Frustrations with dance education advocacy

Once again, it's been too long since I've written here — partially because such a difficult year at my school has just not been very pleasant to write about; but also in large part because I spend so much time searching for a position in a school where a dance program might be more viable, it has left little time for writing… So, one thing I have written about lately (in an article for the CDEA newsletter) is my long-term frustrations with attempting to bring dance to schools without it, and I thought it would be appropriate here as well…

I have been in public education for 17 years. Most of those years (aside from the seven I taught at EOSA) I have spent much time and energy advocating for dance education in schools which have no dance programs. Unfortunately, I feel as if I’ve been beating my head against the same wall for all those years – there are so many schools which boast comprehensive, award-winning music, visual art, and theater programs, but offer no dance at all. A few examples: one Bay Area high school offers seven different drama courses, from Beginning Drama through Stagecraft to Directing; eight music courses, including three levels of Band, two levels of Percussion, Jazz Ensemble, Concert Choir, and String Orchestra; and sixteen visual arts courses encompassing various levels of ceramics, drawing & painting, photography, and design — but no dance (except as one unit in Core PE)! That school's district, encompassing five large high schools, offers no dance at all among the fifty-two VAPA courses in the district course catalog (but does include Dance among eight requirements of one PE course). One well-regarded private school, in its promotional materials, boasts "every student involved in esteemed performing and visual arts and music programs" – but includes no dance in the curriculum.

I've always tried to emphasize that the state content standards specify four arts disciplines, while so many schools only offer two or three; that dance is the only subject which combines an arts discipline with physical activity; as well as critical thinking, spatial thinking, problem-solving, college-readiness (viz. the CSU/UC "g" requirement), etc. Over the years, I've been told "we're a small school, we don't have room in the schedule for luxuries like dance" or "we have so many arts courses already," or “we value the arts here, but we prioritize what we presently have…”

One bay area school district recently completed an assessment of all arts programs, and found that middle school dance was a huge gap — while many of the elementary schools have dance programs through arts providers or in-house teachers, and the one large high school has an excellent and comprehensive dance program, there is no dance at all in any of three middle schools. I met and brainstormed with the district arts coordinator, and we agreed that an itinerant teacher shared among all three middle schools could make it more feasible for any school to rebuild a program from just one or two classes. Unfortunately, none of the three principals was able to find room in the budget for even one dance class – so middle school dance will continue to be a huge gap.

Another large public high school recently completed new PE and performing arts buildings including a dance studio, but found no room in the budget for a dance specialist – so a PE generalist with no dance background or experience (but a specialty in team sports) was assigned to teach two sections of Dance! I assisted her with curriculum ideas this year and guest-taught one class per month, and had high hopes for helping to expand the program (with a "real" dance teacher) next year. But though the department had been optimistic that increased enrollment could warrant adding a dance specialist, the district decided that the school should host JROTC instead — so the dance classes will be taught by a non-dance teacher for another year.

This is, of course, not new: years ago, I found various schools which were on the cusp of adding dance to the curriculum, but at which all efforts failed. The VAPA department chair at one high school was certain of new arts classes for the next school year – “the arts pathway is going to be a reality and dance classes will begin in the fall.” By the next spring, those plans had withered away due to a budget crisis – and ten years later, that school still has no dance in the curriculum. Another VAPA chair urged me to contact the principal, (“I would love it if we could get a dance program going”) – but the principal never responded, and the program never came about.

I have also advocated for dance education at various "independent" schools — so many of which boast their fabulous arts programs but have no dance at all. Many seemed at first to have excellent potential, but after years of messages back and forth, those prospects faded away.

One private K-8 school advertises its emphasis on critical thinking and project-based learning (such a great fit for creative dance program!). I contacted the associate head of the school and got a prompt response asking for a phone meeting. In the phone meeting, I described a well-planned creative dance program, and he wrote about it in his school blog: “rather than force students to simply learn steps or routines, Avilee teaches them deeper concepts such as line, shape, path, range, level, tempo, rhythm, and weight... Clearly this is not the unit on square dancing we all experienced in our own educations! This conversation made me excited to continue to look at the possibilities around adding dance to our program...” However, after the idea was brought to the school governance committee, eventually it came to “maybe you could talk to our after-school coordinator,” and then even that possibility evaporated.

I likewise kept in contact with a small private high school in the east bay, where a colleague was the VAPA chair. After some dialogue, I was told that the academic dean had “expressed that there may be interest as well as need for beginning a dance program next year.” The dean contacted me about setting up a meeting in the summer, but my message offering possible dates was met with no response… until the fall, when one more contact generated a brush-off: “I don’t foresee us needing a dance program in the near future, our current arts program meets our needs...”

These are, again, just a few examples of advocacy failing to make a dent in the scarcity of dance programs in this state. In California, only 14% of elementary schools, 10% of middle schools, and 34% of high schools offer standards-based courses in dance (according to the Unfinished Canvas report); and only 0.28% of California students are enrolled in a dance course (according to DOE statistics)! Bringing a new program into a school is an incredibly difficult endeavor, and in so many cases, even with an initial positive response, following through to getting a new program accepted and running can seem nearly impossible. It is hard not to get completely discouraged...

an impromptu lesson

I haven't posted much recently — in a challenging year, it has been difficult to find things to write about that don't sound like complaining… But I did have a great little impromptu lesson with kids at the studio last weekend.

