Inquiry

Through Reflection and the many ways to reflect I have started to unlock thoughts on my profession and questions within it that I would like to explore further.

What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiastic to find out more about?

I have always been passionate about dance education and its place within society and its benefits to teaching other disciplines. Can teaching Maths, English and Science through dance have any effect on a Childs learning? Do the skills we get from participating in dance like co-ordination and confidence have any effect on our involvement within society?

What gets you angry or makes you sad? Who do you admire who shares your

feelings or has found away to work around the sadness or anger?

Something that makes me progressively more furious is the ignorance of others towards the arts, I feel that some individuals believe I’ve been running around a field naked singing Kate Bush for the last 10 years, although even this would leave me feeling invigorated. How, when dance is at such a media high can there be so little awareness of how much training, both practical and physical goes into such an art. It has a place in society, why should I feel I have to continually defend it.

I think most performing artists feel the same, not only is it a daily battle to get work, but to have to justify something you have trained to do for many years is just insulting. This is repetitively difficult when you are not working and asked what you are in? Unfortunately contracts don’t last a life time. So for 3 months you can be touring Europe and for a year you can be doing several unfulfilling jobs that leave us as artists feeling like failures. How do we find balance and happiness?

My friend has such a healthy balance she moved from Scotland to pursue a career in dance and has had a fairly rocky journey within the profession but throughout she has managed to stay focused and never question herself and her talents, she once mentioned that she wasn’t under the impression it was going to be easy and these obstacles are here to learn from so embrace them and move on.

What do you love about what you do? Who do you admire who also seems to love this or is an example of what you love?

I have always had a passion for teaching and relish in the idea that children are so enthusiastic and imaginative; they are without inhibitions and can be drawn into a story and taken on a journey. Teaching is like an act where the audience or pupils are taken on an emotional, inspiring journey of self development and learning.

The company I work for have the most inspirational training manager. I have never met anyone so passionate and knowledgeable about children and teaching within the arts. He has taught me the psychology behind teaching and ways to maintain status and keep pupils engaged within your classes. I have attended several of his workshops and I come out feeling totally exhausted just from watching, he is a real inspiration. He believes that every teacher is unique and can play an important role within a child’s learning. What he gives to his training days is years of expertise he believes that as a teacher you are required to have  

·         Clarity

·         Status

·         Drama/performance/enthusiasm  

·         Projection/ two types of voices to enforce discipline.

What I have learnt in such a short amount of time is so fulfilling and the effects of this are immediately rewarding within my classes.

I am also fascinated with other cultures and have spent time travelling across Asia. I love that I travel with my profession. These experiences have given me knowledge of traditional dances, given by some of the best choreographers and so this teaching is simply irreplaceable.

What gets you angry or makes you sad? Who do you admire who shares your

feelings or has found away to work around the sadness or anger?

It saddens me that companies allow unchecked (CRB) under qualified teachers to take dance classes; this puts the pupils in great danger, injury being just one. A performer turned teacher still needs to have certain knowledge.

We are as artists the sole creator of our work and it can be difficult to translate tactic knowledge into words therefore, a great performer does not make a great teacher. In contradiction in some cases I do believe experience can teach you more than a course, but surly teachers need to know what is expected of them, attributes and ways of dealing with discipline before embarking on a career as a teacher.

Has an event, experience or incident prompted questions that you would like to find out more about?

I had a conversation with a friend who is also a dance teacher; she felt that her younger group of children continually questioned her teaching methods. She stated that she asked them if they wanted to perform their dance in front of their parents to which they replied no, she had nowhere to go with this reply.  I told her she had made the biggest mistake by giving them an option. They were too young to deal with choice; they needed to be told what to do.

Education psychology is the study of how humans learn in an educational environment. This conversation has pressed me to ask weather all teachers should have some basic understanding of psychology within education, to know how best to deal with situations, to not let them hinder a child’s development and learning.

Reflection, Looking Inwards and Outwards

I feel through reflecting and experimenting with different ways to reflect I have revealed experiences, feelings and questions about myself and my profession that are full of meaning and allow for further exploration.

