Well, after teaching all fall, I've got a lot of writing to catch up on — I hope this post doesn't get too long. We are making some modest progress in exposing students to dance elements and concepts — and, along the way, I have of course made some adjustments to my teaching practice in order to make that happen…
The 6th and 8th grade classes have both appreciably improved their participation, for different reasons: for the 6th graders, we have been able to transfer a lot of kids between Dance and regular (sports-based) PE, so that a significant majority of my students are now in the class by choice; while with the 8th graders, it was more the fear of failing the semester and not being promoted to high school, which kicked in after warning letters went home from the counselor (and the subsequent discovery that participating in dance actually could be more interesting than sitting around talking…). the 7th graders are still the most challenging class, with a majority of students who regularly choose not to participate (and then often spend their class time talking loudly and playing around all over the auditorium).
I have mostly given up on revamping my curriculum, as I had intended to do this year — given the extra hurdle of so many dance-resistant students, I decided this was not the best year to experiment with new ideas… I am falling back on tried-and-true units which I know have worked well and engaged students in the past. So I have once again been alternating units on technique and dance styles (which is what middle school kids expect — to learn steps) with creative explorations and composition. We recently had a fairly successful unit on Baile Folklórico — I like to start with La Botella from Michoacán, as it is bouncy and energetic, just challenging enough, and fun to do (I had some longtime students at EOSA who would periodically beg me "can we do the bottle dance again?"). We took that up in late November, and it was about the time that some of the 8th graders started to turn around — one week, we had thirteen students who participated fully every single day! (doesn't sound like much, out of 40, but it was actually quite an improvement…).
Creative work has been somewhat harder — these teens like to get together in groups to make up dances, but they are very impatient with exploring the elements and applying them to their compositions. They seem to feel (as is common with teenaged beginners) that the reason for group work is to combine their favorite steps from videos into a really cute dance, and whatever elements I've asked them to pay attention to and work on in their compositions fly right out of their heads as soon as they get started…
Back in October, I challenged them with a symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes project (to create a short dance using only group shapes and transitions), which is always a conundrum for teens who think of dance in terms of "steps" — but they got it done, some groups quite successfully. Our latest project, just before winter break, was more accessible… but it presented some new and unexpected difficulties, which I think I'll get to in the next post as it's already getting late...
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Opposites / extremes
I started out this year trying to stick to the new curriculum I had planned over the summer, though with some modifications. My plan had been to focus on one major dance element or concept each week, with a set structure to the week: creative work lessons on Mondays and Tuesdays to introduce the concept, video observation and journal writing on Wednesdays (which is our district’s early release day, so the classes are too short for getting dressed in dance clothes – good day for classroom work), and technique work that continues to focus on the week’s concept on Thursdays and Fridays.
Unfortunately, the Wednesday observation / writing day went right out the window, for a number of reasons: For one, I had no workable technology for showing video; also, the first time I brought out paper for observations, the non-participating students wadded it up and threw it around the room (so I gave up on that for a while); and, as it turned out, I would still have to supervise the locker room for the other PE class even if my students were not getting dressed – so since I couldn’t take my students directly to a classroom there wouldn’t be enough time for any serious observation and writing anyway. So Wednesdays turned into a very short regular class and catch-up day, either creative work or technique, whichever most needed the extra time…
My plan was to start working on opposites – EXTREMES! One thing that came up at the curricular progressions workshop over the summer was that middle school-aged students tend to live in “medium” – so getting them to go to extremes right off the bat seemed like it would be useful for everything afterward. The elements I picked to work on extremes were size/range, level, and speed/tempo — as probably the most easily accessible elements for brand-new, non-dance-experienced kids.
For Size/range, we did some basic freeze dance work using action words and HUGE and tiny movements (I tried to do a bit of Shape Tag or Puzzle Museum, but only the 6th graders actually did it, since with the 7th and 8th grade classes were still too chaotic to get much past the freeze dance). For the technique classes, I tried to focus on doing a little jazz combination with very big and very small movements (with mixed success).
The next week, for Level, we tried to do a little bit of Rocks and Bridges (from Anne Green Gilbert's book), where movers climb and leap over low shapes ("rocks") or crawl under and through high shapes ("bridges") — again, the 6th graders managed it, but it was a little scary since we were still in the little portable classroom (leaping was really out of the question). We tried the Erosion game the next day, in which pairs manipulate each other into gradually lower shapes, and all the classes had some success with that lesson. For the technique half of the week, because we weren't moving very quickly through steps, I couldn't very well teach them a whole combination focusing on Level in two or three classes (as I had envisioned before school started) — so I just appended five shapes onto the end of their (very brief) jazz combination, alternating high and low.
The next week, we spent just a day working on Speed/tempo, working on finding movements that they could do faster… even faster… hyperspeed! and slower… slower… s-u-p-e-r slow-mo… Then they got into groups and began their first choreography project. The project was pretty simple: create a short dance that includes extremes of size/range, level, and speed/tempo — and, of course, a beginning and ending shape!
For this first assignment, I let them work in groups that they felt comfortable with (this may be a mistake in the long run, but at this point it was definitely a matter of choosing my battles — arguments over "I can't be in a group with him/her!" were just one more thing I did not need to deal with). As it happens, once they got into groups and began planning their own steps, some of the students who had not been dancing yet got pulled along, and began asking if they could join one group or another and participate, so the classes began to look more generally successful…
The next problem was that, absolutely universally, everyone in the class agreed that they could never, never perform their dances in front of the rest of the class! So I made the agreement that, just for this time, I would just come around with my video camera while everyone was working, just as if it was a normal practice day, and no one else in the class would be watching because they would all be practicing (sigh… so much for showing and responding…). I am hoping that once they get a little more comfortable, we'll be able to get them to show in the future… baby steps for now. In the end, the finished projects were not the most original in the world, and the extremes were certainly not as extreme as I had hoped — but about 2/3 of the class did complete the assignment, which a few weeks before was something I would never have believed. So it's a start… This week we're starting on shapes and symmetry, we'll see how it goes from here!
