Thread: Retention of Beginner Students

Replying to hourglassbellydance
I want to take a few things point by point, forgive me, this will take multiple posts, but you already know how wordy I can get!

I feel like the following have been some of the best suggestions for retaining beginners : 1) 6, 8, or 10 week sessions with choreography,
I agree that shorter sessions often work best, but with or without choreography- works for some, doesn’t for others, you will just have to experiment to see what works for you.

2) greater use of veils, finger cymbals, canes, etc.,
depends on how you structure your curriculum. I teach finger cymbals from day one, and one of my 4 beginning level courses (6 weeks each) focuses on veil, but other props are not introduced until intermediate levels. when I do introduce a prop, I want to be able to spend minimum 3 weeks on it to get a good grounding, often more time is spent. Some instructors don’t introduce zills or veils until intermediate levels- there is certainly enough to work on for a full year without them! Other instructors like to give more of a survey of possibilities in the beginning levels & might not spend as much time mastering a prop all at once, introducing veil one week, spinning the next, etc. I prefer my way, but that doesn’t make other ways bad, or even less likely to retain students.

3) several performance options to include haflas, recitals, and social gatherings,
YES! building community & providing an outlet for newly aquired skills is VERY helpful! Just watch those holiday parties- going to potlucks for every activity my family is involved in is daunting (but that’s another topic!)

4) remembering that indeed, students first come to belly dance class for a variety of reasons - often on a lark - and that most have no idea what to expect. If initially they are made to feel comfortable and have fun, they might continue and later decide they want to put in the effort and time to learn to belly dance well. So, perhaps, the initial 6 week session should be an introductory type where the "have fun and shake it up" aspect is played up. Following sessions can increasingly concentrate on quality and technique. Students can advance accordingly.
Again, this depends on who you are marketing to, but think more by motive type. There are many ways to think of grouping potential clients- rather than thinking ‘housewife’ or ‘teenager’ or ‘middle aged government employee’ think fitness focused, experienced dancers/athletes from other fields, ‘bouncers’ (will try 6 weeks of anything from zumba to folk dancing), etc. I start out pretty serious from day one and I know I appeal to folks who want more cultural knowledge and serious dance technique from day one. I do loose some of the ‘shake it up’ students, who do gravitate to one of my friends’ classes, where she has chosen to market to that type of student. Both approaches work.

Points made that I have questions about are the following:
1) preference for small class size.

I can understand why students might prefer small class sizes, but it seems to me that for teachers, bigger classes mean bigger bucks.

Bigger bucks don’t mean squat if I go insane. I use small class size/more individual attention as a marketing point. I could probably lower my prices a bit & get more students in a class, but my price point reflects that individual attention & still covers my expenses & is enough to make it worth it to me.

2) the case made for less repetition during class.

I guess that for initial "have fun and shake it up" classes, less repetition is in order, but as a dancer progresses, repetition becomes important for muscle memory and development. Also, I think there are a number of students that take comfort in knowing what to expect in class. I know that the highly successful "Fat Chance Belly Dance" has some type of centering ritual before every class. On the other hand, Artesemia (my apologies if misspelled) has noted that her highly successful dance business employs a great deal of variation. So, perhaps the goal here is to find a happy medium.

Definitely looking for a happy medium! I would say you want MORE repetition in a beginning class- it takes a long time for muscles and brain patterns unused to these movements to be able to execute them well & safely! don’t skimp on review at any level!!! I address the more repetition/more variety issue in my class structure: each session has a uniform warm up that addresses what we are working on in that session (as in the warm up may vary session to session, but for 6 full weeks, students know exactly what the warm up sequence is.) We then jump into review- often this looks like we are adding last weeks moves to the warm up sequence, but we can spend more time as needed if something needs to be corrected. Then we add new stuff, then we do the new stuff with zills, then we review with round robin or improv games, then we cool down. This is just one approach, but it works for me!

3) marketing to a certain type of dancer.

