“Why Aim for Transformational Teaching in Dance?”
By Brenda Pugh McCutchen
Originally written July 30, 2015 for a presentation on entrepreneurship
For the 2015 National Dance Education Conference.
Reprinted as a Blog
August 12, 2024
When I am asked why I continue to work so many hours a day, my answer is swift. I am driven to help dance achieve respect as an art form which is taught with substance and clarity. For that reason, my passion is to prepare well-qualified teachers who are committed to substance and clarity and who are inspired to teach.
Therefore all of my efforts in writing and creating teacher resources are to prepare the way for teachers to do an excellent job in the classroom. Teacher effectiveness requires that gaps in their previous learning be filled with the kinds of resources that help them articulate quality information to their students so they are confident and clear at whatever age level they teach. Educational success depends on it.
I do not write prescriptive lesson plans for the same reason that I do not teach pre-choreographed dances. It is neither educational for the teacher to replicate someone else’s lesson plan nor for the child to learn the dance that someone else created. That may be instructive, but it is not educational. (Consider the adage about whether it best to give someone a fish which will satisfy him once, or teach to fish to enable him to be satisfied always.) I believe an educational dance perspective is a pre-requisite for transformational teaching. There must be equal measures of instruction and inspiration in teaching before a child is able to use that instruction for artistic expression, self-improvement, and personal meaning. Transformational teaching is self-enhancing of the kind that transcends rote instruction.
When I began to write Teaching Dance As Art in Education (TDAE) there was a void in the field which needed to be filled regarding teacher preparation. I felt compelled to help fill it. At the time the field of K-12 dance education needed clarity and definition, substance and direction. I was experienced enough, wise enough, and had enough professional experiences that framed a unique perspective on educational dance that needed to be shared. I also possess an artistic and analytical mind that can sometimes draw elusive and disparate aspects of a subject together into a cohesive whole. I hoped a foundational book would contribute to clarity and substance for teacher certification as well as to challenge the field of K-12 dance education.
My idea then, as now, was to write the textbook packaged with five teaching packets for the teacher–all as one unit. The textbook was to provide the theory and the teaching packets were to provide the methods. The textbook would cover the main aspects of teacher preparation and there would also be one teaching packet for each of the four cornerstone disciplines in dance which would sharpen the teaching skills in each key area of the curriculum. (Cornerstone disciplines equate to dance’ s artistic processes: creating, performing, responding to, and connecting with dance history, culture, and context. Thankfully they now drive the 2014 national core arts standard and the UBD teaching model (brought forth as the teaching model in the textbook) drives the method. The primary users of the kits and text would be higher education preservice teacher certification programs, and the secondary users the current K-12 dance specialists. I originally envisioned that the release of the textbook would be immediately followed by the release of the teaching packets, so that within several years we would be able to package all six together. I am still committed to write all of them, just on a different timeline.
Due to unforeseen circumstances in life that derailed the timeline of the teaching packets, there are only two packets in print so far. The third is in production and the other two are on the drawing board. Due to the delay I want to share with you, the reader of this article, a perspective of what is happening.
It takes a concentrated year to create a Contextual Learning System™ toolkit and to write the teacher’s book that goes with it. It is as rigorous a process as writing a textbook. A textbook ‘s information can be presented in a linear fashion and continually build chapter by chapter, but there is no sequential way to present the core concepts in one artistic process because they are different, equally important, yet they relate to each other and often overlap in complex ways. Therefore we work at building a context throughout any one kit in which the artistic process comes alive piece by piece and activity by activity supported by the conceptual materials. We have learned that good teaching materials are circular, spiraling, and holistic on top of being linear so each resource is a possible entry point into a lesson. All materials in one kit must also integrate with each other and be able to activate the concepts in a rich and satisfying way. Our goal is to provide the anchor concepts as well as the creative catalysts to activate them. Then, we use the teacher book to suggest effective ways to introduce them simply, then gradually add complexity and challenge.
