Looking Back

Wow.  What a journey this has been.  Looking back now brings a smile to my face every time.  I learned so much this semester!  And from so many different sources.  I learned enthusiasm, resilience, and simple joy from my students.  They also taught me how to look through new eyes.  I learned management, love, and patience from Mrs. Findlay.  I learned organization, preparation, and self-correction from my mentors.  And I learned from myself what I can do, what I love to do, and what I want to do.  I have gained a lot more confidence in myself as a teacher through this process.  I believe that I can now trust myself in a multitude of situations across the elementary experience. 

In all honesty, there were both ups and downs.  Sometimes I was really frustrated with myself or the way the class was getting away from me, but there were also times that I came away with a huge smile on my face.  It was a crazy ride, but it was all worth it.  Both situations led to growth and I'm glad it went the way it did.  I learned some things the hard way, but I've learned them well and will never forget them.

As a teacher, I have become more fluid and connected, more confident, and more flexible.  As a student, I have gained an awareness of what it means to be the teacher and how much they just want their students to connect and have amazing moments - it's making me try harder and invest more.  As an artist, I have discovered more facets to this art form that I love.  As an individual, I have been happier and become more confident.  I loved those students and they loved me - walking into the classroom and seeing their reactions every Wednesday was so fulfilling.  

As I've said many times this semester, "Dance is true!"  I've seen students grow and develop in ways I didn't think they would.  I've seen them slide past reluctance into enthusiasm, and I've seen them make incredibly meaningful connections for relevancy.  This art form truly has the power to develop and unite their bodies, minds, and spirits.  I believe that through the interdisciplinary foci this semester, those students were strengthened in other aspects of their lives as well.

For me, this experience was successful, wholesome, and worthwhile.  I am so glad I got the opportunity to participate as an ArtsBridge scholar this year and especially the chance to work with Mrs. Findlay and her beautiful class.  I hope they'll be able to implement what we've learned together and let it enrich their lives, because they have enriched mine!  And, as I've come to believe this semester:

“. . . A great teacher is a great artist and . . . there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.” -John Steinbeck

My sincerest thanks to all those who have made this experience possible for me this semester.  You are doing amazing things for those of us in your circle of influence, as well as for all those we have been able to touch, teach, and love!

Performance

Today was our LecDem Performance as a capstone project for our semester together.  Three other second grade classes came in to be our audience.  The students were so excited to perform for their peers! 

We set it up so that each group would perform their piece, then stay on stage while I sidecoached them through some familiar dance activities and explorations.  The 15 minute "show order" looked like this:

Welcome: Me

Introduction of Communication dance: Mrs. Findlay

Mad Libs: Me (ask for adverbs and verbs from the audience, students show movement)

Introduction of Diseases dance: Mrs. Findlay

Everyday Objects: Me (ask for everyday things that students abstract into movement)

Introduction of Telling Time dance: Mrs. Findlay

Statue Garden: Me (Dancers partner up, shape each other into frozen shapes)

Finale: Entire class comes up onstage and forms negative and positive space connections

See? Simple enough, but it was fun.  Having an audience there watching them really brought out the best in the students.  They really stepped it up from our regular during class rehearsals.  They fully invested in the interesting aspects we had talked about and I was so proud of them!  They really grew a lot this semester and it was very rewarding for me to see it!  Head on over to the Pictures/Videos page to see some clips of the performance. :)

Review/Prep Day

Today was great!  Instead of doing an interdisciplinary lesson, we had a day to review all of the interesting elements we have learned about dance this year, in order to prepare them to put together a mini lecture demonstration (or LecDem as we like to call them) to show what they have learned and can now do. 

First off, Mrs. Findlay led the warmup today!  She did a fantastic job with the Brain Dance.  She was confident and clear and the students followed her well.   They were also (pleasantly!) surprised to see that she could teach “dance,” too.  I was proud of her and proud of the students. J  It will be important to continue to allow her to build rapport with her students as a dance teacher so she can do this all on her own once I’m gone.  We’ll continue to have her teach parts of the lesson in the next few weeks. 

