I. What have you learned from your observations and reflections throughout the course of keeping this online journal? How has the practice of critical reflection and analysis transformed your teaching (or has it)? Identify key changes in your understandings about art education. Expand on one of these changes.
Keeping a collection of observations and reflections throughout my Master of Art Education program has served as a tangible record of my growth as an instructor as I placed theories into practice. Entering the program, I recall most concerned about discovering how I could create a meaningful bond with students’ dance-making experience. Through critical reflection and analysis, supplemented by the reading each of my courses provided, I began to identify the disconnect students had and what my curriculum lacked. The selecting of teaching materials I commonly geared to, as my dance professors taught me, for instance, did not offer a more complete cultivating and supportive learning environment my students needed. My beliefs about why students did not fully engage in lessons changed as I began to identify gaps in my practice.
By recognizing my class’ diversity, both racially and economically, I could create activities that would be much more engaging. I reevaluated the selection of repertoire related to students’ experiences, which I could incorporate in addition to the historical material I must demonstrate as part of Balletic instruction. As Buffington and Mckay (2013) reference Barrett (2003), “it is important for people to analyze underlying messages in the visual culture they encounter to decide if they agree or disagree with the messages presented[.]Arguing it is as important for educators to analyze underlying messages that relate to what we teach, how we teach and how we see ourselves” (Buffington &Mckay, 2013, p.13). I could not continue to expect my students to translate their Balletic technique in Choreography to produce meaningful original works that exhibited their stories. When for instance, I showcased, referenced, or solely validated works of particular ears of Ballet as typically most studios preference, because it was limiting. Ballet performed in-ears past in Europe candidly did not speak to all my students from America’s most diverse metropolitan areas.
The process of reflection most significantly allowed me to share and dialogue with fellow dance educators what I was learning in my Master’s program. To make teaching the Classical Balletic Arts much more relatable for our students to not merely mimic the physical steps we teach but internalize how to use their technique as vocabulary. Approaching my final year in the Master’s program, Barrett’s (2009) article Stories encountered when I initiated the program with Issues and Frameworks 20725, led by Dr. Christine Ballengee Morris, resonated with me as I connect how narratives function much like Choreographic work. One’s verbal narrative parallels a dancer’s body of work, for they serve to enhance deeper understanding and perspectives through the experience of sharing. More significantly, the literature shaped my understanding of how my students’ dance education serves them.
Barrett argues that “…if people were more open and transparent about their lives [;] we would have a more compassionate world” (Barrett, 2009, p.44). Narratives help broaden peoples’ perspectives, and in the process of sharing, they can “heal” (Barrett, 2009, p.46). When Dance, for instance, transitioned online, it meant more than a physical activity to engage children —a way to keep busy, but a means to “how does [one] find language for the deepest of all issues” (Barrett, 2009, p.50). As Barrett (2009) highlights the significance of dialogue exchange, I engaged with fellow instructors and parents. I listened to my students to adapt my teaching practice online, reverting to the lessons and reflections I kept. As we analyzed artwork interpretation that students searched through new forums using uncommon vehicles to view Dance like Chat rooms, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, as the author states, emotionally, “art connects us, allowing us to find a greater meaning to our human experience” (Barrett, 2009, p.51). Theoretically, one can examine how many of our questions may be answered through art, in its interpretation, and how our peers’ experience, though contrast to our own, may positively enhance a new outlook.
When I share artworks, for example, with my students and ask them to interpret a Choreography, I am in awe of how my perspective will shift. I also understand my students more profoundly how they perceive the world and interact with it. Unbeknownst to them, my stories, pain, love, and past inspire my Choreography. They may see beauty or peacefulness I had not felt initially but become aware of when seeing Dance through their eyes. Most important is the ignited creativity from my students that comes forth when establishing a dialogue to describe how they see the movement represented, I have chosen in repertorial selections or what they share. I have come to understand, identifying with the voices in Barret’s (2009) research, that the performing arts, more than an activity, serves as a vehicle to further understand life’s most perplexing or challenging situations. In a rehearsal process, students find their voice through their corporal expressions, finding meaning in how their environment shapes every aspect of their dances. When we create dance works, it is not only for our purpose as artists but to “expand our knowledge …when shared” (Barrett, 2009, p.53).
References:
Barrett, T. (2009). Stories. The International Journal of Arts Education, 41-54.