Firstly I would to mention that one of my first blogs on the BAPP course was entitled ‘The Naked truth’ this stressed the fact that I felt insecure about participating and having my thoughts and self, as such, laid out for all to comment and question. As an artist these are feelings I am familiar with, doubt and rejection are part and parcel of the learning journey to success. Although within the arts you spent more time reflecting on events yourself. In contrast within this course, I have been using others reflective processes to deepen and find more meaning in my own, this has aided me in looking at reflection in a whole new light. I have started to realise that instead of closing up and intervening to change a situation when I don’t fully understand, I should ask more questions and feel inspired by learning something new.  David Boud (English and Gillien 2001) points out that .

In developing expertise of any kind, it is often helpful to become more deliberate and conscious of the process and more aware of the decisions being made by others and ourselves. It is through exposing these decisions to scrutiny that the assumptions behind them can be identified and a conscious decision to act from a new perspective can be taken.

Reference

Promoting journal writing in adultSan Francisco, Jossey‐Bass.

ENGLISH, L. M. & GILLEN, M. A. 2001.

education,

Reflective Poems

My task was to write reflective poems for 7 days. Although I never managed to complete the task I felt it uncovered some interesting reflective thoughts. I found the task rather amusing and my inability to string words together was rather embarrassing, but what I uncovered was that because I was less focused on content, reflective thoughts that I hadn’t even considered were now presented in rather poor poems. The quote below is from one of my poems.

'A word not really for this place but strangely fits to hide its face.' (carman 2011)

This poem had a rather negative feel to it and presented my worries about several issues that were taking place in my life. This quote stresses that I must find my place within the situation and stop hiding behind my insecurities. This unearthed some deeper reflective thoughts.

Each poem had a running theme all of which were quite negative, which contradicts my feelings towards the task, as I found it a real release and it left me feeling quite positive. In fact at the end of my poems I tend to resolve these feelings quote

'Don't be affraid your not alone'

I don’t feel this is my preferred way of reflecting but it definitely has a place in my reflective journey, in talking me through the day’s events and reassuring me in there outcomes.

Journal Writing Experience- Conclusions

I first decided to do a video journal based on the Reid and Moon framework and then compare this with a written journal a week later. The days had a similar structure but were not particularly busy in terms of what I do professionally.

I find recording my initial reflections fairly straightforward as this is something I do after most teaching classes. Although one question I don’t often ask myself is, did anything unexpected happen? On both occasions this question unearths a new thought and thus my reflective process takes a completely new direction.

Through asking myself this question I have learnt that I often approach tasks with a rather negative outlook. I anticipate that the complete opposite will happen and so I’m taken completely by surprise.

I think something unexpected definitely happened in our working relationship and this week instead of leaving worrying about my other teachers, teaching methods I learnt something from her. Last week I was left in such a confused state that it was a real shock to find myself smiling at learning a new tool from a teacher I had lost hope in. (carman 2011)

From asking myself just this one question I realised that I almost always predicted the worse in anticipation of events. It was only when I was in the midst of them that these negative thoughts dispersed

I needed to rearrange these negative thoughts in my mind as this would lead to the class continually feeling an effort. (carman 2011)

When reading Boud’s chapter from ‘Promoting journal writing in adult education’ (2001) he states that

Feelings experienced as negative may need to be discharged or sublimated; otherwise, they may continually distort all other perceptions and block understanding. Those experienced as positive can be celebrated, because they enhance the desire to pursue learning.

I approach tasks with low expectations of myself and waste huge amounts of energy on negative thoughts. This has a knock on effect and in most cases prevents me from being fully involved in a situation and thus learning from it. This has become apparent in the learning of my ISTD syllabus; I’m finding it increasingly difficult to get the most out of my class this is resulting in me having to do double the work. This pattern is something I was aware of but didn’t realise it had such an effect.

I don’t often ask myself what I have learnt from a situation and in this case it reconfirms my negative thoughts.

I think I learnt not to pre-empt events and expect the worst and to learn from difficult situations, to put aside negative thoughts and not let them overcome you as this will affect you throughout the day. (carman 2011)

Another question that I will continue to use is, make a list of things that come to mind about the day? This question worked better when I didn’t think too much into it. When asking myself this question in my video journal, I unleashed a thought that had not been at the forefront of my mind but was having an impact on how I was feeling that day. London buses came to mind, I feel this revealed maybe why I had a fairly neural feeling towards my teaching because my mind was focused on other things. This only registered when asking myself this question, revealing what I was thinking subconsciously.