Another great thing about today was I had a chance to see that the students really have been learning what I’ve been trying to teach them.  It was a good assessment of all my previous behavioral objectives – whether the students have been internalizing the things we’ve been talking about and exploring.  We made a word wall on the board with the dance elements we have learned about and the other concepts we have integrated.  Even though some of the words are long and cumbersome, once they remembered them, they were able to show me with their bodies and respond to my side-coaching to explore them more deeply.  They’ve got it!  They now have a dance toolbox filled with floor pathways, levels, body shapes, spatial relationships, energy qualities, locomotor and axial movements, and the creative problem solving to figure challenges out in interesting ways.  It was very rewarding to see them remembering not only a concept we had been talking about during that hour, but concepts we have covered since the beginning of the year.  I’m excited to see how we put together their three mini pieces and the snippets of narration in order to show an overview of what they’ve learned.

My faculty advisor, Kathleen Sheffield, came to observe today.  It was so good to have here there!  She jumped right in and helped Mrs. Findlay and I when we split the class into three groups and worked on group shapes, and she had a lot of good feedback when the class was over.  I will greatly appreciate her affirmations and suggestions for continued development.

Favorite Moments:

·  Watching the students THINK so hard to remember the words we’ve talked about.  Even if they didn’t get the right word right away, their guesses were still related concepts like “symmetry” and “non-communicable.”  I gave her a high five for that last one.  I can’t even say that word very well. 

·  Seeing them access all the elements we’ve talked about.  I didn’t realize how well they were learning them, but they are all there!

Telling Time

Today, we talked about telling time and the differences between A.M. and P.M.  I went a slightly different route than I have in the past few months and used an already written lesson plan by the brilliant Erika Cravath (for more information on her thesis project and wonderful work, see the Resources tab.)  It was a little tricky using someone else’s lesson plan because I wasn’t as familiar with it, but I have used her lesson plans before and they are always amazing.  

The students did a great job right from the very start of distinguishing growing, expanding movements and shrinking, collapsing movements and connecting them with A.M. and P.M. times respectively.  Things got a little pantomimic when I asked for shapes that represented things you do in the A.M. or in the P.M., but I knew they would.  With an older class I would have gone on to talk about abstraction and really require more creative representations, but I think they did well enough with what I asked. 

The amazing thing about today was how well behaved they were.  They came in, we began the brain dance and they were so quiet and concentrated . . . it was beautiful.  I talked to Mrs. Findlay about it afterwards and she said they had quite the discussion prior to coming in about how to act in dance class – it is so nice to have her fully involved and supportive.  She is going to do very well when she begins teaching these classes herself.

Today during the create/perform section, I performed a dance with one of the groups.  I think maybe this would be a good thing to keep doing so they can see an example of what I want to see and how to really use the elements of dance to make an interesting piece.  A few students are really beginning to explore the movement during their little performances, which is nice to see.  I’ll keep reinforcing the exciting use of dance elements to create aesthetic dances.

Favorite Moments:

•  When I performed my dance and asked them what interesting things they saw in the group, one boy raised his hand and said, “I don’t know, I was only watching you.  But I saw levels.”  It was so sweet.
•  The class got really excited about figuring out what time I was representing with my arms as a clock.  Because it was a very different medium, it was tricky, but they were so excited when they figured out 3:45.

Diseases

I'm really starting to see some progress in students' understanding of basic dance elements.  The cross-curricular elements are never a problem - they seem to grasp those easily and are able to apply them to the activities and explorations we do during class.  We used Positive and Negative Space, Shapes, and Spatial Relationships today to explore the differences between infectious and non-infectious diseases.  They are really exhibiting some amazing and creative shapes!  That was exciting to see.