Buffington, M. & Mckay, S. (2013). Practice Theory: Seeing the Power of Art Teacher Researchers. Reston, VA. National Art Education Association.
II. Which courses have been the most transformative to your teaching practice? Identify two courses and describe how, including significant readings, materials, projects, etc. and specific examples of how the course have impacted your thinking and/or practice.
My Master of Art Education program experience has been transformative, for it has more profoundly served as my pre-service training to teach students much more effectively. As a dance educator, my undergrad and certification in Ballet Methodology taught me how to dance, yet it did not prepare me to teach students to dance. Courses as Curriculum Development Assessment 7607, lead by Dr. Jennifer Richardson, and Multicultural Art Education 7767, lead by Dr. Joni Boyd Acuff, provided me an opportunity to dissect and critique my curricula in a safe space where I could engage with other teaching professionals wishing to make their practice much more meaningful.
One of the most significant texts read throughout Multicultural Art Education 7767 that changed enhanced my lenses was, The Color of Law by Rothstein (2017). Chapters seven through nine, in particular, propelled me to look at my community much more in-depth as the author discussed the history of “slum clearance [.Which serve to,] reinforce spatial segregation of [minorities] ...becoming less welcomed in middle-class communities” (Rothstein, p.127). The chapters and forum discussion in class that accompanied this particular reading allowed me to explore a segment of my community I had never contemplated that could have previously positively impacted my teaching practices. I made connections to understanding how intertwined neighborhoods and education are. I learned how highways destroyed urban communities when “highway planning began in 1938” (Rothstein, p.127). In the case of my community, the Hollywood freeway began development in 1940. Crossing above Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, one can notice touristic areas that lead to the suburbs. The 101 freeway that starts above the urban section of East Hollywood separates the wealthier areas of my community. Most importantly, this realization propelled me to investigate the positioning of my studio, the cultural diversity, and all the socio-economic demographics that attend.
Becoming much more knowledgeable of my community allowed me to make the appropriate integrations to my lessons. Acknowledging my diverse community, not just culturally, allowed me to integrate teaching material to better suit, my students. Validating digital links to view performance familiar to my students’ experience free of charge (Dancers/Dance Company Instagram Accounts, Facebook, Youtube, etc.) has been most impactful. In addition to inquiring about free/discounted prices for students to attend live functions, using community permanent sculpture and murals to inspire choreographic creativity. Rothstein (2017) made me reflect on how unmindful previous practices, to mention theatrical performances within lessons, may have been. Not taking into account how I could alleviate students who may live in a section of town that offers fewer scholarly sources like museums, community centers, theaters, or other sources that promote free performance opportunities to view dance or engage with Art.
Apart from the class text and forum discussion lead by classmate questions, particular authors have forever impacted my practice that Multicultural Art Education 7767 supplemented. Such as Hyland (2005), whose words supported my agency to integrate additional teaching materials, making the appropriate modifications to lessons instead of other Ballet instructors. For as stated in Being a good teacher of Black students? White teachers and Unintentional Racism, “we have a responsibility as leaders in the field of education to change the cultures of schools [and other institutional realms of learning like studios.] So, culturally relevant teaching is not seen as radical or impossible but simply the norm” (p. 458). Taking a deeper reflection on how authors influenced my teaching practice, I am most surprised at the risks I am currently taking. Decisions I could have taken years ago. As a dance educator, I recognize how instrumental I am in first, for example, reimagining the tools that are accessible at no or little to no cost for students to practice and equally engage in within the studio and out. As well, choosing to integrate our community dance companies to build a bridge between accessible paths of tangible vocational opportunity.
Handbook on Research on Multicultural Education by Banks (2004) served as a guide. Literature that aided me in structuring my dance lessons’ themes to make the choreographic portion relate to my students’ experiences —cultivating creativity instead of stifling it by projecting an image of how Balletic work should be done. “A major goal of multicultural education [as stated by Banks (2004)] is to reform the school and other educational institutions so that students from diverse racial, ethnic and socio-economic groups will experience educational equality” (p.3). My ideology of what diversity meant changed to include socio-economic differences. Thus, apart from presenting racially diverse dancers/choreographers, my teaching material also fused contemporary artists who relinquished traditional ways of presenting work through cost-effective garments or spaces to perform. For students to have opportunities to critique, connect, and challenge the way they would creatively create their dance works.
