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.
I think you have come across some really good lines of inquiry here Nicole. It's great to hear about your passion for teaching and you are obviously very serious about being pioneering and coming up with fresh ideas for teaching, not just treating it as a job.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read your comment about whether subjects such as science, english and maths be taught through dance, it made me think of a poster I saw yesterday on the tube. The slogan was something like "Teach Maths?...Start with PE", and it showed a teacher taking a class outdoors and playing basketball, then using photographs of the ball's progress into the basket to teach about angles. I couldn't find the picture on the internet but look out for it.
I certainly think dance can be used as an aid to help children (and adults for that matter), to control their energy levels, concentration and focus. Whilst doing a tour of primary schools on a promotions job, I came across one school in Cornwall that begun everyday with the pe teacher doing a dance routine to a pop music tune outdoors...the whole school joined in, and even some of the parents! What I found was that going into assembly, these children were good as gold; focused, quite and well-behaved, yet alert. Apparently some businesses in Japan do the same with their workforce. I have no doubt that those pupils benefited hugely from having dance as part of their daily routine and it was inspirational to see the teachers at this school thinking outside the box. I believe children who have opportunities like that will grow up to be happier, more confident, better team players and more creative.
This is just the start but I can't wait to hear more about where you go with these ideas - I found the inquiry task really opened my mind about all the possible directions that my career could go down. I haven't felt this level of freshness and excitement for a long time, it's great!
Nicole- These answers to the questions are really good. Coming across the first few questions about you having some negative comments on your profession and the ignorance of some people towards arts. Coming from an Indian heritage the norm is not to go into an "unstable" job. When I say this I mean the older generations i.e Aunts and Uncles that are much older than my parents as they are very supportive. I have experience negative comments towards me attending Ballet School and becoming a dancer, comments like " What she going to do after" and " Whats Ballet school going to give her" Obviously being hurt by these comments and also it being said behind my back was really unsupportive especially when it is my family. Having this happen to me just made me want to Dance even more and strive for higher goal and basically " Chase the Dream"
ReplyDeleteI also had the same experience as your friend about giving the children an option. As you have read before in my past blogs about me doubting my methods, being extremly crtical on myself and then it coming to doubting my skills, I also gave the children an option. I was then told by my Boss that they were far to young to make their own decisions and they will say NO if you ask them. Now having more experience giving them the option was the worst thing I could ever do and now with me telling them what to do I was astonished when they just listened and did what I said. When I am teaching now, the children now ask me to bring the parents in and show what they can do off. Its amazing how one thing can make them do it regularly and enjoy themselves.
Just thought I'd share this with you, as we are doing the same thing we defiantly are coming across with the same thoughts and experiences. Keep us posted with everything!
Thanks for your comments on my Inquiry task Nicole (see below)
ReplyDeletehttp://stephaniethomas-blog.blogspot.com/2011/03/inquiry-task.html
I am pleased you liked the 'polymath' idea - I think especially with the internet and technology becoming so much cheaper, there are so many things that we can learn to do! I have met actresses with their own cake making companies (skills learnt through you tube and sold through the web), actors who also take headshot photos to earn money, actors/directors who make their own films on very minimal budgets, people who run their own mail order companies from the internet....the possibilities are endless! I think it's healthy, in fact vital, as we grow older to have other passions and hobbies, otherwise what do we have to bring to our creative work?
It was really interesting to hear about the improv marathon - wow...50 hours! I have never done anything quite like that, but I can see how it would work as the more exhausted that you get, the more I think you allow your to just 'be', as you don't have the energy to put on a show anymore. My head of acting at drama school always used to say "It's better when we're tired, because we don't try to hard"....and I think there is a lot of truth in that.
I mentioned on Laura's blog (http://laurasinigaglia.blogspot.com/2011/03/culture-fusionthe-beauty-of-mixing.html )- we all seem to be very keen on this idea of 'culture fusion'. We seem to have hit on a topic that our little online community all find interesting, so I suggested we should continue to share photos, videos etc along these lines?
Hi Nicole - I am impressed by the level of reflection that has gone into your questions and thought processes. Learning opportunities and inspiration are all around us and you have shown that taking the time to think and reflect can produce stimulating ideas.
ReplyDeleteNicole I loved your comments about people's ignorance towards the arts. A brilliant thing happened to me over christmas, I was visiting some friends and some other of their aquaintances happened to be visiting as well, when these other people found out that I was a dancer every time any kind of music came on they said 'well go on then dance, if you're a dancer then dance' I got so angry inside every time at this as well as comments such as 'have you been a backing dancer? No? oh you cnt be that good then' have the same infuriating effect on me. I see now that although like you said "dance is at such a media high" the media is riddling our work with sob stories and people think that the only way to succeed is to have a sad backstory and not the years of grueling effort that really goes in to it. Have you had these kind of experiences too? and what do you think about tv shows such as 'so you think you can dance' putting false realities into the public mind?
ReplyDeleteI think there has been a time for all of us when we have had to defend our profession; it’s refreshing to see these comments played no play in our journey and regardless what people say we still have an amazing profession that we have worked extremely hard to reach.
ReplyDeleteKazuka- I do agree with your comments on dance reality TV shows. We spend years of training to embark on a professional career; I actually think it’s the easy way to enter a reality show in order to achieve success. I’m bored of sob stories leading the way instead of talent, everyone has a hard life but fighting through makes you a stronger person and for me would be far more rewarding knowing I achieved my goal on your own.