Unfortunately, the Wednesday observation / writing day went right out the window, for a number of reasons: For one, I had no workable technology for showing video; also, the first time I brought out paper for observations, the non-participating students wadded it up and threw it around the room (so I gave up on that for a while); and, as it turned out, I would still have to supervise the locker room for the other PE class even if my students were not getting dressed – so since I couldn’t take my students directly to a classroom there wouldn’t be enough time for any serious observation and writing anyway. So Wednesdays turned into a very short regular class and catch-up day, either creative work or technique, whichever most needed the extra time…
My plan was to start working on opposites – EXTREMES! One thing that came up at the curricular progressions workshop over the summer was that middle school-aged students tend to live in “medium” – so getting them to go to extremes right off the bat seemed like it would be useful for everything afterward. The elements I picked to work on extremes were size/range, level, and speed/tempo — as probably the most easily accessible elements for brand-new, non-dance-experienced kids.
For Size/range, we did some basic freeze dance work using action words and HUGE and tiny movements (I tried to do a bit of Shape Tag or Puzzle Museum, but only the 6th graders actually did it, since with the 7th and 8th grade classes were still too chaotic to get much past the freeze dance). For the technique classes, I tried to focus on doing a little jazz combination with very big and very small movements (with mixed success).
The next week, for Level, we tried to do a little bit of Rocks and Bridges (from Anne Green Gilbert's book), where movers climb and leap over low shapes ("rocks") or crawl under and through high shapes ("bridges") — again, the 6th graders managed it, but it was a little scary since we were still in the little portable classroom (leaping was really out of the question). We tried the Erosion game the next day, in which pairs manipulate each other into gradually lower shapes, and all the classes had some success with that lesson. For the technique half of the week, because we weren't moving very quickly through steps, I couldn't very well teach them a whole combination focusing on Level in two or three classes (as I had envisioned before school started) — so I just appended five shapes onto the end of their (very brief) jazz combination, alternating high and low.
The next week, we spent just a day working on Speed/tempo, working on finding movements that they could do faster… even faster… hyperspeed! and slower… slower… s-u-p-e-r slow-mo… Then they got into groups and began their first choreography project. The project was pretty simple: create a short dance that includes extremes of size/range, level, and speed/tempo — and, of course, a beginning and ending shape!
For this first assignment, I let them work in groups that they felt comfortable with (this may be a mistake in the long run, but at this point it was definitely a matter of choosing my battles — arguments over "I can't be in a group with him/her!" were just one more thing I did not need to deal with). As it happens, once they got into groups and began planning their own steps, some of the students who had not been dancing yet got pulled along, and began asking if they could join one group or another and participate, so the classes began to look more generally successful…
The next problem was that, absolutely universally, everyone in the class agreed that they could never, never perform their dances in front of the rest of the class! So I made the agreement that, just for this time, I would just come around with my video camera while everyone was working, just as if it was a normal practice day, and no one else in the class would be watching because they would all be practicing (sigh… so much for showing and responding…). I am hoping that once they get a little more comfortable, we'll be able to get them to show in the future… baby steps for now. In the end, the finished projects were not the most original in the world, and the extremes were certainly not as extreme as I had hoped — but about 2/3 of the class did complete the assignment, which a few weeks before was something I would never have believed. So it's a start… This week we're starting on shapes and symmetry, we'll see how it goes from here!
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
a difficult year…
Well, I certainly haven't started out to write as frequently as I had hoped for the new school year! My apologies, it is turning out to be a much harder year than I had anticipated — and I'm afraid I was so disheartened, at first, that I just couldn't bring myself to write about it…
As it happens, I do have three dance classes at my new school, one for each grade (6th, 7th, and 8th) ostensibly as a PE elective. The problem is, they programmed the kids randomly into their PE classes, apparently expecting us to sort them all out the first week of school. It's probably a little understandable, because of the way this position came about, in the last week of the school year — they may have already programmed the classes by the time the idea for a dance program even came up. But I had understood that they had polled the students to be sure there was enough interest in Dance to support three classes, so I was a little baffled that they didn't save the names somewhere… We tried to fix the situation during the first week of school... but of course for those middle school students — who are, after all, all about not sticking out and appearing different — once they were in a class and expecting to go out and throw footballs, peer pressure kicked in and very few kids stepped up to say they would rather take a dance class (and leave room for the sports-minded kids to trade into regular PE).
So I ended up with about a quarter- to a third of my students actually choosing to be in a dance class, with the rest constantly asking me when they can change classes (they can't anymore, not until spring semester) or just not participating, playing around and talking incessantly — and a critical mass who were so openly resistant to trying a dance class, or even having a modicum of respect for me as a teacher new to the site, that for the first couple of weeks it was all I could do just to get through taking roll without calling in a school safety officer to get them to settle a bit… For a while, I was in total despair — had I been a first-year teacher, I would have been thinking that there was something seriously wrong with my teaching (thank goodness for the perspective of 16+ years in urban schools).
