Done!!

Well that's it! Finished! Final presentation went very well, I will finish the process by posting my Artefact.

Congratulations to everybody who completed the course! See you at graduation!

Dance Journeys with Youth Dance England

Yesterday I attended a conference held by Youth Dance England at the Northern Ballet School. The theme of the day was that everybody has a different dance journey, and the seminars throughout the day were related to the facilitation of young peoples dance journeys.

The day was fantastic. I saw some great lectures and heard about some very interesting research, and got a real insight into how Youth Dance as a whole is coping with the recent changes to education the government are making. I also got some great networking done, meeting the youth and community dance director for Youth Dance England who encouraged me to apply for a Project Managing job that she thought I would be great for! I also got to meet the Head of Youth Dance England; the person who would choose whether or not to employ me. I found the whole experience of being there and being involved empowering and inspiring, and also reassuring  being around so many other practitioners who run into the same obstacles and struggle with the same hurdles that I do.

I wanted to share some of the issues and debates that came out of the conference, as I think a lot of BAPP students will find them extremely interesting. This blog will be the first of a few reviewing what I took from the conference.

The first talk was from Linda Jasper MBE, Director of Youth Dance England.
She first spoke of Arts Council figures showing that in the last few years the number of dance activities had doubled, and that the number of people making up dance audiences had tripled. This is all with only 11% of the Art Councils funding.

The popularity of dance among young people is second only to football.
She pointed out that "Dance is the only activity that combines physical literacy with imagination and creativity." Jasper 2012.

She believes the effects of the implementation of EBACCs, and more importantly the exclusion of Arts from the EBACC, is going to have devastating effects on our national bank of artists and creative people. With this proposed system in place, "we won't have the means to produce what we did in the olympic ceremonies this year" Jasper 2012.

A point she made that was particularly of interest to me was the effect this is going to have on male participation in dance. Most boys will not actively seek out dance outside compulsory classes, and therefore if dance is not included in the curriculum  far less boys will be introduced to dance and this will be greatly damaging to the dance sector!

I would urge EVERYBODY that reads this to go straight to www.baccforthefuture.com and sign the online petition that calls for an enquiry into the inclusion of Arts in the Ebacc. There are only 17000 signatures so far. I know that there are more people out there who don't want to see Arts disapear from schools, so please sign the petition.

Literature Review: Young Children and Movement: The Power of Creative Dance by Connie Bergstein Dow, Mar2010, Vol. 65 Issue 2, p30-35

In this Article the Author talks about the benefits of creative dance and movement in children, specifically primary school children. 

She structures her argument as a list of the benefits of creative movement, elaborating on each one. I have condensed her argument into an overview of her views on each benefit, and a selection of quotes that Dow uses to support her Article:

Access for all children:

Dow argues that creative movement can be accessed by any child, because it requires little or no equipment, other than a spacious room. It can also be adapted to suit disabilities, changing movements for children who are physically impared. For example, a child in a wheelchair could throw their arms in the air instead of doing a jump, or create a letter shape with their hands instead of their whole bodies.

Curriculum Enrichment:

Dow believes creative movement can be used as a vehicle for any subject or theme, helping bring the topic alive and engage the children.

Physical Development:

Incorporating creative movement into a primary school childs day helps to develop their 

“coordination, body control, balance, stamina, and overall strength.” Dow 2010.

Antidote to obesity:

Dow argues that incorporating movement into every class would be an extremely effective way of combatting childhood obesity: 

“Incorporating active, enjoyable, creative movement into classroom routines is just what the health professionals ordered!” Dow 2010

Social and Emotional Development:

Children learn to work as a group. “Creative movement is one of the best ways for children to learn the social skills needed for working together” (Gilbert 2002)

The National Dance Education Organization states, 

"Dance promotes psychological health and maturity. Children enjoy the opportunity to express their emotions and become aware of themselves and others through creative movement. A preschool child enters a dance class or classroom with a history of emotional experiences. Movement within a class offers a structured outlet for physical release of feelings and emotions” (CNDEÜ 2009).

