.
Suggestions for strengthening
learner’s memories are:(Jensen,2005)
Up until this point, the brain has
been discussed from the perspective of an adolescent or adult brain. We need to also take the children’s brain
into consideration since they have their own rate of brain development that
differs from adults.
During the first five years of
life the child’s brain is focused on sensory and motor skill development. Rapid changes and growth have occurred and it
has learned the language of learning. No new neurons are added after birth, but
the first few years of life are filled with rapid growth of dendrites and
synapses. Between the ages of 5 and 10 years, the brain will reach 90 percent
its adult weight. The child’s brain is
immensely active in building dendritic branches and synapses are more dense at
this time in their life then they ever will be again. So many synapses are
being created that weak synapses are eliminated. Everything that a child does not do, sends a
message to the brain that those connections may not be needed and may be
released.
Numerous studies have been done to
discover that infants have competencies that biologically predispose them to
learn. The traditional view of children
being able to only learn and know a
little is rapidly being proven wrong. As children grow and have experiences,
they can become progressively more competent.
Children can learn almost anything in an environment where they can
thrive through self-directed learning that enhances their effort and will to
learn. According to A. Jean Ayres, PhD,
a human’s nervous system is not completed until about age eight. Once these connections within the nervous
system are complete, the person has potential for full coordination and for the
learning capacity of an adult.(Ayres, 1979)
The brain needs to develop in
stages and when a certain stage is missed there could be problems in the
brain’s programming in the future. The different parts of the brain must be
able to coordinate with each other to work effectively and if one of the
bridges from one part of the brain is not built, the brain and body cannot
fully function with each other. Movement is key to learning and movement can
help to construct those ‘bridges’ within the brain. Our bodies are very much a
part of all our learning, and learning is not an isolated "brain"
function. This is where Anne
Green-Gilbert’s research on Brain Compatible Dance Education is most useful to
me. The BrainDance are eight fundamental movement patterns that we are
programmed to move through in our first year of life. These movement patterns wire the central
nervous system and prepare us for a lifetime of learning and moving. Babies learn and experience movement by being
on their tummies but many babies are not given a suitable amount of time to do
this anymore. Her BrainDance allows both
children and adults to reorganize these patterns within their brain so that it
better helps them to prepare for learning as well as behavior and social
skills. The BrainDance patterns include breath, tactile information,
core-distal movement, head-tail relationships, upper body and lower body
halves, body side movement, cross lateral movement and movement using the
vestibular system to link all forms of the sensory information and to be aware
of where we are in space.
Knowing this information, and more,
about children’s brain development will give teachers knowledge on how to make
the lessons more age appropriate. We can
help to nurture their rapid dendrite and synapse growth by encouraging creative
movement through make-believe and stories.
We can also help to finish building bridges in their brains by creating
movement phrases for them that move them through numerous patterns instead of
just one or two patterns. Teachers can also promote creativity and imagination
in their young students instead of just teaching them to “see and do” by
copying shapes. What we teach our dance students as children is going to take
them into the rest of their lives with priceless tools, whether they stick with
dancing or not.
Up until this point, the research
discussed within this paper was specifically designated for learning in
general. Information about learning can
definitely(and should,) be applied to teaching dance but one might wonder how
much the variables change when you add movement to the process.
Research is actually beginning to
show that movement can be an effective strategy to strengthen learning and
memory and enhance motivation (1). As
dance teachers, this is in our favor.
What researchers are recommending for other teachers is what our
curriculum consists of.
The cerebellum is most associated
with motor control and just might be the most complex part of the
brain.(Jensen, 2005) The cerebellum has fibers of information fed to it and
then feeds data back to the cortex. Research
by Peter Strick at the Veteran Affairs Medical center of
Another idea about learning
movement is that thinking about our movements before we execute them requires
connections to all sensory areas. Using all sensory areas means that we are
using many different parts of our brain to move. This is what dancers do all the time in class
and choreography.
Another supportive claim for
movement and cognition is that our brain is fed a high-nutrient chemical called
neurotropins when we exercise. Neurotropins increase the number of connections
between neurons, so it can be said that exercise increases the amount of neuron
growth.
