January 30 ~ Introducing Folk Dance
Today I decided to teach the students a simple folk dance, Zemer Atik, from Israel. The structure of the dance, walking in a circle with patterned claps, was a really good starting dance for folk dance. The students did great traveling around the circle and catching on to the syncopated pattern of the claps. If I were to go back and change this, I would have taught another dance too or challenged them more. They caught on to it really quickly and I think they got bored of it after a few rounds.
February 6 ~ Introducing Creative Dance and Necessary Chastisement
We started off by reviewing Zemer Atik and then I quickly taught them La Raspa, or the Mexican Hat Dance. This didn't take too much time because the dances are very straightforward. I could tell they were getting restless so we transitioned into exploring elements of dance. We turned on some music and covered topic to topic; first elements of time, then elements of space etc. While I was able to cover all the material clearly and efficiently, I don't feel like my lesson was engaging and meaningful for them. At the end of class, my dance professor walked out of the observation booth .... :-/ Apparently she had been observing me the whole time! :-/ Afterwards we had a talk about getting the kids active in dance and keeping lessons engaging. It was a little tough to swallow because I didn't realize how ... boring my lessons were becoming. But I am grateful for her insight and honest advice. When I got home from work that day I sat down and got serious about my plan and objectives for this semester of teaching. I've since pulled myself together and I think I have the confidence and enthusiasm I need to teach these students well and have fun. Here goes nothing.
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