Added to that was the space issue — the auditorium, as it happens, is the usual repository for furniture that has been moved out of classrooms that no longer need it; and with construction happening with the other school on the same campus, there was a lot of furniture not getting moved out of the auditorium. So I spent the first five weeks of school trying to teach 40-45 students at a time in a regular-sized portable classroom! That would be crowded enough for a "desk" class, but for dance?!?!? Obviously we did not have room to do any of the kind of curriculum that might hook those reluctant boys — running, leaping, sliding — or much of anything else, for that matter. Five weeks in, I was just about ready to file a grievance for health and safety issues when they finally got the custodians to push all of the extra furniture off to one side of the auditorium so that there would be enough room for us to use it… So we now have some more space, but the downside is that there are piles of furniture all over one side of the room, and the kids who don't participate in dance like to play around and hide in the piles…
Things have gotten better since those first couple of weeks... I still have far too many kids (15 out of 45 in one class) who literally never participate, and I spend way too much of my time chasing down, and sending out, kids who are running around the room yelling (not to mention all the phone calls home to parents). And of course, my new curriculum has pretty much gone out the window, along with much of what I've come to depend on over the years (the first time I brought paper for non-participating students to take observation notes, the 7th-graders crumpled it all up and had a great game of throwing it around the room — I haven't brought out a stack of paper since). But we have managed to progress through some creative work and one small-group choreography project as well as a (very) little jazz technique. And at least I'm no longer coming to school with my stomach in knots every day. Baby steps! Perhaps we'll accomplish something this year after all...
Okay, I do plan to start writing about the curriculum we've managed to cover — I hope to post something about the creative work and choreography project over the weekend or early next week. Bear with me, and stay tuned...
As it happens, I do have three dance classes at my new school, one for each grade (6th, 7th, and 8th) ostensibly as a PE elective. The problem is, they programmed the kids randomly into their PE classes, apparently expecting us to sort them all out the first week of school. It's probably a little understandable, because of the way this position came about, in the last week of the school year — they may have already programmed the classes by the time the idea for a dance program even came up. But I had understood that they had polled the students to be sure there was enough interest in Dance to support three classes, so I was a little baffled that they didn't save the names somewhere… We tried to fix the situation during the first week of school... but of course for those middle school students — who are, after all, all about not sticking out and appearing different — once they were in a class and expecting to go out and throw footballs, peer pressure kicked in and very few kids stepped up to say they would rather take a dance class (and leave room for the sports-minded kids to trade into regular PE).
So I ended up with about a quarter- to a third of my students actually choosing to be in a dance class, with the rest constantly asking me when they can change classes (they can't anymore, not until spring semester) or just not participating, playing around and talking incessantly — and a critical mass who were so openly resistant to trying a dance class, or even having a modicum of respect for me as a teacher new to the site, that for the first couple of weeks it was all I could do just to get through taking roll without calling in a school safety officer to get them to settle a bit… For a while, I was in total despair — had I been a first-year teacher, I would have been thinking that there was something seriously wrong with my teaching (thank goodness for the perspective of 16+ years in urban schools).
Added to that was the space issue — the auditorium, as it happens, is the usual repository for furniture that has been moved out of classrooms that no longer need it; and with construction happening with the other school on the same campus, there was a lot of furniture not getting moved out of the auditorium. So I spent the first five weeks of school trying to teach 40-45 students at a time in a regular-sized portable classroom! That would be crowded enough for a "desk" class, but for dance?!?!? Obviously we did not have room to do any of the kind of curriculum that might hook those reluctant boys — running, leaping, sliding — or much of anything else, for that matter. Five weeks in, I was just about ready to file a grievance for health and safety issues when they finally got the custodians to push all of the extra furniture off to one side of the auditorium so that there would be enough room for us to use it… So we now have some more space, but the downside is that there are piles of furniture all over one side of the room, and the kids who don't participate in dance like to play around and hide in the piles…
Things have gotten better since those first couple of weeks... I still have far too many kids (15 out of 45 in one class) who literally never participate, and I spend way too much of my time chasing down, and sending out, kids who are running around the room yelling (not to mention all the phone calls home to parents). And of course, my new curriculum has pretty much gone out the window, along with much of what I've come to depend on over the years (the first time I brought paper for non-participating students to take observation notes, the 7th-graders crumpled it all up and had a great game of throwing it around the room — I haven't brought out a stack of paper since). But we have managed to progress through some creative work and one small-group choreography project as well as a (very) little jazz technique. And at least I'm no longer coming to school with my stomach in knots every day. Baby steps! Perhaps we'll accomplish something this year after all...
Okay, I do plan to start writing about the curriculum we've managed to cover — I hope to post something about the creative work and choreography project over the weekend or early next week. Bear with me, and stay tuned...
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
new school, new thinking about curriculum
I spent three days last week in the Curricular Progressions workshop with the folks from Luna Dance Institute, ostensibly to be working on refining my middle school dance curriculum before starting a new year at a new school… but instead of just tweaking the curriculum, I ended up shifting my thinking in a fairly major way, inspired by another participant in the workshop who is also starting a new middle school dance class. Her idea was that each week (with four classes per week), she will teach two days of improvisation and composition, one day of technique, and one day of video observation and response — with all those classes sharing a common focus in the elements of dance or principles of choreography. For example (to pick one at random), if the focus for the week were Levels, then the improv/comp classes would explore high, middle and low level shapes and movements, the technique class might introduce a combination with lots of relevés and jumps as well as floor work, and on the observation day students could view works by choreographers who work with extremes of level in interesting ways.
As I said, I was inspired… Over the years, I've developed a comfortable flow to my school year — basic jazz and modern technique and historical social dances in the fall, world and cultural dance forms in the spring, with creative work / improvisation / composition interspersed throughout the year as the base, always with enough freedom in the schedule to try out new ideas. But I realized that I've become accustomed to teaching in discrete units, which may or may not relate to each other, and which may or may not build to a coherent whole. So I was excited by the possibility of finding a way to tie everything together, relate the technique lessons to the creative work, make those spiraling skills spiral in a way that makes sense…
So rather than making minor revisions, I've upended my curriculum and turned my head around in a completely new direction. I haven't got everything fully worked out past the first couple or three units, but I can tell my thinking has definitely shifted: the other day, during Hawkins technique class, when my teacher mentioned that Erick Hawkins believed all movement was made up of loops and circles, my first reaction was to start thinking how I could incorporate Hawkins technique into a unit about curved and angular movement (perhaps pairing it with Horton?).