What did you value about the day, what made you enthusiastic? Is also a question that really expanded my thoughts. This leads me to re-evaluate a previous situation and drawn up conclusions. This then guides me to ask further questions.

Each week you notice a child get up and talk or dance or do a task by themselves. It is hugely rewarding to see the under confident children slowly participating and growing over time. I sometimes feel that teaching is like a show; I play several different characters and take the audience/class on a journey. I inspire, surprise, shock and make them laugh. So by the end I’m left feeling pretty exhausted. I think the arts play a huge part in the development of a child’s confidence, attention and co-ordination.

A friend of mine once indirectly criticised my profession. What can dance do for you in society? It’s not a real job and so on. I remember feeling so angry, I felt I needed to justify my job and prove to him that my professional had a place. He studied politics and what strikes me now is he had absolutely no social skills. I think to a certain degree that politicians play a role, they present speeches to the world and assure as in their decisions. I don’t know why I have just thought about this but I no longer feel the need to justify my profession, I just feel sad that he doesn’t have the confidence to make a difference and progress and maybe if he had been actively involved in the arts he would. (Carman 2011)

What I have learnt from approaching my reflective journal based on the Reid and Moon framework is how few questions I was actually asking myself. Although I have written much more than any other journal entre, writing lists can be just as beneficial in discovering hidden thoughts and experiences. Only now do I realise just how vaulable reflection can be in my progression and learning through life.

Journal Writing Experience

This is an extract taken from my written journal based on the Reid and Moon framework. I have made a conscious decision to share this and so therefore I have altered it in doing so.

As David Boud (English and Gillen 2001) states

The conditions under which journal writing takes place can have a powerful influence on what is produced and the extent to which writers can engage in critical reflection. If journals are to be used in courses, great care needs to be taken about how they relate to assessed work. In general, reflective activities should be distinguished from those graded.

I guess today wasn’t a particularly busy day in terms of what I do professionally, but I thought I’d choose today as it’s a week on from my Video Journal based on the Reid and Moon framework, so the day has a similar structure to last week.

I spent the morning looking through my grade 4 ISTD modern theatre syllabus book revising the exercises in preparation for my class tomorrow. I spent the afternoon in Chiswick teaching musical theatre to reception and year 1.

 I felt un-rested this morning when I woke but ploughed through the exercises I needed to recap fairly quickly without it feeling too much of a chore as it usual does. I wasn’t looking forward to the journey to west London and it had been in the back of my mind all morning but the sun was shining and so I pushed it to the back of my thoughts.

Once I’d overcome the dread of the journey I was keen to get stuck into the class as last week I was left  feelings slightly deflated and confused as to why our class felt so out of control and disorganised. I needed to rearrange these negative thoughts in my mind as this would lead to the class continually feeling an effort.

We prepared for the class briefly after we had cleared up the confusion as to where it would be taking place. We both equality prepped the class as this was something I thought needed to be done after last week’s conflict. We discussed who would set up the dance, song etc and then started the class. I think something unexpected definitely happened in our working relationship and this week instead of leaving worrying about my other teachers, teaching methods I learnt something from her. Last week I was left in such a confused state that it was a real shock to find myself smiling at learning a new tool from a teacher I had lost hope in.

What worked was that I didn’t just sit back and let one teacher take control of a lesson, we balanced the teaching and set ups equally, the children had clear instructions and were no longer confused as to what to do, as I mentioned in my video journal last week clarity is so important in teaching. The children understood the instructions, knew the boundaries and so felt safe in a fun creative environment. I was somewhat relieved as I had predicted that the class would take a similar turn to last week.

I think I learnt not to pre-empt events and expect the worst and to learn from difficult situations, to put aside negative thoughts and not let them overcome you as this will affect you throughout the day.

Each week you notice a child get up and talk or dance or do a task by themselves. It is hugely rewarding to see the under confident children slowly participating and growing over time. I sometimes feel that teaching is like a show; I play several different characters and take the audience/class on a journey. I inspire, surprise, shock and make them laugh. So by the end I’m left feeling pretty exhausted. I think the arts play a huge part in the development of a child’s confidence, attention and co-ordination.