Finally, Bonilla-Silva (2010) poignantly made me reflect on behavior. His covert and overt behavior analysis contributing to racial inequality in the United States in Color-blind racism & racial inequality in contemporary America made me reflect on my intentional and unintentional behavior as an educator. The author provides detailed behavior that our dominant society has developed to justify “responsibility for the status of color people” (p.2), but that is often intangibly proven. Reflecting on my experience as a Hispanic woman of color, how damaging covert behavior justified through “racial attitudes ... reflect[ing] progress [yet] resistance” (p.5), “symbolic racism” (p.6), and “group positions” (p.7) feels, can attest that attitudes can feel as internally painful to the spirit as an external blow to the skin. I was able to reflect on the metaphysical institutions (thought systems themselves) that setback racial progress, such as the ideology of “naturalization” (p.28). Ideas defending Naturalisation; how dominant groups may use that to justify segregation because it is natural for people to “gravitate towards likeness” (p.28) challenged me to think deeply about studio practices. For instance, I questioned why Modern and Hip-Hop classes as grades progressed were much more racially diverse than the elder Ballet groups. How a perception by teachers justifying students wanting to be amongst friends may underline covert behavior, I could have been unintentionally responsible for. Internalizing how “those belonging to subordinate race (like myself) or races struggle to change the status quo or become resigned to their position—Heroine lies the secret of racial structures and racial inequality the world over [I refuse not to use the power blocs I do have]” (p.9). As an educated woman of color with power in my position as an instructor, I can use teaching material to address diversity disparity by acknowledging my art forms history and exposing my students to those contemporary artists changing the structures. Showing contemporary artists using cost-effective platforms and garments to create Balletic work was only the first step; integrating activities to be more inclusive was the second. Rather than choosing costumery from catalogs (that was notably more expensive than techniques like Modern, Hop-Hop, or Jazz), I incorporated costumery. I restructured opportunities for students to choose a universal garment (unitard both female and male dancers could wear and design through pattens that pertained to the theme of their dance) that was cost-efficient. Simultaneously, creating a deeper bond to their choreographic making experience, not alienating students who could not afford costumes, or making costumery a limiting factor to not register in a Ballet class. Colorblindness does not address the realities of racism that exist, especially systemically. Still, acknowledging those realities and differences than ignoring them as if they did not exist, I feel I can create changes if, at the very least, it begins within the realm of my classroom.
In the 2020 Covid Pandemic rise, many of my students found themselves without the tools the dance studio physically provides (barres, space, mirrors, texts, iPads, etc.) to engage in their artistic passions as they converted to Online learning from home. Mid-term within Multicultural Art Education 7767, Ladson-Billings & Tate (1995) allowed me to be much more critical and observant of oppressive structures. Identifying that “race and property intersect, creating a tool for understanding inequality” (p.47) allowing me to understand the role of property. How “property relates to education in explicit and implicit ways[;] in simplistic [terms,] those with “better” property are entitled to “better” school (p. 54). As a studio instructor who teaches in Hollywood, between the suburbs and more commercial areas, I understand how “poor students …are unlikely to have access to [tangible] resources” ( Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, p.54). Such as portable barres, private classes, home workout equipment, or other tools to supplement their learning outside of our dance studio class. Comparison to some of the students who may come from much more affluent backgrounds. Transitioning to teach without the physical tools my employment facilitated, I reflect on my practice; aims to provide “intellectual property. [Professional company level instruction that does not rely on or] ...limit[s my students] opportunity to learn” ( Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, p.54).
Understanding when “setting standards, such as what students should know and be able to do, they must have the material resources that support their learning” ( Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, p.54) has been one of my aha moments as an instructor. I have become much more perceptive about how many students would be financially able to have leverage; advantages outside of my class by strengthening technique through private instruction—if they do not, then I am the vehicle to supplement through curriculum materials and space I create to aid students’ learning.