It's just a little bit scary, starting a new school with entirely new curriculum, not falling back on my comfortable, well-tested lesson plans; but it's exciting as well. I'm looking forward to an interesting year (in a good way)!
As I said, I was inspired… Over the years, I've developed a comfortable flow to my school year — basic jazz and modern technique and historical social dances in the fall, world and cultural dance forms in the spring, with creative work / improvisation / composition interspersed throughout the year as the base, always with enough freedom in the schedule to try out new ideas. But I realized that I've become accustomed to teaching in discrete units, which may or may not relate to each other, and which may or may not build to a coherent whole. So I was excited by the possibility of finding a way to tie everything together, relate the technique lessons to the creative work, make those spiraling skills spiral in a way that makes sense…
So rather than making minor revisions, I've upended my curriculum and turned my head around in a completely new direction. I haven't got everything fully worked out past the first couple or three units, but I can tell my thinking has definitely shifted: the other day, during Hawkins technique class, when my teacher mentioned that Erick Hawkins believed all movement was made up of loops and circles, my first reaction was to start thinking how I could incorporate Hawkins technique into a unit about curved and angular movement (perhaps pairing it with Horton?).
It's just a little bit scary, starting a new school with entirely new curriculum, not falling back on my comfortable, well-tested lesson plans; but it's exciting as well. I'm looking forward to an interesting year (in a good way)!
Sunday, June 30, 2013
next year - new school! (and hopefully more regular blogging…)
Well, I seem to have gone completely AWOL for the last couple of months… a consequence, I guess, of teaching at (and dashing between) two different school while simultaneously trying to find a school interested in building a dance program. Also, I guess, there's that thing of not really teaching much dance this year — I have kept a little more up-to-date on the art program blog for my school's website...
So as it happens, I got the word this spring that the art program I'd been teaching for the past two years, since the dance program at EOSA vanished, was also being cut — the classroom teachers thought their kids needed more physical activity, so they decided they needed a PE specialist for their prep teacher (I tried, but failed, to sell the leadership team on the value of a dance-based program… I got comments like "yes, but those sports skills are so important, too…"). When I reminded my contact in HR that I had been trying since December to get some help from her department to get back into a dance position, she gave me a list of three schools with open positions so that I could inquire about interest in dance… To make a really long saga relatively short, one principal replied to my inquiry right away, saying she was so excited to get my message because she had been hoping to start a dance program for two years (if only I'd known!).
So I get to transfer, to a middle school this time (now I will have taught every grade in this district). It will be a half-time position, three classes of Beginning Dance (one each for 6th, 7th, and 8th graders), presumably stuffed full of kids (40-plus in each class). It's been a while since I've taught middle school, so this should be interesting — last time (about 10 years ago), I was a very different teacher, with not nearly so much experience under my belt… and most vitally to me, without having yet had that experience of guiding kids to get beyond cute steps to cool music and to truly create meaning in dance. I am excited to see what will happen (and so relieved I won't have to teach elementary-school PE!)… No matter what, with three dance classes a day, I should be able to find much more to write about here than I did this year!
So as it happens, I got the word this spring that the art program I'd been teaching for the past two years, since the dance program at EOSA vanished, was also being cut — the classroom teachers thought their kids needed more physical activity, so they decided they needed a PE specialist for their prep teacher (I tried, but failed, to sell the leadership team on the value of a dance-based program… I got comments like "yes, but those sports skills are so important, too…"). When I reminded my contact in HR that I had been trying since December to get some help from her department to get back into a dance position, she gave me a list of three schools with open positions so that I could inquire about interest in dance… To make a really long saga relatively short, one principal replied to my inquiry right away, saying she was so excited to get my message because she had been hoping to start a dance program for two years (if only I'd known!).
So I get to transfer, to a middle school this time (now I will have taught every grade in this district). It will be a half-time position, three classes of Beginning Dance (one each for 6th, 7th, and 8th graders), presumably stuffed full of kids (40-plus in each class). It's been a while since I've taught middle school, so this should be interesting — last time (about 10 years ago), I was a very different teacher, with not nearly so much experience under my belt… and most vitally to me, without having yet had that experience of guiding kids to get beyond cute steps to cool music and to truly create meaning in dance. I am excited to see what will happen (and so relieved I won't have to teach elementary-school PE!)… No matter what, with three dance classes a day, I should be able to find much more to write about here than I did this year!
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Dear Marcus…
There was an altar set up in the (former) EOSA building for our lost student and EOSA family member, with papers available to write messages, and this is what I left:
Dear Marcus — I will never forget...
… your sweet, beautiful smile…
… you so often acting goofy in class — and somehow managing not to drive me crazy in the process...
… how you always asked me to play Chris Brown songs for warmup stretches…
… you going on stage all by yourself (after much encouragement — and pushing) to perform your sophomore-year Beginning Dance final as a solo, when your partner didn't show up…
... your junior year dance history final, in the style of Michael Jackson...
… senior year, after being kept out of school for a couple of months, you came back the day before (the day before!) the Winter Concert — and pulled off your part in "Rocka My Soul" with style and aplomb…
… when the whole Dance Production class was asked to come to your Student Study Team meeting, to help keep you on track in your senior year…
… on the way to performing at New Highland Elementary, you grabbed me just before I would have stepped off the curb in front of a car I hadn't seen coming — saying "Mrs. Goodwin, I just saved your life!" (and you did)…
… did I mention your sweet, beautiful smile?…
... and of course, your absolutely invaluable contributions in a class that made some truly meaningful dances together...
You were so much a part of my teaching life for those years, I still can't wrap my head around the idea that you're gone so soon — I will never, never forget you.
Dear Marcus — I will never forget...
… your sweet, beautiful smile…
… you so often acting goofy in class — and somehow managing not to drive me crazy in the process...
… how you always asked me to play Chris Brown songs for warmup stretches…
… you going on stage all by yourself (after much encouragement — and pushing) to perform your sophomore-year Beginning Dance final as a solo, when your partner didn't show up…
... your junior year dance history final, in the style of Michael Jackson...
… senior year, after being kept out of school for a couple of months, you came back the day before (the day before!) the Winter Concert — and pulled off your part in "Rocka My Soul" with style and aplomb…
… when the whole Dance Production class was asked to come to your Student Study Team meeting, to help keep you on track in your senior year…
… on the way to performing at New Highland Elementary, you grabbed me just before I would have stepped off the curb in front of a car I hadn't seen coming — saying "Mrs. Goodwin, I just saved your life!" (and you did)…
… did I mention your sweet, beautiful smile?…
... and of course, your absolutely invaluable contributions in a class that made some truly meaningful dances together...
You were so much a part of my teaching life for those years, I still can't wrap my head around the idea that you're gone so soon — I will never, never forget you.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Hard news...
I found out this morning that one of my former students from EOSA was shot and killed... Marcus was one of the dancers from 2008, in that amazing class who created the dance about youth killings in Oakland. His entrance words for that piece were "I lost at least three of my friends last year… with all this happening, it makes me think about how much longer I have to live..." I had described EOSA, in my NDEO presentation that year, as a school where kids walk around in t-shirts saying “RIP, gone but not forgotten" and miss school for way too many funerals. And so it goes on...
Rest in peace, Marcus, you were beautiful and will never be forgotten...
Rest in peace, Marcus, you were beautiful and will never be forgotten...
 |
| Claudia, Marcus, Asia, & Johari |
Sunday, April 14, 2013
East Oakland student to Mills
I haven't written a lot about my current dance class this year, in large part because it has been one of the most… well, shall we say challenging?.. classes I have taught in all my years of teaching teens — an odd and unfamiliar combination of not taking Dance seriously as a class or subject, but still caring about a good grade. This group has been hard to reach (which is also one reason my blog posts here have been pretty sparse of late).
But we do have small successes, of course, and one came recently in the form of the only senior in the class fall semester. Back in November, we had had the opportunity to attend the Mills College Dance Repertory concert as a field trip (for anyone outside the bay area, Mills is a fairly exclusive private university which boasts one of the preeminent dance programs in the area). Many of the students seemed disengaged during the performance, and needed some reminders about theater etiquette; but this senior was captivated, and talked to me extensively about both the dances she saw and the Mills campus on the way back to school.
Unfortunately, this student had to transfer out of the dance class in order to complete some other credits this semester… But a few weeks ago, she stopped by the class to tell me that she was so taken by the atmosphere on the Mills campus that she had applied there, and had just found out she was accepted! I spoke to her about it again last week, and she said that she was lining up her scholarships and financial aid, and intended to attend Mills in the fall.
The reason this is big news is that, even though Mills is located in East Oakland, just a couple of miles from the inner-city communities where my current students (as well as all my former students from EOSA) live, the low-income students in the community who even aspire to attend Mills are few and far between (those with high aspirations are much more likely to try for the UC system, which is generally much better known). One of my creative dance teaching mentors, herself a Mills graduate, mentioned to me that when her organization began working with the Oakland schools to create an elementary school dance program in the neighborhood, one of her dreams was that she would see an East Oakland student go to Mills… so, one small success from this class!
But we do have small successes, of course, and one came recently in the form of the only senior in the class fall semester. Back in November, we had had the opportunity to attend the Mills College Dance Repertory concert as a field trip (for anyone outside the bay area, Mills is a fairly exclusive private university which boasts one of the preeminent dance programs in the area). Many of the students seemed disengaged during the performance, and needed some reminders about theater etiquette; but this senior was captivated, and talked to me extensively about both the dances she saw and the Mills campus on the way back to school.
Unfortunately, this student had to transfer out of the dance class in order to complete some other credits this semester… But a few weeks ago, she stopped by the class to tell me that she was so taken by the atmosphere on the Mills campus that she had applied there, and had just found out she was accepted! I spoke to her about it again last week, and she said that she was lining up her scholarships and financial aid, and intended to attend Mills in the fall.
The reason this is big news is that, even though Mills is located in East Oakland, just a couple of miles from the inner-city communities where my current students (as well as all my former students from EOSA) live, the low-income students in the community who even aspire to attend Mills are few and far between (those with high aspirations are much more likely to try for the UC system, which is generally much better known). One of my creative dance teaching mentors, herself a Mills graduate, mentioned to me that when her organization began working with the Oakland schools to create an elementary school dance program in the neighborhood, one of her dreams was that she would see an East Oakland student go to Mills… so, one small success from this class!
Thursday, March 28, 2013
NDEO survey (vital information!)
This is a little different from my usual post, but it's an important issue, so… The NDEO (National Dance Education Organization) has been conducting a survey to try to establish a database of K-12 dance programs across the country. One of the reasons that this survey is vitally important is because Dance as an academic discipline has traditionally been left out of the FRSS (Fast Response Survey System) surveys established by the National Center for Education Statistics to collect issue-oriented education data… which is then used in congressional testimony, Department of Education reports, and all kinds of education advocacy. Dance has been left out of these surveys because of the (circular) reason that we just don't know how much dance is out there in the schools! Meaning, of course, that when funding and curriculum decisions are made, we are left out of the conversation again…
So — NDEO began a survey to begin to remedy this situation. The deadline for filling it out has been extended to April 6th — if anyone out there reading this is in a K-12 program and hasn't filled it out, or even knows colleagues who have yet to fill it out, please get to it! The survey form itself is here: K-12 Data Collection Form; with more information about it on NDEO's homepage. Thanks, everyone!
So — NDEO began a survey to begin to remedy this situation. The deadline for filling it out has been extended to April 6th — if anyone out there reading this is in a K-12 program and hasn't filled it out, or even knows colleagues who have yet to fill it out, please get to it! The survey form itself is here: K-12 Data Collection Form; with more information about it on NDEO's homepage. Thanks, everyone!
