Reflections this week

Thoughts while reading the first chapter of “A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning Theory and Practice” by Jennifer A. Moon.

I just finished reading the first chapter. It was a very intimate experience reading about learning, particularly where it mentions how dyslexic people can display an “output of their learning”. I was originally going to talk about adult ballet students because I hadn’t started reading the book yet. However, since I’ve started to read the book, I think I will take the opportunity to talk about what I have just read, and what I was going to write about as a weekly topic without any influence from external sources. My reading of the first chapter has made me think more, so I must include them together as one entry.

Adult Ballet Students, and Chapter 1 of the Book

Adult ballet students: how do you motivate them do to the movement properly when they don't want to do the movement properly because they don't like their muscles to ache? or something seems impossible to them, when really, they could just put in more effort. How do you motivate them to listen, and to not just copy other students?  If they all copy each other, then nobody does anything properly, and they then expect the teacher to demonstrate the combination and they will copy the teacher, but this will not accomplish any learning, or development. So, how as teachers do we fix this problem?”

These are all questions that I have formed as a result of self-reflection leading to “internal learning” that I just read about, that comes from “external learning” as my “field trips” into the ballet studio daily. Now I have even more questions that I need to ask myself as a teacher of these students: “what are they learning?”, “how are they learning?” “what internal and external learning are they doing themselves?”, and “what internal and external learning am I getting as a result of their learning process?”

Did anyone else feel the same after reading this chapter? And what other “reflections”, and “internal/external” learning are you aware of now that that you know this terminology?

Please comment below and discuss!

Refections this week

"Of course, talented and obedient students are pleasanter to teach, but it is the difficult students who shape the growth of the master of teaching. In short, the new teacher must observe the activity of the psyche, learn psychology and, in general, aid the pupil to develop his personality." - Nikolai Tarasov

Reading, “Technique for the Male Dancer”, by Nikolai Tarasov has been really interesting for myself. I could have read this book as a young teacher and not really obtained very much from it, but having read it now, having gained many years of teaching experience, the book is much more meaningful to me. This book is also a reflection of where and what I have learned throughout my own experiences as a dancer, and now teacher, which shapes me into the teacher I am today.

The above-mentioned quote couldn't be more true. I teach many adults as well as students who wish to become professional dancers at some point in their lives. With these two groups of students, I have met some of the most challenging situations that I have ever come across while teaching.

Adult students: why do they dance; what life experience has this mind and body seen thus far in its existence; and why can't this student just do what they are told? These are just a few of the complexities of adults that I have been working on and trying to find the answer to as a teacher. I have come to realize that everyone has their reasons, and as a teacher I can't expect every student to give the result that I ask for and when I ask for it. Different people take different amounts of time to apply and produce, or even understand the task given to them.

Professional Students: "So you would like to become a dancer and with this body? Do you love it enough and understand what you will need to put yourself through to become what you WANT to be?" Sadly, the answer most of the time is "yes". That leaves me and other teachers the difficult task of having to figure out ourselves how to make this human being into a professional dancer. There are no cookie cutter dance bodies and in Victoria, B.C., Canada, it’s very difficult to find a 10-year-old who has been instilled self-discipline from a very young age as it may be in other parts of the world. There are few families that are the two parents-children unit.  I see many split families where the parents are too often fighting each other instead of looking out for the child’s best interest. With inconsistent boundaries given at a very young age, by the time the children understand that they want to be a classical dancer, it is too late for us the teachers to instill discipline into the child. Or we have to waste too much time and energy teaching the student basic skills to navigate society by understanding social cues, discipline, and empathy, that we never end up being able to teach the students what we are really supposed to teach, which is how to dance. Some teachers tell me that I shouldn't bother teaching the students the life skills that they need to survive in today's world. However, I have learned through experience that dancers need to be human in order to be able to communicate human emotion to a human audience. So, N. Tarasov was right, the most difficult students are the ones who can really teach the teacher how to teach, even if they don't mean to, and neither the student nor the teacher will ever be able to predict what learning will come from the experience, but we can all be certain, that learning will happen.

Thoughts:

So I today I have had the opportunity to think about the difference between obtained knowledge, and obtaining a learning process. These things are completely different. I hope that I am in the right though process with wondering how I got where I am? and why do I do what I do? who else is doing what I do? and what are they doing that I do? and what are they doing differently from myself that I that will be beneficial for me to do also. These questions are now thoughts that I will be working with for the next while in what I do. I hope that altering my thought process enables me to achieve more, and doesn't close any windows of thought process I already have been exploring!