Why I teach.

[ladyviola5]

There have been a lot of kinda disturbing conversations on tribe in the last few days where a lot of the younger dancers need to be smacked mentoring and guidance.  One, in the ATS tribe, posted a sarcastic list of things she wanted to tell students before they got started.  The thread veered off course into a discussion on whether you should teach

Comments

[hitchcock73]

I have a few students who are obviously not natural musicians and will probably never be performers. It just eludes them entirely. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it for either of us, but you really never know what people take away from things. Maybe something I say about how to practice will stick with them & they'll use it for something in school or a sport they're better at than music. And it certainly makes ME have to be creative to try to think like they do. Often it's the people to whom whatever skill we're teaching DOESN'T come naturally that makes us better teachers & better technicians ourselves.

[ladyviola5]

That's another excellent point. I've become so much of a better teacher, dancer and performer through teaching. You pay attention to details that you may not have otherwise, and you have to think about what you do from a lot of different perspectives to finally hit upon that explanation that they're going to GET.

[hitchcock73]

My latest puzzle is how to get someone who can't play with a metronome to... well, play with a metronome! The idea that someone couldn't just baffles me, but there's got to be a solution somewhere. I'm searching my brain.

[kiaroskuro]

That's like MY perpetual puzzle of getting people to walk on the beat. How do you get people to hear the "1"? Right foot on "1", left foot on "2", right foot on "3", left foot on "4". How hard could that be? I'm not even working in uncommon or odd time signatures. I worry about when I start teaching my Tribal Turkish fusion workshops and have everyone trying to dance to a Romany 9/8.

[oscuridad]

You've definitely been a force for the better in Charleston. Thank you for being so thoughtful about your role in our community at large. I am so SO glad you're in our neck of the woods.

[kazoogrrl]

Aww, man. That whole tribe post made me feel like crap. Thanks for speaking up.

[phenakistoscope]

Thanks for writing this! Nicely said. :-)

[hobbitkicker]

Yikes...I read what I could of that thread. Thank you for your input, it was well spoken and especially wonderful to speak up those who may never see that code that started it all and would probably be scared off by it.

So far I have the impression the author of this thread is teaching but her motivation is not coming from a very compassionate place, it seems more ego driven especially because she seems to want to exclude the majority of people that would comprise a group of beginner students. Quite frankly even as an experienced dancer who may one day want to brush up on ATS/ITS basics, I would opt to avoid her as a teacher but that won't save the woman looking for some healing and comraderie from being frightened away from the style all together because of her insecure attitude.

I am favoriting this post.