There was a high school intern with the class today which turned out to be really distracting.  I kept having to pull back attention from entire groups of students who were gathered around her, talking to her or playing with her necklace or other interactions that were taking them away from the class.  It made me realize the importance of maintaining the somewhat tricky balance between being an authority figure and kind and understanding figure.  Sometimes, teachers just want to be their students' "friend."  While this can be fun for the students, I think it ends up hindering them in the long run.  In that position, a teacher can't push for progression as much, can't discipline or manage when they need to and can't be a trusted mentor.  It was frustrating for me as a teacher to fight for their attention, but at the same time feel like I couldn't do much to reduce the distractions.  I just had to deal with it and move on.  It was definitely an interesting situation.  On the other hand, the intern did help me with the class by dancing and helping her group really create a nice piece.  It was the most "dancing movement" I've seen in their creative pieces next.  It made me think on how I approach the Create/Perform sections of my lessons.  Maybe, if I demonstrate what a dance I would create could look like, they would understand better when I ask them to dance in the middle of their dances, rather than just make a beginning shape, move a little bit, then find an ending shape.  It might help them see how to make their dances more substantial and meaty.  

Mrs. Findlay was a valuable help today; she answered questions at the end about what she was seeing in the performances and why it made them interesting.  Her encouragement and feedback really validates the experience for the students.  Mrs. Findlay is going to begin teaching sections of the lessons so that once I finish this ArtsBridge program, she'll be ready to teach her own creative dance classes!  I'm excited to see her in action. :)          

Favorite Moments:

• There is a new girl in the class who has some special needs.  Today was her first dance class with me.  While she seemed a little lost at times during the lesson and was sometimes reluctant to participate, she had a wonderful partner who kept encouraging her.  I was so proud of the student she was working with for being patient and helping her.  At the end of class, this little girl asked, "Can we do it again?!"  Don't worry, I'm coming back next week!
• We discovered today that it is possible to work together and create shapes and movement without necessarily touching each other (this was in connection to non-infectious diseases.  We can still work together and have fun together without being worried about catching a non-communicable disease.)  At the end of class, I asked the students to talk about other places in the world that we see shapes that connect without touching or things working together by sharing negative space.  A little boy was literally so excited about his answer that he was bouncing up and down and whispering, "this is a good one!"  His answer?  A flock of birds flying and moving together in the air, making shapes without touching each other.  Holla!  They totally got it. :)

Communication

I love this class!  I love those students and I am loving this experience!

Okay, I’m really hitting my stride now.  I was starting to think that every class would be okay, but I that maybe I would still leave thinking I could have done better or that the students could have understood better the concepts.  But today was one of those days that is just a step beyond.  It was amazing!  We went back into cross-curricular connections today, linking energy qualities with forms of communication.  Smoke signals with sustained energy, letters with swing energy (see lesson plan if you’re confused), Morse code with percussive energy, phones with vibratory energy, and the internet with explosive energy. 

While the words were really big and kind of tricky to remember for the students, they knew exactly which one they were talking about and were able to recognize it when they saw it, demonstrate with their body which one they were talking about and say most of the word.  (But come on, vibratory? What kind of word is that?  We used “shaking” sometimes instead.)  I think they had it. :)  

We also did connecting shapes today.  Wow.  It was so fulfilling to see them really grasp the concept.  They have come so far!!!  I remember the first few weeks, I would say shape and they would just stand there and look at me - a few brave souls would attempt to make a triangle or a square, my first clue that I may have jumped a little too far right off the top.  Well, after talking about body shapes last week and moving into relationships this week, there have been huge changes!  We talked about how "connecting" doesn't have to mean "touching."  We talked about sharing self-space to make one interesting shape together, using the negative space around each body to connect the two shapes.  I'll post pictures.  I was amazed and very impressed by the shapes I saw coming together.  It thrilled me!  They're really beginning to explore creatively.  There were some really beautiful moments today.  We'll keep building from here! 