Curriculum Development Assessment 7607, led by Dr. Jennifer Richardson, provided me the most vital foundation to structure activities by assembling projects in class that reconnected me to my goals as an educator wishing to grant intellectual property. I was exposed to Deleuze and his philosophical ideas of “encounters” (Walker, n.d. p.2), “line of flight” (Walker, n.d. p.3), and “deterritorializing” (Walker, n.d. p.2) in her semester prior in Tech Studio Activities 26868 and within Curriculum Development Assessment 7607 I was able to structure activities that did not merely mimic my physical demonstrations but permit students to delve deeper into why they learned balletic terminology; how to consider non-traditional spaces that would inspire genuine connections to their art-making experience. Literature such as Walker’s (n.d) Art-making and Nonsense and Rhizomatic Thinking challenged me greatly to transmit concepts referenced within the Fine Arts for the Performing Arts. That creatively inspired me to create take-home (an uncommon method in-studio practice) choreographic activities. Where all my students could dance at their despoil with items accessible in their home by validating teaching material that visually demonstrated it and physical tools such as barres that converted to chair/railings. My Big Ideas Lesson was the first encounter I had cultivating playing with dancing in non-traditional spaces instead of the historical way dance is taught in a studio.
In Raising the Barre Exercise, students’ spatial environment challenged them to modify steps, and emotional difficulties or ease inspired their corporal expressions. Initially a class project, became an opportunity for me to identify the needs of my students. I addressed how I needed to create a semiosphere where all students, regardless of financial limitations, could dance at any time, anywhere. I had to incorporate visual material to support that ideology and cement that Balletic work was not any less worthy if not performed with expensive garments, specific stage props, or practiced within certain platforms. My course project, most importantly, bled into my teaching practice as a yearly ongoing conversation and choreographic activity. When students returned to the studio—a space deliberately constructed to facilitate movement, students’ unique pieces at home created one choreographic dance as a class based on Stars. Individually, each dancer employed their choreographic knowledge by further developing the solos created in their home, choosing when to enter, exit, and why some dance solos would function better as a duet or pas de trois. I was able to take a step back and functioned as a mediator towards the end of the year, overseeing students relinquish costumery decisions that parallel classical works commonly expected; taking creative agency choosing garments, colors, means to unite the group to enhance their dance piece on stage based on a theme of Unification. Each students’ solo (star) entered and exited within dance phrases (constellation) exhibiting one vibrant Galaxy.
Curriculum Development Assessment 7607 class objective 7.1 to identify strategies for how students can be active participants in guiding curriculum and assessment development was my first encounter on creating culturally sustaining pedagogy. By listening and paying attention to students’ needs, I was able to select teaching material, reflect how it may have not worked and incorporate material that was relevant. In order, to “create assignments that [promoted] … dialogue [to] help get to know students, know each other, and build their abilities to share their ideas and cultures with others” (Buffington & Bryant, 2019, p.24). For “shared ownership[,] allows students to create the classroom culture,” making students become excited to expand and share their experiences connecting with the material making their contributions memorable (Buffington & Bryant, 2019, p.24).
Conversing with fellow dance instructors, much of our foundation teaching the Balletic Arts is a repetition of our teachers’ material. We seldom take the opportunity to bring nuance to our structure, failing to acknowledge the richness of perspectives our students, community, and what our contemporary dance artists/companies can offer. The material educators select, activities they create, spaces they cultivate can either disenfranchise students or inspire them to create meaningful choreographic work. That will ultimately enhance their experience to pridefully share their stores through corporal expression.
Duet Excerpt Student Choreographic Work “City of Stars” a Rock Ballet. Solos based on Raising the Barre Exercise. Dialogue in class incorporated finding connections to our community as Angelenos: The Hollywood Walk of Fame, known for Film Stars and Sunset Strip; where rock artists have risen to fame are all locations surrounding our studio.
References:
Banks, J. Banks, C. (2004). Handbook on Research on Multicultural Education. Chapter 1. Multicultural Education. Historical Development, Dimensions and Practice. pp. 3-25
Buffington, M.L., & Bryant, A. (2019). Changing practice: Culturally sustaining pedagogy in art education. Art Education, 72(2), 20-25.
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2010). Racism without racists. Color-blind racism & racial inequality in Contemporary America. 3rd Ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Chapters 1&2
Hyland, N. (2005). Being a good teacher of Black students? White teachers and unintentional racism. Curriculum Inquiry, 35 (4), 429-459.
Ladson-Billings, G Tate, W. (1995). Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education. Teachers College Record. 97 (1), 47-68.
Rothstein, R. (2017). The Color of Law. New York, NY: Liveright. pp. 100-151
Walker, S.R. (n.d). Artmaking and Nonesense, 1-27
Walker, S.R. (n.d). Rhizomatic Thinking, 22-34