Even though each kit in the “Dance Literacy Toolkit Series is a “book in pieces” with an ISBN number registered in the Library of Congress, no publisher could be found to produce them. That was due to cost, logistics, design, risk, and meager return on investment. There simply were not enough people in the dance community to buy them, they said. Therefore, if I were to produce them I would have to do them myself: not only envision and create them but also design them, proof them, print them, assemble them, inventory them, market them, and ship them all from a one-person office. I would have to be prepared to not break even financially. I would personally finance the office and producing the materials, to support a website, a shopping cart, a payment portal, not to mention conference fees to display our products, and office management. At some point–I do not know how soon–I will have to give up. The hill is too steep and the actual costs too great.
But everything worth doing has both a risk/reward ratio. The reward I get is when teachers share their gratitude to me for writing Teaching Dance as Art in Education. When they recount the difference the book or a kit made in their teaching or to student learning, just knowing my efforts have borne fruit makes it worthwhile. Isn’t that what educators do? To hope that our students and their lives bear fruit? Don’t we do it to inform and inspire, then hope that they will have a truly satisfying career? It is the individual heart-felt stories that let me know the materials help. DCD exists to transform teaching and learning, teachers and learners. If it helps to transform teaching, it is also helps to transform the next generation of students. I would stop if I did not believe my work supports the nascent field that I helped to birth during my fifty-year career.
A teacher toolkit is elusive to look at. Even though they are an extension of the textbook, they don’t compute to someone who casually strolls by them. But like a book, It requires someone to read the table of contents and the preface of each kit to see that what it contains and why. And then, even, it requires a leap of faith to see the details. For some of this “book in piece’s” chapters are reference posters, some are focus charts, and others are creative catalysts that activate the concepts. The combination of the posters (anchor concepts) and creative catalysts enable teachers to mix and match the tools so the concept and skills grow together. Materials such as these are the only way I know to get substantive, consistent teaching terminology, concepts, and skills developed at the same time. And now that I create such a web of materials for each packet, I am increasingly convinced that this is the only way we will achieve transformational teaching in dance in K-12 and in teacher certification courses for pre-service teachers.
Some people expect my kits to contain prescriptive lesson plans. As I said, I see no value in spoon feeding someone a lesson: that in not empowering—it defeats the purpose of inspired teaching. Teacher preparation is all about providing the information and the inspiration to transform a dancer into an inspired teacher. Whether it be a workshop or writing materials, I am somehow compelled to include equal parts of both. For without inspiration the information is insufficient. Without the information, the inspiration is insufficient. It takes both the content and the inspiration to mold a dancer into a transformational teacher.
Inspired materials are the best way I know to help teachers build a cohesive context for learning that continues year after year and grows with the student. It is the only way I can fathom that
- a first-year teacher can know all the right words and concepts to support her/his teaching ,or
- that a new teacher can be effective in his/her first years of teaching, or
- that a young teacher can begin to gradually grow their roots that eventually allow them to be highly effective in the classroom
That is the only way to fill in the gaps of their college education by giving them more clarity and more to teach then they graduated and a way to synthesize all they know into a stronger teaching model.
I believe that more dance education professors should feature teaching kits like these into their methods courses, internships, and directed teaching experiences to demonstrate how prospective teachers can effectively integrate concept and skill in their classrooms. I want every student teacher to have the toolkit series to utilize during their teaching semester internship. (If I could afford to, I would donate kits to every student teacher in dance.) Why? Because I want those same student teachers to become excellent teachers of the craft of dance, be able to write substantive curriculum and to transform student learning, because I know it will take that before they can effectively push back against today’s pressure from parents and principals to over balance their curriculum with entertainment and performance driven agendas at the schools. I want their programs to have a fighting chance to be artistically driven instead of entertainment-immersed. Let private studios serve the recital and the theatrical, forward-facing “show-and-tell.” Teachers should be able to build context and facilitate inquiry that is transformative to their students and to facilitate creative dance and improvisation to put their students in touch with their own body’s creative well of expression. I want them to unleash the real power of dance, not the trite and the trivial. How can we afford to do less if we want dance to be a respected art form in education or in the world? How can we afford to let the power of dance hide beneath sequins and “routines?” How can we allow the rote dancing to take over and squelch our chance to open up the world of dance to learners in a way that makes a substantial difference in who they are and who they become? At this time in history we have a mandate from the national standards to educate and to inspire. How can we do less? How can we sell dance short? How can we under-educate our children?