Sunday, March 3, 2013
the value of dance education (revisited)
Not long ago, I created a short slide presentation on the value of dance education (in order to have something visual for administrators who may be considering beginning a dance program) — then expanded the text in order to have something to send... I still think, in terms of the true value of dance education, that I can hardly improve on what my former student said (which I posted last August); but I thought I might just copy what I wrote here, since it encompasses some ideas and language that I have refined over the years...
Dance Education — a vital component of arts and movement curricula
The arts are an important, though often overlooked, facet of education expanding our vision and training the heart as well as the mind. Dance as an art form has been particularly overlooked in our education systems, although dance is one of the most universal and elemental of art forms.
Dance is the only discipline which combines an art form with a physical activity. In today's television- and computer-oriented society, giving students a start toward a lifetime of physical activity is a necessity. A dance program can provide opportunities for movement during the school day, aligning with the First Lady’s "Let's Move" initiative to combat childhood obesity.
Research* shows that many students today learn best through kinesthetic intelligence — so including dance in a comprehensive curriculum helps to provide access to learning for all children.
* including:
Clara C. Park, CSU Northridge: Crosscultural Differences in Learning Styles of Secondary English Learners
Dr. Stephen Earl White, Columbus Technical College: Factors That Contribute to Learning Difference among African American and Caucasian Students
The study of multicultural dance forms can enhance our understanding of one another as humans: through the study of a variety of ethnic dance styles, students can explore the commonalties as well as differences among widely disparate cultures. Dance can be a way for students to experience for themselves the complex, profound art forms of other cultures.
Taught with a creative base encompassing exploration and discovery, dance helps to expand crucial critical thinking, problem solving, and spatial thinking skills, as students expressing themselves through movement are challenged to think in new ways and to form their thoughts and feelings into physical reality.
In standards-based classes using the Create-Perform-Respond model of national standards for the Visual and Performing Arts, students learn to create using the basic elements of dance — Space, Time, and Force/Energy. Problem-solving is inherent in creative dance, as each lesson poses a problem related to a specific dance element, to be solved in a movement study.
Students will also use their knowledge of dance elements to create and communicate meaning — creating, refining, and performing dances “based on ideas, experiences, feelings concepts, or images that have personal meaning or social significance" (National Dance Standards); and will build analytical and critical thinking skills by responding to the work of their peers and reflecting on their own work.
In California, only 34% of high schools, 10% of middle schools, and 14% of elementary schools offer standards-based courses in dance.
Dance Education — a vital component of arts and movement curricula
The arts are an important, though often overlooked, facet of education expanding our vision and training the heart as well as the mind. Dance as an art form has been particularly overlooked in our education systems, although dance is one of the most universal and elemental of art forms.
Dance is the only discipline which combines an art form with a physical activity. In today's television- and computer-oriented society, giving students a start toward a lifetime of physical activity is a necessity. A dance program can provide opportunities for movement during the school day, aligning with the First Lady’s "Let's Move" initiative to combat childhood obesity.
Research* shows that many students today learn best through kinesthetic intelligence — so including dance in a comprehensive curriculum helps to provide access to learning for all children.
* including:
Clara C. Park, CSU Northridge: Crosscultural Differences in Learning Styles of Secondary English Learners
Dr. Stephen Earl White, Columbus Technical College: Factors That Contribute to Learning Difference among African American and Caucasian Students
The study of multicultural dance forms can enhance our understanding of one another as humans: through the study of a variety of ethnic dance styles, students can explore the commonalties as well as differences among widely disparate cultures. Dance can be a way for students to experience for themselves the complex, profound art forms of other cultures.
Taught with a creative base encompassing exploration and discovery, dance helps to expand crucial critical thinking, problem solving, and spatial thinking skills, as students expressing themselves through movement are challenged to think in new ways and to form their thoughts and feelings into physical reality.
In standards-based classes using the Create-Perform-Respond model of national standards for the Visual and Performing Arts, students learn to create using the basic elements of dance — Space, Time, and Force/Energy. Problem-solving is inherent in creative dance, as each lesson poses a problem related to a specific dance element, to be solved in a movement study.
Students will also use their knowledge of dance elements to create and communicate meaning — creating, refining, and performing dances “based on ideas, experiences, feelings concepts, or images that have personal meaning or social significance" (National Dance Standards); and will build analytical and critical thinking skills by responding to the work of their peers and reflecting on their own work.
In California, only 34% of high schools, 10% of middle schools, and 14% of elementary schools offer standards-based courses in dance.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
CDEA part 2 - the Dance Credential issue
During the morning roundtable session at the Northern California CDEA mini-conference, the ever-present issue of the teaching credential in Dance — or, more precisely, the lack of one — featured prominently in the discussion. For anyone reading this from outside of this state, my understanding (though some of this goes back to before my time as a teacher) is that California used to have a single subject credential in Dance (as well as Drama), but it somehow went by the wayside in a restructuring of credentials that happened in the early 1970s. So currently the applicable credential for teaching dance in this state is in PE (the state apparently assumes that if you're qualified to teach PE, you must be qualified to teach dance — sigh…). There are other ways to go about it — a multiple subjects credential with a subject matter authorization in Dance, for instance — but the PE credential is pretty much the standard.
One problem with this., of course, is that once you have to get a PE credential, they can make you teach PE — which is what I ended up doing for my first few years in public schools, and what I don't want to have to do again… Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against physical education, I believe it is vitally important in its own right — it's just that I personally know pretty close to diddly-squat about teaching any sports (with the sole exception of synchronized swimming, which I'm afraid really isn't called for too often in PE programs), and I do not like teaching subjects I know nothing about!
