More catching up – a whole semester (plus) of distance learning

 So, as we came back to school for a semester of distance learning (now into the second semester, but that’s another story), our leadership team decided to switch to a 4x3 schedule: instead of having seven classes at once, students would take four classes (whichever were the odd-numbered classes in their schedules) in the fall, and then three (the even-numbered ones) in the spring. The reasoning behind this was that last spring, in our emergency-distance-learning mode, many students (including the multiple-AP class, straight-A students) felt completely overwhelmed dealing with seven classes at once online; and with students completing their classes in one semester, them moving on to another set of classes, it made it more like a college schedule where classes always finish in one semester.

So the 4x3 schedule made perfect sense… The only problem was that under our daily class schedule we saw each class for 55 minutes four times a week (every day but Friday, which was set aside for catching up on homework) – so the total hours we were with each class was about equal to the hours we would ordinarily be with them in a regular semester, while we were expected to cover the curriculum for a whole year.

So that meant narrowing down my curriculum to the absolute essentials… which actually became an interesting exercise in refining my usual plans to make them as meaningful as possible – always a good practice! I think the process helped me think a bit more clearly and make changes that I will want to keep when we are able to return in person.

For the Jazz 1 and Jazz 2 classes, I was able to cover two or three major dance forms each quarter, and two creative work units / choreography projects each quarter. I had always been somewhat dissatisfied with our district’s designation of our main college-prep dance classes as “Jazz Dance 1” and “Jazz Dance 2” – I always had to assure potential students that “we do so much more than just jazz dance”… But after reading many articles on anti-racist dance teaching in the wake of the summer of Black Lives Matter protests, I embraced our jazz dance focus in a whole new way. I was inspired by Amy Compton’s work on introducing her class to jazz dance during shelter-in-place (with lots of really excellent links!), and also a number of articles from the Journal of Dance Education on anti-racist dance teaching… I had already taught jazz as an African-derived dance form, going back to learn traditional jazz dances of the Harlem Renaissance after starting with really basic steps in the beginning of the year; so this year, I just tweaked the curriculum a bit to make the message clearer. I started with showing a couple of videos on the history of jazz and the history of African-American social dances (that one is from a TED-ed presentation by Camille Brown, and is dynamite!) to visually show the connections, then proceeded from there, always continuing the message that jazz came from the Black community.

So for the fall semester, both Jazz 1 and Jazz 2 began with jazz as their first technical unit, then Jazz 1 took on traditional jazz in the form of Big Apple and a bit of Charleston, while Jazz 2 moved on to complete a lyrical jazz combination. In the second quarter (this year’s equivalent of spring semester), Jazz 1 was able to experience Congolese/Central African dance, Baile Folklórico, and Hawai’ian hula; will Jazz 2 studied African-Haitian dance, Brazilian Samba, and Hawai’ian hula. Of course, there was only so much we could all do, through the computer screen and in smallish spaces, but I was actually amazed at how well many of the students were able to absorb such distinct and varied styles! We also managed creative work and choreography projects, but I think perhaps that is a subject for another post… as is what the Dance Production class did this year.