It matters not to me whether I am an entrepreneur! What I want to promote is transformational teaching. I want those teachers so inspired and so equipped that their students are transformed, and in the process the teachers are also transformed. That is how I will judge the value of my last 25 years of work. Not in terms of the money I have lost and the time I have given but in terms of what the next 25 years looks like for dance education. I want that kind of bright future for educational dance to become reality. I want those teachers to use these supports for clarity so they can begin to write even stronger resources that elevate dance to the same respected positions that art and music hold in public education.
I do not write the teaching resources for children. I write them for teachers. When the teacher knows the subject and has multiple methods at fingertip to deliver it—and to cross-reference it to other relevant big ideas in dance, their children grow. Children’s transformation is the by-product of transformational teaching. If the teacher is well prepared, the students will have good instruction–and if the materials are rich enough the teacher will find the commonalities that inspire the classroom.
The Teacher’s Book in each kit shows how to scaffold, but does not write a prescription. For me to try to scaffold all of resources reduces their effectiveness and promotes teaching as a linear process. What is logically ordered for one teacher may not be for another. Why would it want a teacher to follow one prescription, to become dependent on someone else’s developmental lesson plan, to present dance as linear instead of holistic and spiraling. It is by making decisions with the resources that teachers add to their own instructional information and skills, gain confidence in their own abilities, sharpen their skills, become more effective in the classroom. I would not wish to take that away. If they start out from day one with excellent materials, they don’t have to founder in the classroom for long (all of us founder at the beginning until we gain our teaching legs and our classroom persona). With good resources at hand their lessons have a chance to be alive and alert, allowing them to be responsive to students minute by minute so as to take advantage of teachable moments that appear serendipitously. With inspiring resources they are supported at teachable moments with the content and vocabulary at their fingertips. As a company devoted to teacher excellence we must create the materials that empower them. How would we build a strong teaching force if we spoon-fed them lesson plans, supported mediocrity with them, and worse still, made them dependent on them?
My goal is to live long enough and stay this passion for transformational teaching to see this body of work complete. But if I do not, I charge you as the reader to pick up this torch and move it forward. We must embrace what is most enduring about dance and instill it in the next generations. If not, we will have missed our opportunity to open the world of personal satisfaction that comes from knowing the body and how to create expressively with it. We will have undereducated and shortchanged the children who go through K-12 and higher education programs in dance. What can you do to take the cause forward? Where are your skills and your passion? What can you bring to the table to move this conversation to a new level?
If you are in higher education, are you using teacher preparation materials that facilitate transformational teaching? It is not enough that higher education only teach methods courses. Methods don’t inspire and they don’t educate. They are just that, methods. Where in your curriculum do dance majors learn about transformational teaching of the kind that digs deeper into the content, enriches the art of dance along with the students, offers their future students the chance to holistically express themselves with body and mind in concert and presents them the opportunity to master a new language that is centered in the dance elements and artistic principles?
If you are in K-12, what kind of core content is displayed on your studio walls? Do you regularly employ the dance elements as the movement language with which to create, perform, respond, and connect? Do your students engage in creative dance to embody the dance elements and learn how to fully utilize them for their own expression? How do you empower your students to match concept with skill in order to increase their level of understanding at the same pace as they increase their skill level? Where do you go to find integrated teaching materials that make a lasting lifetime impression on your students? Do you make your own posters and charts and are you willing to share them with others? How do you advance the artistic processes for the sake of literacy and intertwine the artistic processes for the sake of artistic fluency? Do you and your colleagues speak the same language to describe dance and are you regularly refining your terminology for clarity and uniformity? How do you build a broad context for learning that has both depth and complexity? Are you driven more by stylistic and technique development in dance or do you offer a holistic program that educates your students as an integrated part of their skill development?
How often is your curriculum narrowed by time spent on performances and rehearsals? Are you pressured to be performance-driven instead of content-rich? What will you do to activate transformational teaching of the kind that empowers your students to know more and do more with dance than they presently envision?
We can all work together to elevate dance to a respected place in a school’s curriculum and a powerful educational subject in the K-12 schools. Let’s keep this conversation going for the betterment of dance and of our students.
Brenda Pugh McCutchen DBA Dance Curriculum Designs LLC