In August 2014, Valerie Gutwirth and I published a pocket guide/journal of 55 teaching tips we wished we had learned before embarking on a career teaching children and teens. This book is not teaching advice about content or lesson planning; it is about those essential details – the brass tacks (teaching supplies, paychecks, shoes for teaching, observing at the school before you begin, protocol for days when you are sick…). Whether you are teaching one class a week or twenty, these tips are practical and easily applicable right away in a wide variety of teaching settings including in a studio, preschool, or K-12 school. Since many dance teachers teach a variety of ages within a given week, Dance Education Essentials touches upon ideas that are universal to all dance classes as well as some specific to preschoolers, elementary age students, and teenage students.

For the next few weeks, we will share some of these teaching tips. If you would like to purchase your own copy of the pocket guide/journal ($7.99), click here.

We welcome college professors to print out these teaching tips and use within a college course on dance education.

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TOPIC: KIDS

Tip #2: The Right Mindset for the Age Group You are Teaching

Think about young people in your life who are that age – such as a sibling or cousin. Observe children at a playground, park, or at your church or temple. Head to a toy store to get inspiration for themes and props. Look at catalogs for ideas (Land of Nod, Pottery Barn Kids, Magic Cabin, Nova Natural). Learn about child development and age appropriate behavior. Great resources include the books Yardsticks (Chip Wood) and Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain (Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.) as well as workshops through the Luna Dance Institute in the San Francisco Bay Area. Keeping up with kid culture is a great reason to see children’s and teens’ movies and to listen to music that teens love.  

Tip #4: Students’ Names

Know names (or have students wear nametags). You will have much greater command over a classroom when you can call on students by their names. Ask for a student class list so that you can review names before a class begins and for the first few weeks.

Tip #12: Observe

It is time well spent to go and watch a similar class in the community (e.g. another dance class for the ages you will be teaching). Take detailed notes about the class format, timing of each activity, the energy in the room, attention signals the teacher uses, beginning and ending of the class, and what ideas you might like to try out as well.   

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About the authors:

Valerie Gutwirth began teaching dance to children in high school. She graduated from Connecticut College in 1984, and received an MS in Early Childhood/Elementary Education from Bank Street College in 1992. She has taught movement, dance, and fitness classes to people from birth to age 80+, from Mommy and Me classes in church basements to Juilliard’s dance department, and everything in between. Valerie’s dance and performance experience includes companies in New York (1984-1991) and the San Francisco Bay Area (1995-present), most recently with Paufve Dance and the dance/singing/ body percussion group MoToR. Valerie has been thrilled, inspired, and challenged as a dance teacher in the Berkeley, California public schools for the past 17 years.

Jill Homan Randall graduated from the University of Utah in 1997 and has been teaching dance, or directing arts education programs, ever since. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Jill has taught in a wide variety of settings including preschools, community centers, dance studios, and public and independent K-12 schools. From 2004-2006 Jill was the Director of Education for the Lincoln Center Institute affiliate in Berkeley, California, and from 2006-2010 Jill directed Shawl-Anderson Dance Center. Jill currently teaches dance full-time at The Hamlin School in San Francisco. She has performed extensively with Nina Haft & Company and Paufve Dance. As a dance writer, Jill maintains three blogs on children’s books on dance, careers in modern dance, and the intersection of dance and technology. In 2013, Jill received the Herbst Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence.