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: PLACE

Tip #14: Visit Before You Begin

Go to the school site/studio before your first day; figure out the commute time, look at the space where you’ll be teaching, and figure out a beginning plan for set up. How much or how little space do you have? What is the surface? Will the students be able to remove socks and shoes to safely dance on the surface?  

Tip #15: Prep Time In Your Teaching Space (Or Elsewhere)

If it's a multi-use space or a busy dance studio, there may not be any time to work in the space. Consider where else you might need to prep – an empty classroom at your school, at the studio when classes aren’t happening, or in your living room.

Tip #16: Storage

If there is a secure place on site to store your materials, it will help you stay organized (and your car stay roomy!). If not, invest in some lidded plastic containers you can label with permanent markers on blue tape.

Tip #17: Displaying Information

Is there display/board space for curriculum in your space? Is it protected? Can this space double as sets or demonstration charts during student performances?

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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.

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