This information is a fabulous
claim for us as dance teachers and my only hope is that more public schools
will utilize this research and begin to add more movement in the school
system. However, other variables also
need to be taken into consideration when teaching movement besides just knowing
the benefits.
A dancer’s body is their own and
they ultimately need to learn how to activate their own muscles to execute
movement. Movement planning is helping the student to organize and understand
the movements so that the student can then take responsibility for what their
muscles are doing.(Ayres,1979) It’s a
way for the student to be in control and teach their own muscles. If information is learned so that the brain
will understand, not just ‘see and do’, the dancer’s cognition of the
information does not necessarily mean that the body will do it right away. However, the brain’s understanding of the
material will allow for repetition and the dancer to self-guide their way to
the proper movement of their muscles. It
takes time for muscles to learn what they are supposed to do, thus where
practice and repetition comes into play.
John Hopkins researchers have found that the brain will retain and
recall muscles movement information better if they are learned slowly.(John
Hopkins Medical Institution, 2006) Motor
learning requires different time scales and needs both time and error to master
a movement. Time refers to allowing the
brain to process it and letting it ‘seep in’ to the memory. Error’s are the way to help the brain fine
tune the muscle movements. If the brain
first understands the movement properly, the brain will then continue to
communicate to the muscles what is needed to do. The muscles will take time to learn the
movement but the brain will continue to instruct and fine tune until the
muscles have the movement correctly.
There are a few items to take note
of when trying to utilize movement planning within your curriculum. First of all, a teacher that demonstrates too
much will not allow his/her students to get to the point of movement
planning. Following the teacher does not
improve coordination or memory because movement planning is not needed. The brain is not fully understanding the
movements as it is just copying what is being seen. To encourage students to plan their
movements, show the steps or combination only a few times. Also make sure to teach it in a way that it
is understood on a deeper level, whether it be discussing it technically,
expressively or even rhythmically. Then
give them time to work it out on their own.
Let them experiment and do not expect them to get it right away. The teacher is there to help but not to
hinder by trying to do everything for them.
The student must be the director
of his or her own movements. (Ayres, 1979) Movement planning allows for
purposeful, directed movements instead of random movement that sometimes
appears as unorganized or even uncoordinated.
Movement planning also requires
that the student have a reason for moving.
The movement should have a purpose so that their brain can further grasp
why it is being done. For instance, demi
plies help us to push off the floor into big jumps or demi plies help us to
ground our movements into the floor. Of course the reason must fit the age of
the student and their ability. Knowing
the reason for moving will put the movement into a purposeful category in their
brain. This will further help the
student when they are planning their movement, consciously directing their
muscles and then even self-correcting.
Movement planning, for me, is the
solution to just showing the steps.
There are many more variables to be added to this concept at the teacher
discretion and decision. Dance teachers do need to keep in mind that the
information that we want to get through to our students’ bodies must first pass
through the brain. Knowing more about
the brain will help us to get the material to the brain and eventually to the
body quicker and without distortion. Any progress that we make with our
students physically will almost always come from through the skills we give
them to learn, their ability to learn and memorization.
I have briefly touched on how people
learn differently and how not every dancer learns best by the see and do
method. Howard Gardner’s Theory of
Multiple Intelligences is a superb way to break down and understand the
different learners that exist.(
“ …each of us gravitate to
some (intelligences) more than others. There
are behaviors and interests central
to each of the seven intelligences that
some of us exhibit more than
others, and consider to be our strengths.
Each
of these is a valid pathway
for getting information to the brain and the body.
Your intelligence is like a
building with seven doors, all of which lead to the
same place. There is not right or wrong way to get there,
there is only the way
that is best for you. The fact that most dance teachers primarily
use only two
of them, (Linguistic and
Bodily /Kinesthetic) and the others rarely or never,
makes learning difficult for
some and impossible for others. The gift
of dance
is being denied to those
whose lives might be improved by it.”
Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence
(aka ‘see and do’)
This traditional method of
teaching dance is for those that learn well by seeing an image and translating
that onto their own body. Kinesthetic
learners learn best by moving their bodies.
They are the ‘hands-on’ learners and also do well with tactile
corrections from an instructor. As mentioned before, this method has worked for
dance teachers for many years. However,
teaching only by this method can hinder deeper information and internal cues
about the movement for even those that learn best this way. These Kinesthetic learners can benefit from
other teaching methods so that they do not just ‘mimic’ the shapes.
Linguistic Intelligence
Many writers and poets fall under
this auditory sense of learning. This is
the most widely shared learning process for humans and is also the most studies
of all the intelligences.
(Walton, 1999) Verbal descriptions and cues with words are
the ways that these people learn the best.
They also react to the tone of the voice and how the words are
communicated.
This is the second most common
teaching tool for dance teachers. It is
helpful to say the names of the steps and/or talk about the steps as they are
being taught but there are other ways to use this intelligence. Voice inclination can be used to make certain
connections to the levels or texture of the movements. For instance, a movement with a deep slow
plie can be said slowly in a deep voice.
Another way of including the auditory sense is to have them hear
themselves say the steps. If this is
included with the kinesthetic way of learning, it creates a multi-sensory
environment. We retain 50% of what we
hear and see at the same time; 70% of what we hear, see and say; and 90% of
what we hear, see, say and do. (Gilbert, 2006)
Musical Intelligence
The musical intelligence is also
highly related to the auditory sense but is more specific in the terms of
pitches, rhythms, melody and harmony.
This intelligence is considered one of the earliest to emerge in
children, (as early as 2 or 3 year old.) These learners think in terms of music
and patterns.
Music is so integrated within
dance that this learning style is easy to access. Clapping the rhythm of the steps or the
footwork can be helpful to these learners.
If time permits, even musically counting a phrase will open their eyes
to a deeper understanding, and would be a lesson about counting for all the
other students! I have found that even
singing or humming the movements to a phrase, while doing it, makes the
rhythmic patterns more obvious. Young
students especially enjoy making up a tune to match the movement phrase. While using a specific piece of music,
pointing out the musical accents to match certain movements and explaining
which part of the music (melody, bass line) was your inspiration to choreograph
to is also helpful.
Spatial Intelligence
This intelligence is mostly
connected to the visual sense. Spatial
learners have the ability to perceive the visual world and mentally construct
those forms in the mind’s eye.
These
learners tend to think in pictures and need to create vivid mental images to
retain information. It has been referred to as replaying a movie in
one’s mind. In dance class, this can
specifically refer to long movement phrases, judgments about partnering,
predictions about rotation and/or velocity and directional patterns.
This
visual sense will do well with being shown a phrase while adding information
about the pathways and overall architecture of the movements. Mapping out the pathways taken on a
chalkboard would be incredibly useful to these learners and interesting to most
of the other students as well. Specific information about direction of energy
within the body, symmetry vs. asymmetry and even pointing out landmarks within
choreography are wonderful tools for this learner. All of these tools do not have to be
communicated verbally or even by the instructor at all. Group discussion is a perfect activity for
observing and making notes of visual details.
Logical/Mathematical Intelligence
These
learners think conceptually in logical and numerical patterns making
connections between pieces of information.
They use reason to make sense of ideas and concepts.
They
have the ability to visualize concepts without a concrete model and to even
relate abstract thoughts. They might
take the technical information given in class and process it by thinking about
it and watching others experiment with it.
They will logically sort the information and will usually be the
students that ask questions that might even challenge the teacher.
These
learners need information as well as a deeper explanation of how and why. They might also need time to deal with it on
a mental level before they jump into practicing it incorrectly. Understanding that they need information and
time is the first and foremost way for an instructor to deal with these
learners. Within choreography, they
might also be interested in musical counts of the steps, the geometry of the
dances, the staging of a piece, the sequencing/ patterns of the dancers on
stage with one another and even the number of times a movement occurs.
Interpersonal
Intelligence
Interpersonal
Intelligence learners usually have ‘good people skills.’ They have the ability to relate, understand
and make distinctions of others. They learn by seeing things from other
people’s point of view in order to make sense of how they think and feel. Hearing other opinions and/or reactions will
help these learners to clarify what they think and feel. They also have a knack
for sensing moods, feelings, intentions and motivations.