Creativity:

“In the years ahead, children will enter a global workforce. We need to teach children to look at problems in new ways, to practice critical thinking skills, and to learn collaboration and cooperation in finding new solutions.” (Dow 2010)

Dow believes that creativity can practiced and enhanced through creative movement in schools.

The mind body connection: Movement and the brain:

“Research shows that movement and exercise can spark the growth of new brain cells and facilitate learning” (Ratey 2008)

"Movement, a natural process of life, is now under- stood to be essential to learning, creative thought, and high level formal reasoning. It is time to consciously bring integrative movement back into every aspect of our lives and realize, as 1 have, that something this simple and natural can be the source of miracles" (Hannaford 1995. 214)

"Exercise improves learning on three levels: first, it optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, and motivation; second, it pre- pares and encourages nerve cells to bind to one another. which is the cellular basis for logging in new information; and third, it spurs the development of new nerve cells from stem cells in the hippocampus" (Ratey,2008, 53). 

"Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain" (Ratey, 2008, p. 3).

She summaries thusly:

“Evidence is mounting about the benefits of movement in the learning process. Creative dance is the perfect vehicle for enhancing the mind-body connection in young children and an important part of early education. Once educators become familiar with movement and its many benefits, instead of asking. "What is creative movement?" the question will be, "Why not creative movement?"” (Dow 2010)

This Article is directly relevant to my study. It is concentrating on the benefits of creative movement, which is the foundation of dance. It will be interesting to see if there is a link between the benefits Dow perceives primary children receive through creative movement, and the benefits of participating in dance teachers and secondary age students perceive. Some of Dows points will be slightly to complex to justifiably link to my research results i.e cellular structure of the brain etc. But it might be possible to draw links between Dows arguments of Access for All and curriculum enrichment and the opinions of students and teachers about how dance participation benefits the students.

Early experiments with processing data

I am close to having all my survey data collected and so I have started experimenting with how I will process and present the data.

Here is a very early attempt at displaying results to a question as a pie chart with percentages. Please ignore all formatting and layout issues, it looks beautiful on my Mac but as soon as I upload it to Google Docs it gets pulverised.

Early attempt at data processing

"Facilitating dance making from a teacher's perspective within a community integrated dance class", Research in Dance Education, Cheesman, Apr2011, Vol. 12 Issue 1, p29-40.

This particular article is written from the perspective of a dance teacher who speaks about her own community integrated dance class and why she thinks it is successful.
My study is exploring whether gaps exist between the teachers perceived benefits of dance and the students perceived benefits of dance, with the hope being that I will be able to improve the success of my own classes. Students attend classes with certain expectations, and the teachers do the same. In this observational study Cheesman states the following in her conclusion:

"I think reasons why this class works are inextricably linked with the people who chose to come to this class. Individuals attending this class come primarily to dance, and enjoy improvisation and the social interaction with other people. In this class we dance, play, and laugh a lot, and much of what happens comes from within as opposed to being imposed." (Cheesman, 2011.)

This is a perfect example of student and teacher expectations matching, and therefore the class is successful in both the eye of the student, and the teacher.

What if an experienced, traditionally trained dancer attended the dance class, possibly with a different set of expectations and perceptions of dance? Would that student leave the class having enjoyed it and benefitted from it? Would they go back again, or would they seek out a different class more in tune with their own perceptions of dance?

Cheesman goes on to say:

"Interesting to note is that this class does not usually attract participants who have had what we might call traditional dance training. I suspect this may be because the differing bodies with differing abilities are too confronting, challenging their ideas about what dance is and who can dance." (Cheesman, 2011)

Cheesman focuses on a sense of community, inclusion and freedom of voice; these are her perceived benefits of dance. Those particular benefits may not be the only ones she acknowledges professionally, but certainly in the case of this class, they are the ones that she focuses on. Seemingly (referring back to the first quote) the participants expectations of the class match what Cheesman is delivering, and therefore "the class works" (Cheesman, 2011). I would assume that if her students were attending with the expectation to improve their flexibility, technique and aesthetic quality they would regard the class as inappropriate and a waste of time. This is not to say that the class is poorly delivered or constructed, merely that it has been created to implement the teachers perceived benefits of dance, not the students.