I think this probably a good point. This would help with the situation where you have a middle aged housewife trying to fit into a class of teens. On the other hand, the end result of this type of marketing will likely be a school or company of similar dancers - that is - all teens, all middle aged housewives, all seniors - and then, as a teacher or director or school, you are kind of locked in.
Yes & no- certain types of people will gravitate towards classes of similar people naturally, especially when you get a group of family members, co-workers, best friends moving into a class, but I think it is more helpful (tho perhaps more difficult) to think of ‘types’ you are marketing to by their goals & motivation rather than specifically their career path or age. That is part of it- there are reasons for separating certain groups out (seniors who need the class to move slower- not all seniors do, but it will appeal to some, teenagers might like a special session or a specific choreography geared more towards their interests, younger kids don’t keep up with focused adults as well & parents may not be comfortable from a social aspect having kids in an adult class, etc.)
But you also have to consider your commuity. A very transient community (military, university, etc) has different needs than a more static community. Often, it is a mix, but how you market your classes will determine if you are appealing more to the transient folks, or the more static (often 'support' community) If you work in a resort area like the one where my in-laws live, your classes may vary seasonally- you may be able to pick up certain students at certain times of the year (make up & glitz required in this case!) & need to market to another part of the community the rest of the year. There are SO MANY motives for different types of people to try BD- ask your students (especially the ones who stick around) why they came & you will develop a better idea of how to market to these folks.

IMPORTANT POINT: there is no one saying you have to cater to only one segment of the population either! You can teach a serious dance class for dancers, a seniors class, a kids class, AND a bellyrobics class- no reason you can’t diversify. You can also change your mind about who you want to market to at any given point. Just be clear on what your goals are for each class.

I think it is important to remember that, as someone pointed out, the drop out rate for any type of dance class is 2 out of 7, and for a fitness class, 1 out of 10. Several years ago, I did a mother/daughter tap class. I was very surprised to see that at least half of that class dropped - especially since it seemed to me it was important to be a good example for my daughter and "follow through" on the class.
It really does help to know this is pretty normal & not to take it too personally- yes, review your tactics to see what can be improved, but I know that retaining 100% of my students is not a reasonable goal! training well 100% of those that show up & helping everyone in class have fun is.

Regarding "Those who can't, teach"...I hesitate to say I suspect this applies a lot more to belly dance teachers than to schoolteachers. I always had the impression that most people who were in careers that focused on teaching young people were in schools because they chose to be there. Perhaps you see professors who couldn't get their dream job and settled for academia, but many of them are there because they wanted to teach, inspire, and guide the future of their field, too.

Dance teachers, OTOH, often have a high interest in passing on what they know, but how many of them are there because they don't have the opportunity to dance for money any other way? For any given city, there will be some number of dancers who want to dance professionally, and probably a larger number of dancers who wish they could turn pro, but have self-selected themselves out of the field because they admit they are too old or not the right body type, aren't personally competitive enough to scrum for gigs, would do restaurant work but find grams kind of cheesy, don't think their style would be marketable, have too many responsibilities to take on another career, etc. The local market will probably have far fewer paying gigs than the number of dancers who want to do them, and the area may not have a restaurant or club that could hire regular dancers. So where do many of the "aspirational pros" go? Into teaching. Notice that at no point have we even started to discuss whether any of these dancers are qualified to teach. Sometimes the reason a dancer can't get a pro career off the ground is that she simply isn't very good.

There is also a dynamic of reaching a point as a student, where you just don't have anywhere else to go but to try teaching. After achieving a certain proficiency, you're supposed to have something more to show for it than a solo at the local hafla. In the absence of a better place to channel advanced-but-not-quite-pro-level students, many of them try to go into teaching, flooding the market with more teachers than the local dance community really needs. Some of these dancers don't even particularly want to be teaching, but what else is there for them to do?

We've already touched on how teachers can turn off students because they don't provide a good match for what their students want to learn, and a few posts ago, we had the idea that teachers can lose students because they aren't professional or organized in how they run their classes. Now what about the teachers who can't retain students because they aren't suited to teaching in the first place? How much a problem is it for the community as a whole that some teachers are discouraging students with their incompetence or half heartedness (or even resentment that teaching is beneath what they believe should be their destiny)? Certainly some students in this situation are dedicated enough to find a different teacher, but how many of them just walk away shaking their heads?