These
learners do extremely well in group situations and especially enjoy time of
reflection to discuss individual experiences about a movement or opinions about
choreography, etc… They will do well
with a one on one situation where they might have to teach something to a
fellow student. Partnering, whether
planned or improvisational, is an exciting way for them to apply new
information and thus retain it more.
Since these learners also read people so well, it is imperative for the
teacher to keep his/her positive mood throughout the class as well as keeping
an overall pleasant disposition of the class as a whole. This is easy to do if the instructor leaves
their own daily problems out of the classroom and demonstrates passion and
excitement for what they are teaching.
Intrapersonal
Intelligence
This
learning style is known for thinking deeply about ideas and concepts. They have the ability to self-reflect and be
aware of their own inner state of being.
They then try to make sense of their own feelings and use them to
understand and direct both decisions and behavior. They are usually well aware of their own
strengths and weaknesses. The
relationship with their own ‘inner life’ encourages constant contemplation of
reason, desires and even dreams.
Allowing
a dancer to be internal during class and not always categorizing them as shy or
introverted is one way to facilitate these intrapersonal learners. General reflection questions can be asked,
even without group discussion, for these students to ask themselves. Questions
could be as simple as, “What are you feeling when you execute this movement?’,
to something more complex like, “What story are you telling the audience
through this movement phrase?” Anything
that can be done during class to pull from feelings and a deeper sense of ‘why
we dance’ will interest these types of learners. This is also a great way to get other
students to think more in-depth about their own movements and their underlying
meanings.
For me, teaching dance is an ever
evolving process. I am constantly trying
to learn new ways to teach and inspire my students. There are so many concepts
to be aware of and try to integrate into my lesson plans that it can be
overwhelming. While researching for this paper, I was encouraged clarify what
is important to me. This was incredibly
hard as I feel that it is all important.
All the pieces of the puzzle must be present for the whole product to be
complete. For example: if I focused on only technical aspects in my classes, my
students would be lacking in expression. If I provided dance instruction
without educating them more about their bodies, they would not be fully skilled
at how to best use their instrument…their body.
My job as a dance instructor is to prepare them with building blocks
that eventually stack into a strong foundation.
Based on my training as a dancer
and my experience as a teacher thus far, I have many opinions on dance
education. I know that many of my
negative experiences with my instructors growing up as a young dancer have positively
changed me into the teacher that I am now, by teaching me what not to do. I know single handedly I cannot change how
all dance teachers do their jobs but I hope to be a positive role model for my
students who someday also hope to teach.
Not every dancer is made to be an instructor and this is where I think
the root of the problem lies. We need
dance instructors that are aware of how to best communicate information to
multiple types of learners. Dance instructors
also need to be able to protect their students’ bodies in the form of injury
prevention, providing knowledge about anatomy as well as knowing what young
bodies can handle throughout their training. We, as dance instructors, affect
our students in more ways than we can possibly realize. I would like for more dance teachers to
recognize that teaching dance is so much more than just teaching the steps.
Public school teachers go to
school for years to learn how to teach because they are dealing with the
delicate fact of filling our children’s brains with important information they
need for life and further development.
Dance teachers not only deal with the brain of their students but also
their bodies. We take it a step further. Knowing how to effectively transfer
information from ourselves to their brains and eventually their bodies will
give our students the chance to truly learn the movements inside and out.
Traditionally the movements have just been relayed by seeing the teaching do
them and the students copying. Teaching
for the brain to process the information further has been left out of the
equation and dance teachers have been teaching for many, many years without
this information. I guess one can say that dance has survived so far, so why
the need for a change? Over the years,
something must have been done right. The demand for dance education is on the rise
and we are successfully producing beautiful strong dancers. So, why make dance teachers jobs even tougher
by asking them to do more than just teach the steps?
I, however, would like to think of
what dance education could be if we expected dance educators to be educated on
HOW to teach. I hate to think of how many interested dancers came to class for
the first time and quit because they were frustrated. Not every learner is successful in learning
in the ‘see and do’ method. Many dance
teachers teach with only one learning style and that is not how every person
learns effectively. How many
students/clients have we lost over the years due to this common problem? How
many more lives could we have affected through dance and movement if we had had
the knowledge to be able to effectively teach them all. We can almost assume that the dancers that
stick it out over the years have evolved through the survival of the fittest because
they thrived or even managed while only being taught through the ‘see and do’
method.