So there has been a push for many years to get the dance credential restored (as well as the drama credential — drama teachers are in much the same boat as we are, they have to get credentials in English). The discussion at the conference was somewhat hopeful, as there is some movement among the state education department and various arts organizations to bring the issue forward… perhaps there is a possibility of the dance credential being restored within my teaching lifetime...
However, one interesting angle to the PE-for-dance credential problem that I had never even thought of popped up in the course of the discussion: One dance teacher, who had recently been hired to replace a retiring teacher, mentioned that another problem with the PE credential requirement is that lots of PE teachers end up applying for dance positions — she said the previous teacher told her that out of a huge pool of applicants, the vast majority were "PE people" which they had to weed out to get to the relatively tiny pool of dance people… Well, I sat up and took notice at that — because this happened to be a position I had also applied for, but had never been called for an interview. I had presumed at the time that they had been looking for some very specific experience — performing with a major company, a particular technical emphasis, whatever — but on discovering during our lunchtime conversation that there was nothing like that and the only thing that truly separated us was her out-of-state dance credential, I began to suspect another possibility: that I was one of those "PE people" weeded out of the applicant pool! Could it be that someone in HR doing the initial screening actually didn't know that that the PE credential is standard for "dance people" getting credentialed in this state (because there is no dance credential!!!), and simply rejected out of hand all those applicants credentialed in PE without even looking at the resumes? I wonder… does this happen often???
There is one way to put dance on a credential, it is called a "Specific Subject Matter Authorization" (SMA). BUT here's the Catch-22: because the reason for an SMA is to "allow an individual to teach a class in a subject outside the area in which he or she earned a credential"; and because the Commission on Teacher Credentialing considers dance to be "subsumed under" the umbrella of PE, you can't add an SMA in Dance to a PE credential! So, even though all of my coursework was in dance, there appears to be no way to show that on my credential (sigh again). Just another way the arts (especially dance) are disrespected and disregarded in education...
One problem with this., of course, is that once you have to get a PE credential, they can make you teach PE — which is what I ended up doing for my first few years in public schools, and what I don't want to have to do again… Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against physical education, I believe it is vitally important in its own right — it's just that I personally know pretty close to diddly-squat about teaching any sports (with the sole exception of synchronized swimming, which I'm afraid really isn't called for too often in PE programs), and I do not like teaching subjects I know nothing about!
So there has been a push for many years to get the dance credential restored (as well as the drama credential — drama teachers are in much the same boat as we are, they have to get credentials in English). The discussion at the conference was somewhat hopeful, as there is some movement among the state education department and various arts organizations to bring the issue forward… perhaps there is a possibility of the dance credential being restored within my teaching lifetime...
However, one interesting angle to the PE-for-dance credential problem that I had never even thought of popped up in the course of the discussion: One dance teacher, who had recently been hired to replace a retiring teacher, mentioned that another problem with the PE credential requirement is that lots of PE teachers end up applying for dance positions — she said the previous teacher told her that out of a huge pool of applicants, the vast majority were "PE people" which they had to weed out to get to the relatively tiny pool of dance people… Well, I sat up and took notice at that — because this happened to be a position I had also applied for, but had never been called for an interview. I had presumed at the time that they had been looking for some very specific experience — performing with a major company, a particular technical emphasis, whatever — but on discovering during our lunchtime conversation that there was nothing like that and the only thing that truly separated us was her out-of-state dance credential, I began to suspect another possibility: that I was one of those "PE people" weeded out of the applicant pool! Could it be that someone in HR doing the initial screening actually didn't know that that the PE credential is standard for "dance people" getting credentialed in this state (because there is no dance credential!!!), and simply rejected out of hand all those applicants credentialed in PE without even looking at the resumes? I wonder… does this happen often???
There is one way to put dance on a credential, it is called a "Specific Subject Matter Authorization" (SMA). BUT here's the Catch-22: because the reason for an SMA is to "allow an individual to teach a class in a subject outside the area in which he or she earned a credential"; and because the Commission on Teacher Credentialing considers dance to be "subsumed under" the umbrella of PE, you can't add an SMA in Dance to a PE credential! So, even though all of my coursework was in dance, there appears to be no way to show that on my credential (sigh again). Just another way the arts (especially dance) are disrespected and disregarded in education...
Friday, February 8, 2013
CDEA mini-conference
Last weekend I attended the California Dance Education Association (CDEA) mini-conference for northern California... it was not as big a gathering as in the past (before CDEA became an affiliate of NDEO and everyone started going to those conferences instead), but definitely worthwhile — I hope CDEA will grow to have larger (perhaps statewide) conferences again!
First, we had a fabulous workshop on creative dance and the African aesthetic from Cherie HIll from Luna Dance Institute. I especially loved the treatment of the Brain Dance for warmup, and the juxtaposition of open-and-close with various body parts — it felt like discovering anew everything I've ever been taught in technique classes in African forms, from the inside out. Wonderful work! In the afternoon we had a roundtable discussion on many issues, including the struggle to reinstate a dance credential in California, about which more in a later post; and we finished the day with a wonderfully rejuvenating Somatics workshop with Susan Bauer.
I think one of the valuable parts of the conference for me, oddly enough, was the informal discussion we had over lunch. We dance teachers are so often lonely "singletons" at our schools — a typical high school may have any number of math, science, social studies, or English teachers, but only one dance teacher (if that). So while, say, math teachers can get together at department meetings to share ideas and strategies, at our department meetings we see the art, music, and drama teachers — nice for sharing cross-curricular integration and links between art forms, but definitely not the same as talking with other dance teachers about the nuts and bolts of teaching our specialty! So this conversation was invaluable — in a short 45 minutes we gave each other some great ideas on student musical choices, structures for casting student choreography and adjudicating pieces for a concert, dealing with administrators who don't understand dance… and much more. Such a rich conversation! Next month a colleague and I will be starting a little gathering of local dance teachers for just this kind of discussion — now I know how valuable that can be, and I hope it will be able to grow into a regular discussion group.