Favorite Moments:

• A girl whispered "This is fun!" while we were exploring how we would move like a phone ring to the actual sounds of a phone ringing.  They really enjoyed that one. Vibratory may be hard to say, but it's definitely fun to do!
• When I ask the question, "Where else in our world do we see explosive energy?"  I got some answers like "a volcano!" (Great answer.  Volcanoes are explosive.)  Then a girl raised her hand and said, "War."  I was really taken aback.  It was one of those moments when you get slammed by the realization that they kind of know a lot more than you do.  It was so sweet, and yet very deep.  It was a good moment as a teacher.
•  A boy who was really reluctant to join today was getting very involved by the end of the lesson.  But he became very shy again when he was in the first group to perform, so I switched him and his partner to the second group.  After seeing the first group perform he jumped right up and did his whole dance.  I hope that by giving him the opportunity to wait and watch he kept the excitement and joy rather than feeling pressured and scared.
• Last, but certainly not least . . . the class kept begging me not to go.  "Miss Alley, will you come back tomorrow?" they asked, several times.  I was very sad to say that I couldn't come until next week, but it pleased me that they want me back! YAY!

Dance Elements

Course Correct!

After talking with some wonderfully supportive and knowledgeable advisors – thank you Marilyn Berrett and Kathleen Sheffield! – I went with my gut and took a significant step back.  I’ve been having this growing idea the past few weeks that I’ve been sequencing my curriculum plan in a less than efficient way.  I discussed my concerns and frustrations with myself with my mentors and felt good about going back to square one.  So today, our lesson was basically a crash course in creative dance.  I should have done this at the very beginning, but better slightly late than never! 

The class was SO successful today!  I truly enjoyed it.  Management has become better and better as the class has gotten to know me, tested me, and now are beginning to respect me without encouragement from someone else.  So I worry less about keeping them in control and now have more freedom to truly see them and take them to new levels. 

We covered Space, Shape, Size, Levels, and Energy today.  (I figured that I had already addressed pathways and Time elements in previous lessons, and we begin every class with the Brain Dance now, which covers the Patterns of Total Body Connectivity and Body elements.)  The class really grasped the concepts today and I saw more creativity than I have previously.  I guess it’s true that having some limitations or guidelines really does make you more free.  

I feel much better about where I’m going now.  I feel like I’ve taken some time to allow them to build a foundation that will enable them to understand me and what I expect.  They have a better idea about what creative movement can be built on and will be able to explore further in the future.

I also tried a lesson plan reminder trick.  I made a large font, bulleted list of the main activities and points I would hit throughout the class (it was a very wide-spread lesson) so I wouldn't be so glued to the detailed, full paragraph-ed lesson plan.  I put  my list by the board and I could glance at it every time I walked by.  Miraculous!  It totally worked.  I was able to keep myself on track, fill in the gaps from the prompts, and still be present and aware for the class.  New favorite aid, right there.  That's definitely happening again next week. :)

Mrs. Findlay and I are going to begin moving towards our culminating project.  We’ve decided on an Arts Gallery type showcase.  There is another ArtsBridge scholar at the school teaching Visual Arts.  We think it will be a really fun experience to have the two classes show what they’ve learned throughout the semester.  Mrs. Shipp’s class can show their art projects and Mrs. Findlay’s class can showcase a dance.  I’m excited to move forward and feel much less lost!

Favorite Moments:  

•  Smoothland and Sharpland was definitely a favorite with the students.  It made me happy to watch their excitement.
• Talking about where else in the world we see far reach and near reach kinds of objects - there were some great responses.  One boy raised his hand and for small-reach said, "Midgets! I mean . . . minions!"  Wow, I really had to choke back a laugh.  We clarified that he meant the little yellow guys from "Despicable Me," then talked about why they were small-reach in their shapes and movement.  But he was so excited when he blurted out the first name he could remember.  It was a somewhat shocking and then humorous moment.