Teaching Tips
Teaching Tip: Have A Backup Plan
Today’s teaching tip is simple, but crucial – always have a backup plan.
This piece of advice can apply in several different ways. For example, you’ll always want to have more than one music choice. If you have a ballet class CD that you use all the time, be sure and pack another one–just in case. Scratches happen, as do simple accidents, and you don’t ever want to be caught without tunes. It’s so hard to teach that way.
Another “backup plan” suggestion…have extra shoes to teach in on hand. If an elastic breaks or you think you packed your shoes in a bag but didn’t, you’ll have another pair. I’ve thought my shoes were in the car (I’m lazy and usually leave them in the trunk) and found I brought them in the house. Not a great way to appear to your students. Teaching in gym shoes just isn’t pretty.
Pack a mini-emergency baggie. In it, keep a band-aid or two, an aspirin (or other painkiller), a granola bar or protein bar, nail clipper and hair band. Basically, items you may need and not have on hand. You don’t have to go crazy with this one, but if you find yourself needing something, toss it in the bag for next time so you are prepared.
Do you have any “backup plan” tips for dance teachers? Has something saved you from trouble? If so, tell us about it! You never know–you might save someone else from having the same issue!
Teaching Tip: How To Explain
One thing I’ve learned in my 24 years of teaching dance is that not everyone hears a correction or explanation the same way. As an instructor, you are trying to give students that “aha” moment, and it can be a challenge. In order to be effective, you need to come up with a variety of ways of saying the same thing. Just because it makes sense to you doesn’t mean it will ring true for everyone else.
I was thinking about this in class last night when I was teaching. I had instructors who would always say the exact same thing. “Pull up–like there is a string attached to the top of your head” or “tuck your bottom under” – and I don’t think they made a lot of sense to me. When I pulled up under those directions, I became stiff and held my breath. When I “tucked my bottom” I would respectively hunch my shoulders forward.
This isn’t to say that these corrections are wrong–I understand the meaning now–but at the time I didn’t understand how to make my body obey. If the teachers would have given several different explanations, it may have saved me some time.
You never know what a student will respond best to, so the more ways you can communicate what you are trying to say, the better. It will challenge your mind as a teacher, and it will help students have a larger framework to draw from as they try to master technique. Make it part of your lesson plan time–you won’t regret it.
Teaching Tip: Communicating With Parents
If you teach dance, chances are good that you will have to speak with a disgruntled parent sooner or later. The good news is that there are ways to handle this type of situation smoothly. Here are a few tips that can be helpful:
+ Avoid using language that sounds like an accusation. When you say something like, “What is it that you are so upset about?” it sounds harsh. Try framing things differently by saying, “I understand you are upset–how can I help?” How you say things matters just as much as what you are trying to communicate. Try not to make the parent feel defensive about raising a concern.
+ Stress that you are on the same side. Ultimately, the parent and teacher should both have the same goal–to help the student. When approaching a problem with a parent, point out that you can work together to solve the issue at hand. A team approach makes everyone feel like they have a part to play in the student’s success; which indeed, they do.
+ Listen carefully. What is the real issue the parent is bringing up? Try to hear them out completely before offering any input. That way they will feel that you are taking them seriously, and you will be sure to get all the details before answering.
+ Know when you can’t help. No matter what, there will sometimes be a parent you cannot satisfy, or a problem that you can’t do anything about. Hopefully these situations will be few and far between, but if you wind up facing something you can’t fix, you may have to just tell the parent it is out of your hands.
Do you have any good strategies for communicating with parents? A tidbit to share with your fellow teachers? If so, please share!
Teaching Tip: When Students Are Late
Being late to dance class is actually kind of a big deal. Since warm-up exercises are designed to help the dancer’s muscles (and tendons/ligaments) prepare for the demands of class, late students should know what you expect of them when they arrive in the classroom so that they are not risking injury.
How you handle being tardy is up to you. Perhaps you just tell the student to do some plies and tendus before joining the class if it isn’t too far into the barre. If the student is more than a few minutes late, many teachers ask that they just sit and watch the class instead of trying to catch up.