Tourbeau, I think you hit it right on the nose.

In many communities (or possibly in our global dance community at large), there's a very specific yardstick against which dancers measure success. If you've been dancing for a few years, you move on to haflas. After haflas, you do restaurants and parties. After you've done a few public performances, what else is there to do but teach? I think a lot of dancers, unfortunately, think about their careers in terms of "logical" progressions and existing paradigms, rather than creating their own path that's beneficial to themselves and the art.

I'd be the first to say that I wasn't cut out for teaching and felt very confident in my decision to quit. I wasn't doing one iota of good for the DanceWorld by showing up to class feeling unmotivated every week. And it's not like my local scene isn't already supersaturated with beginner-level classes. Oddly, other dancers did NOT understand what would compel me to stop teaching. "They're just beginners!" they'd say. "Beginners don't care if you're not a perfect teacher. And you're getting paid!"

Just makes me wonder if this mentality might be more widespread - and if so, if that might be one contributor to the "quality control" issue. Not to mention, the power of word-of-mouth. If one person studies with a less-than-dynamic or unqualified instructor, then they go off and tell their friends, "Yeah, I took this bellydance class and the teacher didn't know what to do, so she had us swoosh around veils for an hour." What might their friends think about belly dance? Would they take up a BD class or Zumba for their New Year's Resolution?

I don't there is any such progression for students here in the UK except where the dance scene is younger.
There are individuals around who jump into restaurant work very rapidly and don't get involved in the community.
There are a lot of older students who never even consider restaurant work but perform at haflas in their first year of learning.
There are a lot of fusionistas who have no place in restaurant work here nor on the more "arty" platforms.
For older students, the pinacle might be the grander hafla's performance platform or to be part of a festival and that applies to the younger who might also want to get employment in restaurants and parties (and by younger, that is very flexible and individual)
There are some who go into teaching very quickly.Mmmmm
Whatever progression we hold out for our new students their path is very individual. My class is younger than me bar one and are mostly having fun learning something new and will move on to salsa or gardening or IT skills in the college. One or two will want to stay and get involved in the community. I have one, an Eastern European girl who I reckon wants to go the restuarant course and 3 tribal recruits who want to join the 6 others in the class who are much more experienced than them. These will cease to be students, I hope and become an ITS troupe.

I've been lucky, I guess. I've had many different teachers from all over, and they seem to enjoy teaching. Not all were beginning level teachers but no one seemed to behave like they were beneath teaching beginnings.

I could definitely see that as an issue. I could also see being turned off from belly dance if the teacher gives poor instruction on posture; if a beginning student walks away in pain, they may never come back because they think the dance is painful

Originally Posted by indigostars

I've been lucky, I guess. I've had many different teachers from all over, and they seem to enjoy teaching. Not all were beginning level teachers but no one seemed to behave like they were beneath teaching beginnings.

I could definitely see that as an issue. I could also see being turned off from belly dance if the teacher gives poor instruction on posture; if a beginning student walks away in pain, they may never come back because they think the dance is painful

"Beneath " teaching beginners...how can anyone be that..there is nothing more important!!!!,r:;

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

. Now what about the teachers who can't retain students because they aren't suited to teaching in the first place? How much a problem is it for the community as a whole that some teachers are discouraging students with their incompetence or half heartedness (or even resentment that teaching is beneath what they believe should be their destiny)? Certainly some students in this situation are dedicated enough to find a different teacher, but how many of them just walk away shaking their heads?

Good point. Sadly, I guess the proof of the pudding is how fast the turnover is for a teacher. Does she retain, or does she lose students quickly. How long would it take a complete novice to realise that what he/she is being taught is actually not the real deal? Subjective. And beyond control.

Originally Posted by lizajuk

"Beneath " teaching beginners...how can anyone be that..there is nothing more important!!!!,r:;

Oops, I meant above, but I guess the point still sticks. The teacher was always giving her all to the class, even if she was teaching the same materials.