A friend of mine once indirectly criticised my profession. What can dance do for you in society? It’s not a real job and so on. I remember feeling so angry, I felt I needed to justify my job and prove to him that my professional had a place. He studied politics and what strikes me now is he had absolutely no social skills. I think to a certain degree that politicians play a role, they present speeches to the world and assure as in their decisions. I don’t know why I have just thought about this but I no longer feel the need to justify my profession, I just feel sad that he doesn’t have the confidence to make a difference and progress and maybe if he had been actively involved in the arts he would.

If I looked at my day from my bags point of view I think it would probably tell me to get on with the journey and stop making it such a huge obstacle in my mind. I’m already thinking about Wednesday with dread and it’s only Monday. Everyone travels. There is something about being away from home that makes me feel slightly uneasy.

List

·         Tea

·         Disappointment

·         Water

·         Embarrassment

·         Spring

·         bike

·         sun

When asking myself this question on my video journal, it was really bizarre that London buses where the first thing to come to mind, because I think subconsciously I was fretting about moving to Brentwood but hadn’t even mentioned this anywhere in my written journal.

 

Wikis

I was having a few problems getting my head around Wikis, while interacting I came across Laura's blog. She has blogged about how to post a wiki. Here is a video link which really helped me understand and learn a new web tool.

Blog Enhancements

I have made some changes to my blog, firstly I have started to include bold and italics to highlight names and quotes, having a block of writing can look quiet uninviting to the eye. Nicholas divides sections, underlines new thoughts, all of which is really inviting.

 I have added a flickr slide show underneath the about me section, giving a visual profile and making it more accessible. I like the idea of a bigger picture as Stephanie suggests, Emily and Melissa have both displayed an in action photograph at the top of their blogs achieving a very professional visual example of what they practice professionally. I just need to decide on a picture.

Reflective Practices

I came across Donald Schon's (Schon 1987) idea of reflection- in- action and reflection- on- action. Although I’m familiar with both forms of reflection being a dancer and teacher of dance I find reflection-on-action slightly alien.

As a teacher I use both forms of reflection, I have to reflect-in-action to change what isn’t working almost immediately while holding attention and maintaining control within the class. I then replay the events that took place in the class reflecting-on-action and noting what didn’t work and why, discovering new ways to make it work. When reflecting back on events, I often find it difficult to express the way I felt or the reckoning behind a though. As I mention in my video diary I often say a lot without saying anything at all. I use my expressions and my body to convey thoughts and experiences. This could be the start of trying to access and explain my tactic knowledge.

Michael Polanyi’s (polanyi 1966) states that

‘I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we know more than we can tell’

 I do believe this for the reason that as a dancer it would be almost impossible sometimes to explain or question some of my reflection- in- action reasoning or logic. I therefore struggle to convey these as a written journal. However through experimenting with poems, scrap books and video journals, I have had far more success in accessing this knowledge. As Adesola (Akinleye 2010) states in the reader Polanyi’s statement raises the importance to have a variety of ways to support reflection. Taking sections of the daily newspapers and magazines and creating collages of my reflective thoughts has aided me in unravelling layers and even expressing and explaining my tactic knowledge more than my written journal.

Although I agree with Polanyi, I also believe Osterman and Kottkamp (2004) and Jennifer Moon (Moon 1999) In 'the importance of finding ways to articulate tatic knowlege' (Akinleye 2010) 

It is vital to find ways into tactic knowledge whether these are written in words or expressed through poems, as it’s a step closer to unlocking knowledge that has so much meaning and use for as to learn and develop. Through asking myself different questions and reflecting in different ways I'm experiencing a completely new way of reflecting that is much more rewarding in terms of self observation. 

The video journal below is based on the Reid and Moon framework, taken from the BAPP Module handbook for WBS3002 (2010). Although some of the questions I answer later as they require more thought, in comparison to my previous video journal, I achieve and reveal ideas that I had never thought to ask myself. 

When I think of reflection it is something I have been doing without labelling it. When I teach I get my pupils to reflect on there work and the work of others by commenting on what they think has worked and why and what maybe hasn't. This helps them to look at there work in a different way and to be actively involved in the development of others work, to form constructive criticism and opinions by having full involvement.