The body is a very amazing tool
and needs to be treated with great respect.
I know there are many teachers
that have never taken a kinesiology course or even know the first thing about
injury prevention. I was victim to this
situation as a teenager and feel very strongly about this issue. Due to my teacher’s lack of knowledge for the
body, we were constantly asked to do things that were damaging to our
bodies. The damage was not noticed right
away because it was only small micro-injuries.
Micro-injuries, however, add up over time and eventually cause long term
damage. We were asked to dance without a
full proper warm-up and only worked on strength training for our abdominals,
(mostly for aesthetic reasons.) Last, but definitely not least, we danced on a
linoleum floor that covered cement! Not
a wonderfully supportive floating floor that protected our joints, but a cold,
non-absorptive cement floor. This paper
is not about my injuries or weakness’ in my body due to the years of this type
of training. Yet, I can only imagine
what life would be at this point without shredded cartilage behind my patella
and constant hip joint issues. Dance
instructors need to know what the body is capable of and what their students
are capable of doing safely. This not
only promotes to our students how to better take care of their bodies…their
instrument. It also provides our
students with the gift of longevity.
Hopefully they will be dancing long into their
lives because they choose to and because they are able to physically. There are
many older dancers that exist today that are not dancing because their injuries
will not allow them to. Of course,
through time weakness’ appear in the body based on normal wear and tear. We have to assume a certain percentage of
injuries are normal based on a persons’ genetics and what their body could not
handle. I am focusing on the other group
of dancers that maybe could have had micro-injuries and weakness’ (that lead to
injuries,) prevented because of the knowledge from their dance instructor. As dance instructors, we have a
responsibility to protect our students’ bodies and to provide them with a safe,
healthy atmosphere. Learning about the
body and it’s limitations are essential. We should provide our students with
knowledge about their body and how to strengthen to keep it safe. This will allow our students to dance long
into their life, if they so choose. Over
time, this strengthens the amount of people dancing and supporting dance. This is a win-win situation for all.
Finally, having more qualified
dance instructors will ultimately gain support of the usually un-supportive
population of our community. Whether we
like it or not, there are people that believe that dance is silly and is a
waste of time. Although there is
research to prove otherwise, we need to make use of this research on a daily
basis to prove our credibility to our critics.
The research is there to prove how movement enhances learning and we
have seen all along what successful learners our students are in activities
even outside of dance. Taking dance
education to the next level by first educating ourselves as instructors will,
in the end, open the eyes of the non-supportive public. The rest of the community really needs to
know why dance education is important and what the benefits are to someone who
is not going to ever dance professionally.
How can we educate the public about this if our dance teachers are not
even aware of the facts and the research?
The benefits of our communities
knowing the facts about the importance of dance training are endless: more
people appreciating dance overall which leads to possible increase in ticket
revenue, more students enrolled in dance classes, more boys being enrolled in
classes, more dance education in the public schools, better grades for students
overall, healthier and better physically fit children and even a better
reputation for dance as a whole…just to name a few.
References
Ayres, A. Jean. Sensory
Integration And The Child. Western Psychological Services, 1979.
Bransford, John. How
People Learn.
Jensen, Eric. Teaching With The Brain In Mind.
Gardner, Howard. Frames
of Mind.
Gilbert, Anne. Brain
Compatible Dance Education.
Walton, Joan. The Art
And Science Of Teaching/Learning Dance. Stanford, 1999.
Appendix
A: Science Daily Article from
Appendix
B: Good Talk about Good Teaching, By
Parker J. Palmer, 1993.
Appendix
C: Sample Movement Development Structure.
Appendix
D: Sample Developmental Structure based
on William Perry
Appendix
E: BrainDance Summary, Anne Green
Gilbert.
Appendix
F: Dance Pedgogy Questionnaires
Appendix
G: Online Interview with Elsa Posey