This article serves as a great example of perceived benefits of dance being matched between student and teacher. It could be that the students and teachers that are part of my research are in the same situation, but it could also be that there are differing perceptions and expectations.

My study aims to explore how this relationship between perceptions effects the quality of a dance class, and by altering perceptions can dance class delivery be improved? If so, how can this be accomplished?

Literature Review: Uncertain times for dance in schools

'Keep arts at heart of curriculum' says Nicholas Serota

By Judith BurnsEducation reporter, BBC News

This article that Paula posted in a blog has got me feeling extremely concerned.

It feels like the arts have only just got a decent footing within schools, and it now seems they are being pushed out again! The article strongly suggests that the arts are going to be pushed out of the National Curriculum altogether, which I feel is going to have a massively detrimental effect on childrens education. As Nicholas Serota (director of the Tate art galleries) is quoted,

"We know that there is a great body of evidence now that has been gathered over the past 20 or 30 years which demonstrates that, where you have schools which give time to cultural learning, there is benefit both in that sphere and also to the other disciplines," 

"By making art a part of the national curriculum, we give the next generation of artists, designers, engineers, creators and cultural leaders the opportunity to develop the imagination and skills that are vital to our future." Nicolas Serota (2012)

I followed a link from this article to another which went into more detail about the new English Baccalaureate Certificate system which will be coming into force over the next few years:

GCSEs replaced by 'English Bac' in key subjects

It seems like such a huge step backwards!! In this new system, there will be no course work, no modular assessment, just one exam at the end. Talk about pressure!! This is not focusing on the process of learning! 

"we can have truly rigorous exams, competitive with the best in the world, and make opportunity more equal for every child" (Michael Gove, 2012)

This makes no sense! How does scrapping coursework and modular assessments make opportunity equal for every child!? Some children will crumble under the pressure of the final exam, regardless of how well they have grasped the subject or how great their classroom work is. It doesn't leave room for different ways of understanding and learning, how is this a step forward?

Literature Review: "Dance education: an examination of practitioners’ perceptions in secondary schools and the necessity for teachers skilled in the pedagogy and content of dance" (John Connel, Research in Dance Education, volume 10, issue 2, 2009)

In this article, the author has conducted a survey "examining practitioners’ beliefs, understanding and attitudes towards the teaching of dance in secondary schools" (Connel, 2009)

The aim of the study was to discover how the teachers in secondary schools that are responsible for delivering dance feel about the subject and how they approach it.

It was interesting that the findings suggested that a large proportion of the teachers of dance that made up the sample were non dance specialists. Out of 198 subjects, only 29 were trained dance teachers, and 8 dance artists. 146 were P.E teachers.

This seems strange to me. How would a parent feel if their child came home and told them that they were being taught maths by an English teacher with no experience or qualifications in Maths? This would be a problem surely? A school wouldn't dream of allowing a teacher with no experience in a higher profile subject to teach it, yet this is the case with dance.

Is this because there is a lack of dance practitioners applying? Or is it because most schools don't offer dance as an individual subject and therefore can't afford to employ a dance teacher to work with the P.E department? 

The study is 3 years old and since then a number of schools do now offer GCSE dance as a subject. It would be interesting to see how many of those posts are held by trained dance practitioners.

This study relates to my Inquiry as I am looking at dance teachers and dance students perceptions of the benefit of partaking in dance, and within the results of this study the respondents are quoted thusly:

"Participating in dance in school can improve understanding of the world in which young people live and this can be greatly increased through their artistic and aesthetic experiences of dance, enhancing their appreciation of the expressive nature of this subject." "In dance lessons, children have the opportunity to be creative and express themselves in different ways." "Children can improve their cognitive ability through the choreographic elements of dance and an appreciation of the fundamentals of movement; action, space, dynamics and relationships." "Performance with others, in the variety of relationships encountered through participation in dance, helps to assist a pupil’s consideration and appreciation of their physical, emotional, mental, social and cultural needs." "Participating in dance helps pupils develop an understanding and appreciation of their body in action, the necessity for safe practice, and the way their body moves and what happens inside the body as they move."                        (Connel, 2009) It will be interesting to see if similar opinions emerge from my study, which is gathering responses from teachers in the Private sector and in a community dance setting.