922  teaching teaching

Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 13:06:30 +0100
From: Eero Olli <eero.olli@ISP.UIB.NO>
Subject: teaching teaching

At 09:00 07.01.2003, you wrote:

>Re: Technique
>So the question becomes how does one encourage "bad" teachers to want
>to develop their teaching skills?

I think it is usefull to look at the local tango community as if it was a
company, and the teachers leaders for different areas and at different levels.
Any decent company would have a plan for ledership reqruitment and training.

I our club we have practicas on three or four different levels, once a week
for each level. In addition we give one 12 hour beginners class every month.
In addition there are classes given by good professional dansers, often
from Paris or Argentina, but these are special events.

PRACTICAS
Everybody is encouraged to teach a practica, particularly those who se see
as assests to the community. There is always someone who has been to a
festival, taken a private lesson with a 'star' or just has some idea they
want to share. These practicas are quite inexpesive (cost much less than a
beer).

Teaching at these practicas serves several purposes.
1) The knowledge and experience among us is shared.
2) the dansers get to practice teaching
3) we do not get one 'correct' style
4) The up-and-rising good dancers feel they are included. It is not just
'the old geeks' teaching.
5) People who complain about teaching, often stop complaining, because they
can DO something about it. They can show us how they WANT it to be done.
6) We can introduce other forms of training that is very usefull for tango
(Pilates, Alexander-techinique, Tai Chi or something else). In otherwords,
we can use the competence among us better.
7) if they are truly BAD teachers, they will not be encouraged :-)

BEGINNERSCLASSES:
The people who do best job at the practicas are then allowed to teach a
beginnersclass together with someone who is more experienced. Thus nobody
is allowed to teach a class, until they have substantial teaching
experience from the practicas.

We are trying to evaluate the beginnersclasses, not based on the skills
learned, but on the rate of people who continue to danse a year after (who
pay the membership the next semester). That is what really counts.

There are some very simple pedagogical principles that should be included:
- repeat what is learned so far.
- give the students goals
- teach
- make them realize that (if) they have reached these goals
- repeat in the end.


INSTRUCTOR PRACTICA:
We have our own danseroom, and all the instructors have their own keys.
Once a week we try to have our practica. Mostly we just train separately on
what ever we need to train, but we also ask help from each other in finding
a way to express a certain music or mood, or just a new figure. The most
important part though is that we have a chance to take up topics like: How
to teach the cross? a) if you have lots of time. (=do it right) b) if you
have limited time. c) what are the common mistakes, ande the the excercise
that help to these.
We also have a possibility to discuss what should be thought and what not
in the beginnersclass. We all agree upon that the emphasis should be on
improvisation and the social dansing. There are things we disagree upon: I
think that to excecute a good cross is difficult for a beginner. I would
much rather spend the hour-or-two it takes to make them somekind of a
cross, to make them play with rythms and walking. Give them rather
something that will make them feel like they are DANSING. But everybody
thinks that a beginner shold know the cross, so I bow my head and teach it.

In otherwords, I think that many teachers do enjoy teaching and they want
to become better teachers, but their pride comes in the way, hindering
interaction with other teachers. There are many ways to teach anything,
and it really usefull to talk with other teachers how they teach their
classes. I think that it is the responsibility of a club or community to
create a instutionalized setting (but totally unformal) where this can
happen. Is there space in your community for the teachers to come and ask:
how do you teach an ocho? how do you teach double-tempo? How much time do
you spend on doing pivotations?

Perhaps a session like this can be combined with a bottle of wine?

The differences in teaching are not only limited to technical aspects. We
have discussed a lot how one can simplify: what are the aspects of dance
that we know about, but we choose not to mention, because mastering them
will not be within the reach of the beginners. I am a analytic and
systematic as a person (which you probably have already figured out), and
so are my classes too. My challenge is to make the class more fun and give
the students the sensation that they really master it. Some other teachers
in the club are much more fun, but they do not have enough emphasis on
doing it 'correctly' or perhaps they do not have a good enough sense of
what are the technical skils needed to perform a particular figure, and
they suggest them thus in a 'wrong' order.

How ever we do not what to have a 'standardised' beginnersclass. People
like and need different styles of teaching. Also we who teach have quite
different stylistic preferences, which also influence how we teach. Some
go to BA for inspiration, others to Paris.

All in all, we have a plan for how teaching in our club is getting better
and better, without being dependent on just one person.

Sincerely,
eero