I have been back teaching at the studio on Saturday mornings this year – teaching some ballet (since that is what moms bring their little girls to learn) and as much creative work as I can fit in. I also occasionally sub for another teacher in the afternoons, which this close to the spring performance usually just entails cleaning up the parts of the dances kids have already learned… So I was doing just that with the advanced teens jazz class in the afternoon, when 15 minutes from the end of class, one of them mentioned “I think maybe Nicole wanted you to help us get ideas for our solos for this dance.” “Oh... you mean some improvisation to help get you started?” “Yes!” “Cool! I wish we had started a little earlier, but let’s see what we can do…”

So I quickly ran to my dance bag, took out my little pack of action-word cards, and picked out a few that I thought would fit well with mood of their dance. They were working to “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone (yay! some classic music for these teens!)… I pulled out push, pull, slither, glide, sway, and swing, along with leap, slash, explode, and stomp for punctuation. We explored those movements as much as we had time for, pairing up some actions: show me lots of ways to slither (high, low, curved paths, zigzag paths, with your heads, knees, arms...), punctuate your slithering with exploding (tiny, huge, arms only, legs only, explode inward...); and the same with push/pull and leaping, gliding and stomping, etc. We didn’t have time for a real improvisation, so I just gave them a couple of minutes to review all of the actions they had explored to see what felt good to put together; then they showed whatever very short movement phrase they had come up with, to be the basis for their solos. Some of them came up with some movements that were way out of what I would consider their comfort zones (those standard pique turns and leaps that good technical teen dancers like to fall back on) — it was such a pleasure to see them diving into their explorations with wild abandon… It was also a good teaching moment for me — I’ve long said that I could practically teach technique in my sleep, but I have to obsessively plan creative work lessons –  so it was nice to know I could pull out a successful lesson (however short) at the drop of a hat!

Teaching practice adjustments (or, what I'm missing this year....)

As far as those adjustments in my teaching practice, there have been a couple of big ones, neither of which I'm really particularly happy about. One is that I still have not tried requiring regular journal entries for these classes — as I wrote about earlier, the first time I supplied paper it was crumpled up and thrown all over the room, used as footballs or paper airplanes, so I just abandoned the idea for a while. The next time I tried was in October, when we were unable to use the auditorium for three days and went to the library for video observations and writing instead. Some of the students did fabulous, insightful work (reminding me why I really miss reading those regular journal entries); but so many tore up the paper and left it (again) in a mess all over the room… That. coupled with the extremely short time I have to get anything done in my classes (about 25 minutes after dressing, hiking across campus from the locker room to the auditorium, then reversing the process at the end of class), has kept me from being too eager to pull out the writing paper again… leaving a big hole in my teaching, at least for the time being.

The other major adjustment has been in the "perform" part of the Create-Perform-Respond cycle. From the very beginning all of the kids were absolutely horrified at the thought of showing their work to their classmates. On the last couple of creative work / composition units, during the two days of exploring the elements, I did manage to get the 6th graders to show their individual phrases, one-half the class at a time — but that was as far as they were willing to go. When we got into the group compositions, I once again began hearing "we're not going to have to show this to anyone else, are we???" The only way I have been able to convince all groups to even finish their projects is by promising that the only person who will see their completed work is me (and my video camera, for assessment purposes). My compromise has been to come around with the camera and record them during general practice time, right where they're practicing, while everyone else is also practicing and therefore presumably not watching — no showings, so no responding either. Of course, this neatly chops off a huge part of the experience of dance — a performing art form, after all — but so far it has been the only way to get the kids to let me see their compositions at all! I keep hoping that as we go along they'll develop the confidence to begin showing — maybe in the spring semester, we'll see…

Directions & facings project

The composition project I gave just before winter break was pretty simple: create a dance using any steps, movements, and dance styles you like (school-appropriate, of course!), a long as you include movement that travels in at least three different directions and that faces at least three different walls or corners. We started out with a couple of days of explorations — first just reviewing axial and locomotor movement, then working with various traveling directions and axial facings. I included a lot of actions they could play with in various ways, and by the end of the second day many students were getting into the spirit pretty well.

Then they began working in groups on the composition, and I ran into a new problem: most of the 7th graders (those that were participating and working on the project, at any rate) wanted to dance to a song called "Payaso de Rodeo," which I soon discovered is the music for a simple line dance well-known in the local Mexican-American community, much the way the electric slide was well-known to mostly everyone a couple of decades ago. The dance itself does nominally fulfill the basic requirements of the project, as it travels (minimally) in four directions and faces four walls — the complete dance is: slide/chassé to the right, then left, then back, then front, then one-quarter turn to the next wall and repeat... over and over and over...

I had a very hard time getting across to them just why this wasn't okay for their project, especially since some students who hadn't been participating before actually started to join in ("but we're dancing, what do you want?"). I had to sit them down and explain that this was a creative work / composition project, that I was expecting them to create something, and that just getting up and running through a dance that I could see random people doing in innumerable YouTube videos was not creating! I used the analogy that if their English teacher asked them to create a short story based on their own experiences, using certain elements, it would not fulfill the assignment to just write down a story that everyone already knows, like Snow White or the Three Little Pigs. A few of them tried to tell me that their English teacher would be okay with that (I told them I was pretty skeptical, and that I would certainly check with their English teacher!)… They did finally get the point, chose new music, and created a dance of their own (pretty basic, but their using their own ideas at least).

This did, of course, give me an idea that what these kids really want to do in my class is something they already know how to do — which is a little weird to think about in a learning situation, but could be related to making them feel successful, or at least in their comfort zone… something to ponder for the future, at any rate.

Fall semester — some progress, some adjustments

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...

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!

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...