John Dewey (1934) felt that interaction with the arts led to unique and valuable experience. I agree with this theory as some of the children that I teach come to develop new skills like confidence, co-ordination, concentration and communication and because they are actively involved in the learning of these skills they start to have new experiences. If based on these theories.

How important is dance in education?

Video journal experiment

Video Journal- 28/02/2011

I have used a few ways to record my journal, I’m finding my video journal most beneficial. The reason behind this is that I struggle translating my experiences and thoughts into words and often talk with my hands and expressions. Someone once said to me ‘I say a lot without actually saying anything.’  What I’ve learnt from experimenting with my type of journal is that my video journal captures far more that my written especially after a long day.

Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic (VAK)

Howard Gardener introduced the idea of multiple intelligence and visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners (VAK). On understanding which of these I feel comfortable using or learn most from I can start to develop ways of improving the others and thus increasing my ability to take in more information.

At the campus sessions we divided into groups to talk about ourselves and our professions and then present a short bio from someone in our group. What I learn from this exercise was that I talked plenty about myself but didn’t actually listen or take in as much information as I could have done about others. If I had, I would have been able to ask more questions and the conversation could have really developed. Auditory learning is definitely not my strongest. Stephanie talks about how she has started developing this way of learning, by listening to BBC 4 radio drama which is something I’m going to try.

I learn most visually, I often say ‘I can see it in my head,’ I record choreography through drawings and diagrams, I learn from demonstrations and videos. I have just purchased the video dictionary of classical ballet as this will be a great tool in my ISTD classical ballet training. Knowing ones strengths means you can play to them but the development of others means you can increase the ability to learn.

Some questions that have started arising as I relate this back to my profession are;

How do I find different ways to teach individual learning styles?

Here are some examples of ways I do this within my dance classes already.

•       I use imagery in the teaching of my younger pupils as they respond well to this. Are there parallels between age and learning strengths?  
•       I actively teach and the students physically do the exercises.
•       I talk them through the names of each exercise relating this back to the exercise. For example in classical ballet tendu means stretched or pulled. I get them to bullet point all the excercise names and there meanings.

It is important that I address a variety of learning styles within my teaching plan. Through further exploration I came across a book ‘Teaching Students Through Their Individual Learning Styles’ by Dr. Rita Dunn and Dr. Kenneth Dunn, this shall make an interesting read if I choose to look further into these questions and for other dance teachers.

My learning cycle

Re-evaluating my journal entries has certified at which point I enter David Kolb’s learning cycle most often.  While reflecting on my ISTD course, I note now I struggle to focus and learn while in a classroom environment. I find it extremely difficult learning from others or reflective observation as I prefer being involved in my experience.

In my journal I reflect on a day of teaching where I was left feeling somewhat deflated. I note that I didn’t feel I contributed enough to the class, allowing another more experienced teacher to take control of a lesson that I had full capability of doing myself. I note that I need to stop second guessing and doubting my initial reactions.

In this situation I wasn’t learning from reflecting on the teacher. I felt that I had to be actively involved in the teaching experience to benefit and learn.

I have reflected upon another day in my journal on my ISDT course, expressing my frustrations at my inability to learn the mechanics of an exercise and comment on how it helps us develop as dancers. I note that on returning home and actively teaching myself from the syllabus book and working it out on my body is only when I fully understand how the exercise can be beneficial to a dancer’s development.

I enter at active experimentation, physically doing the movements, I then relate how this feels to what I already know, concrete experience and I then connect the old and the new working out the relationship in my head, abstract conceptualisation and finally I teach this exercise to other dancers to see if it works, reflective observation.

It depends on what activity you are taking part in as to where you enter the learning cycle and although I use all of these cycle of ideas, though reflection I have have learnt th

at I enter and learn most from active experimentation.

Starting out on BAPP...

Creating this video has taken longer than I anticipated, mainly due to my own insecurities and some technical gremlins. I have toyed with a million ideas on how to make this video creative and represent me ending up with some obscure disconnected results. Finally after much experimentation I decided to record myself after a day of teaching, I feel a little naked but here are my thoughts on starting out on BAPP.