First, we had a fabulous workshop on creative dance and the African aesthetic from Cherie HIll from Luna Dance Institute. I especially loved the treatment of the Brain Dance for warmup, and the juxtaposition of open-and-close with various body parts — it felt like discovering anew everything I've ever been taught in technique classes in African forms, from the inside out. Wonderful work! In the afternoon we had a roundtable discussion on many issues, including the struggle to reinstate a dance credential in California, about which more in a later post; and we finished the day with a wonderfully rejuvenating Somatics workshop with Susan Bauer.
I think one of the valuable parts of the conference for me, oddly enough, was the informal discussion we had over lunch. We dance teachers are so often lonely "singletons" at our schools — a typical high school may have any number of math, science, social studies, or English teachers, but only one dance teacher (if that). So while, say, math teachers can get together at department meetings to share ideas and strategies, at our department meetings we see the art, music, and drama teachers — nice for sharing cross-curricular integration and links between art forms, but definitely not the same as talking with other dance teachers about the nuts and bolts of teaching our specialty! So this conversation was invaluable — in a short 45 minutes we gave each other some great ideas on student musical choices, structures for casting student choreography and adjudicating pieces for a concert, dealing with administrators who don't understand dance… and much more. Such a rich conversation! Next month a colleague and I will be starting a little gathering of local dance teachers for just this kind of discussion — now I know how valuable that can be, and I hope it will be able to grow into a regular discussion group.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Teenagers…
(sigh) Here it is almost the end of January, and this is my first post of the new year —I'm afraid I have radically slowed down since I began last summer (perhaps I should have paced myself a bit). My excuse this time is that we have been dealing with medical issues in the household: our older little dog (our dogs and cats are my babies) has been diagnosed with diabetes, so we've had a lot to learn about glucose monitoring and insulin injections and such… And, after pondering and agonizing over it for many months, I have finally finished up a long missive on global warming (soon to go up on another blog) — the one thing that occupies my mind almost as much as dance teaching — which has used up a large chunk of my writing brain lately… I guess the upshot is that I do have a life outside of dance and teaching, and life intervenes. So it goes (to quote Vonnegut).
So anyway — I hate to start the year on a negative note, but I feel the need to vent a little about teenagers… Not all teenagers, of course — I have worked with so many responsible and dynamically creative teen students — just the ones who don't care to know anything about the world around them, that they will soon inherit...
I usually teach world / cultural dance forms in the spring semester, and this spring we began with Congolese (I got to practice that sentence I learned in a workshop at NDEO, "I am not an expert in this form, but I have learned ti from an expert and I would like to share some of what I learned with you"). We practiced the Congolese rhythm Zebola, then in our weekly "classroom day" (minimum days too short to get dressed and dance, so we go to a classroom for reading or video observations), I gave the class a one-page reading on the history of Congo and Central Africa — from the ancient Kingdom of Kongo through King Leopold's brutalities and the US-backed execution of Patrice Lumumba. Of course I always expect some pushback to reading about history — "this is boring," "this is a dance class, why should I care about this"… So I brought up the current situation, how resource wars over the coltan needed to power our electronic devices like cell phones are fueling violence in the Congo, hoping to bring some kind of relevance in how what happens across the world is connected to our own lives. The reaction was, unfortunately, along the same lines — "so what are we supposed to do, stop buying cell phones?" I tried to explain about our duty as world citizens to at least know what goes into the things we buy and what our governments do to control resources… but to no avail.
Maybe I'm asking too much, but I know that while I was teaching at EOSA there would always be a critical mass of students who were interested in the social issues inherent in what we were studying — perhaps that was because of the truly exceptional social studies teachers on staff there… I do also remember that when I was in high school, there was definitely some social awareness of what was going on in the world. For goodness' sakes, we listened to protest songs on the radio! (that pretty well dates me, I guess). Maybe it has a little bit to do with what gets onto the radio these days — with the corporate-dominated radio stations playing commercial pablum, teens just don't get as much exposure to the issues… Who knows?
So anyway — I hate to start the year on a negative note, but I feel the need to vent a little about teenagers… Not all teenagers, of course — I have worked with so many responsible and dynamically creative teen students — just the ones who don't care to know anything about the world around them, that they will soon inherit...
I usually teach world / cultural dance forms in the spring semester, and this spring we began with Congolese (I got to practice that sentence I learned in a workshop at NDEO, "I am not an expert in this form, but I have learned ti from an expert and I would like to share some of what I learned with you"). We practiced the Congolese rhythm Zebola, then in our weekly "classroom day" (minimum days too short to get dressed and dance, so we go to a classroom for reading or video observations), I gave the class a one-page reading on the history of Congo and Central Africa — from the ancient Kingdom of Kongo through King Leopold's brutalities and the US-backed execution of Patrice Lumumba. Of course I always expect some pushback to reading about history — "this is boring," "this is a dance class, why should I care about this"… So I brought up the current situation, how resource wars over the coltan needed to power our electronic devices like cell phones are fueling violence in the Congo, hoping to bring some kind of relevance in how what happens across the world is connected to our own lives. The reaction was, unfortunately, along the same lines — "so what are we supposed to do, stop buying cell phones?" I tried to explain about our duty as world citizens to at least know what goes into the things we buy and what our governments do to control resources… but to no avail.
Maybe I'm asking too much, but I know that while I was teaching at EOSA there would always be a critical mass of students who were interested in the social issues inherent in what we were studying — perhaps that was because of the truly exceptional social studies teachers on staff there… I do also remember that when I was in high school, there was definitely some social awareness of what was going on in the world. For goodness' sakes, we listened to protest songs on the radio! (that pretty well dates me, I guess). Maybe it has a little bit to do with what gets onto the radio these days — with the corporate-dominated radio stations playing commercial pablum, teens just don't get as much exposure to the issues… Who knows?
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