Task 2d - Enquiry.

What in my daily practice gets me really enthusiastic?


Quite simply the part of my daily practice that get me really enthusiastic is people, I am privileged to work in a number of environments with a range of people and seeing how they react to me and my classes and seeing them achieve and become enthusiastic is why I do what I do. As I said on my blog profile, I am truly fascinated by dance, and in particular the way we learn to dance. The fact that everyone has a different mindset and a different body, a different set of skills and reason for dancing, and the implications and uses that all of these things can have. 

I had a teacher when I was a college, she was the best teacher I had there. She taught each person as an individual. She knew the girls that would fight back and work harder if she was hard on them, but she also knew the ones who would crumble if she put on too much pressure. She was understanding and gave more than one solution to a problem, corrections often started with “this is hard, but if you try this… or if that doesn’t work try this instead” It was all about finding your own way, she understood the people she was teaching and that is why we all did well under her instruction.


What makes me angry or sad?


I get really frustrated when people aren’t treated as individuals. People make snap decisions based in the very little they know or see of someone. Everyone is different, not every blond is the same, not every child in a dance class is the same and not everyone with the same disability is the same. In a teaching environment it is so important to understand the people you are working with, you have to find a way to make something make sense to that individual, what works for one wont work for all.

It upsets me when a teacher complains that their student doesn’t understand something and say “I have told them a hundred times” the expression “A bad workman blames his tools” comes to mind, if you’ve said it 100 times then you obviously aren’t saying the right things! Just because you understand it that way doesn’t mean someone else will, think of another way for it to make sense. 

I work with lots of talented people within learning disabilities; the service manager of the company I work for is fantastic at seeing the individual and will always try and see something from another person’s point of view and then work with this to find a solution and I think this is a fantastic skill to have.


What do I love about what I do?

I love to come across challenges, a student that simply can’t pirouette, another student who is lacking confidence or one who has all the technique but not the artistry and students with learning disabilities who interact with you in a totally different way. I love to discover the reasons for these things and develop strategies to work with them, tricks to make it work for them or that one thing that suddenly makes it all make sense. I love to watch people grow and develop and to become more enthusiastic and more confident in themselves and what they are doing.

I think I get this passion from my mother, she is also a teacher and she thrives on a challenge, there is never anything to her that doesn’t have a solution. With the children she works with it is all about encouraging confidence, and showing them that there is always a solution, because if there is a solution somewhere, then there isn’t anything to be worried about is there, it’s just a matter of time until you find the answer. She is my inspiration when I teach because I think she does it so well.

What do I feel I don’t understand?

Teaching children is so enjoyable to me and I have considered that I would like to make this my full time direction by moving into mainstream education. But I don’t as yet fully understand what this would entail. I help with GCSE and A-level classes, however I turn up on practical days and help with choreography or technique classes, something that I am comfortable with but I don’t fully understand the other aspects of what is taught. All of the other responsibilities that go with working in a school, preparing for exams, teaching educational syllabus, setting essays, marking homework, creating time tables. How do I know this is an area that I would like to move forward in if I don’t fully understand what it entails?

 

Working with adults with learning disabilities makes me curious to the applications dance can have. Creative therapies have wide reaching uses and this is something I am fascinated by, I have seen this first hand with some of the people I work with but as yet is something I don’t fully understand or have had chance to investigate.

The idea that something I love purely for the sake of it can have powerful applications is really exciting to me, but how does this work? How do you take something that most of us see as entertainment and make it into something that can have therapeutic applications?

Both are areas I am interested in moving towards, but I am unable to make a decision on this until I have a clearer idea if what each entails and whether I a have the skills that each one would involve.