If you have students who are late on a regular basis, it may be helpful to speak with the parents. As for deciding on make-up classes, it’s really a matter of what you are comfortable with. Do students just lose that class if they are too late to join? Or can they come to another class and substitute it for the one they miss? The important thing is to have a policy that you consistently enforce so that everyone gets the same treatement.
What are your rules? How do you handle a student coming late to class? I’d love to hear what various teachers are doing out there…
Teaching Tip: Don’t Do It Wrong
This may be a hard tip to employ, but it is a smart one. Don’t demonstrate how to do anything the wrong way in dance class. Even though this can be a great way to get the message across to students, the fact is, you can injure yourself. Proper technique is designed in part to help you stay safe. It’s based on biomechanical principles, and when you alter them, bad things can happen.
As teachers, we are often guilty of not warming up properly, or not taking enough classes ourselves. This is another reason to avoid demonstrating things the wrong way. If you aren’t in tip top shape–injury can be a lot more likely.
You can verbalize the incorrect form, but stick to showing your students the right way to do things. It’s a lot safer.
Teaching Tip: Keeping Things Fresh In The Adult Ballet Classroom
If you teach an adult ballet class you are probably already aware of how rewarding it can be. Adult students are typically serious about doing well and try very hard to improve. While this is great–as the instructor, it is up to you to remind them of how much fun dance can be as well. Try to keep things fresh so that your students maintain their enthusiasum and love of dance.
Here are a few ideas you can incorporate into the adult ballet class that can be helpful in that regard:
- Periodically have a class where each student can pick something that they would like to work on in the centre. It can be helpful to announce this at the beginning of class to give them time to think about what they’d like to do.
- Mix in some music from the big ballets here and there. Nothing is quite as inspirational as moving across the floor to a piece from Swan Lake or Giselle.
- Pair them up. Rather than having students do their combinations alone across the floor, have them go in twos. This changes things up a little bit and can help break the ice between people in class–especially if there is someone new.
University Dance Programs: Evaluating Students
If you are new to the college or university environment, it can be difficult to know how to evaluate the students in your classroom. When I first started teaching at the university level, I had to put in a lot of extra time making sure that I was able to do this within the requirements of academia.
It was a little intimidating.
I wrote an article for Dance Teacher that passed on some great advice from people such as Mary Fitzgerald, assistant professor at Arizona State University’s Herberger College of Fine Arts and Larry Lavender, head of the dance department at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
If you are going to be working in this type of environment anytime soon, it can really pay off to listen to some tips from those who have gone before you. And if you have anything to share with 4dancers readers, feel free to chime in here…
Teaching Tip: Generational Differences
Do you know how you should approach a Generation X-aged classroom? What about one that is filled with Millenials? I came across a resource that discusses this idea, and it can be of value for those who teach dance. After all, not every generation appreciates the same approach.
I found that the comments about Gen X’ers fit me perfectly. Very interesting!
Teaching Tip: Reversing Combinations
When I was a child, my dance teacher did something wonderful–she had us reverse combinations. Most of the time she would do this with small jumps, and it really made us think quickly. At first it was very hard, but after a while, I began to understand how to break things down into pieces and do them in reverse.
This helped prepare me for complex combinations later in my career. I was always able to pick things up fairly quickly, and I truly think that this is one of the reasons why.
One caveat–don’t do this with beginning students. They have enough work to do in terms of doing things properly. Reversing combinations is something best left for intermediate and advanced classes.
Teaching Tip: Little Dancers
I had been teaching already for about ten years when I realized something very important…let me go back and tell you how it all came about…
I was 29 years old and was getting ready to start my latest ballet class for 3 and 4 year olds. We were all sitting on the ground in a circle, learning names. A little uncomfortable, I uncrossed my legs and crossed them the other way.
Every single little girl there did the exact same thing.
That’s when it hit me–the power of modeling behavior with kids that age is tremendous. They mimic what you do. I had been trying hard to come up with explanations in bite-sized words that I thought the children would understand.
Turns out all I had to do–was do it.
Now this isn’t to say that you should not teach verbally. You should. But never underestimate the power of what you are doing. This includes simple things such as standing up straight and walking lightly.
Remember…those little eyes are taking it all in…
