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IdentityI am a hip hop dance teacher
Sometimes using real-life synonyms to the dancer speak that we are accustomed to allows kids to see how big ideas relate from discipline to discipline.
Dance in the public schools provides an outlet for kids to express themselves but also a way to connect the ideas being developed in their core classes in unique ways. Yet, you dont have to teach in the public schools to work this way.
The education experts tell us that the best way for kids to learn and retain information is to make it meaningful. I tend to be in the camp of Howard Gardner, the mastermind behind the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, who says groupings of ideas might be more important than singular concepts in separate subject areas.
Balance, in my class, is achieved by use of oppositional forces helping us stand, move, and sustain a balance. In other words, we need energy to be sent equally up as well as down, side to side, and so on. This was a clear time to introduce technical movement and the mechanics of how to find ones balance.
From there, the students could create a chart onto which they listed the information that would help them balance their bodies in dance.
They could also list the way these attributes make them feel as they are practicing balancing, leading to narration.
Perhaps we could even divide the students into opposing camps of whose narratives described an easy balance or a difficult one oh, there are so many possibilities for further development.
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