I think there is the perception that people who teach higher levels of anything must be better than those who are teaching beginning levels...

Another thing with retention is that it means something to me when a teacher knows my name or at least recognizes me from the other week.

We won't be able to solve how teacher incompetence softens the market in this thread. Even if the best plan in the world was devised right here, right now, and we all bought into it, there are still thousands and thousands of community centers and YMCAs across the western world who are telling their existing dance or fitness staff to take a course so they can teach belly dance as well.

No harm in trying, though.

By the way, while perusing Z-Helene's website the other day, I stumbled upon this link. National Association for Teacher Certification in Middle Eastern Dance Anyone have any interactions with the National Association for Teacher Certification in Middle Eastern Dance before?

Am I the only one here who's bristling at the idea of "those that can't, teach"? I'm damn good at both performing and teaching, and I know I'm not the only one. So there!,m::

Seriously, I don't think that's a fair thing to say at all. Sure, some people may teach because they want a bellydance 'career' of some sort and for whatever reason are not currently doing well as performers. But plenty of us enter teaching because we have a genuine desire to share what we know, because we know we'd make good teachers, and because we respect teaching as an art and an end in itself. And that doesn't have to have anything to do with how good we are at performing.

Originally Posted by jewelbellydance

Am I the only one here who's bristling at the idea of "those that can't, teach"?

I think multiple people (including myself) are agreeing with you that "Those who can't, teach" is incorrect as a blanket statement. However, it is similarly incorrect to say that this statement can't ever apply to the person in front of a class. We have a lot of mediocre, if not outright lousy, teachers out there. Having a desire to impart what you know (not "you" in particular, but the general "you") doesn't mean you possess the skills to do it well, any more than wanting to dance gracefully inoculates you against looking like a clod.

Performing and teaching are somewhat independent of one another, but I'll disagree that they are completely unrelated because we are talking about teaching a performance art. There is a point where if you are below a certain proficiency as a performer, you aren't going to be able to get the job done in a classroom. If you lack the sophistication to understand that a good dancer doesn't dance like she's working her way through a recipe in a cookbook (four of these, eight of those,...), how can you train students to understand the nuances of interpreting music properly?

By the same token, if you are a fabulously intuitive dancer and "magic just happens," how do you teach students to draw that out of themselves? Unless you are working with other dancers who are born with or who have already started to develop their own sense of intuition, you are going to have a room of frustrated and confused students struggling to follow what you are trying to teach. Some people need more breakdown than, "Watch this...," and if you are not conscious of what you are doing on that level, it's going to be hard for you to explain things to those students.

Thinking of all the dancers I have worked with--as instructors, troupe directors, workshop teachers, I can think of two who were outstanding teachers but not particularly good performers. (I'll give one of them the benefit of the doubt because anybody can have an off night. The other one had too many off nights for it to be a coincidence.) You can be excellent at explaining ideas and identifying what a student needs to correct to improve, but still fall flat on stage yourself. I couldn't begin to count the number of dancers I know who are better performers than teachers.

I apologise for upsetting anyone with the teaching comments but my point is that surely we can't think about teaching bellydance wholly in isolation from any other form of teaching. Yes, it has its own particular issues but it does also have a lot in common with other methods of disseminating information too.

I think Lauren pointed out that retention rates, and the whys and wherefores are just as much a part of any college comittee

As for the off topic issues about passion for teaching - yes, point taken many people out there love it and enter it because they want to do it. However, the current culture for entering teaching in the UK (emphasis on current and UK)is one where university students are blatantly offered large cash incentives (to pay off significant student debt) if they enter it. I can name 25 persons alone from my university year group who entered teaching for cash reasons only and hated it/hate it. My partner can name another 25 individuals who also hated it/hate it. The point is that getting involved in something like that isn't always done for the purest of reasons.

I didn't even know there could be a "retention" in bellydance... I mean, if it happened here in Portugal, I'm sure nobody would attend classes anymore... That would be the end! ..l;,

I want to add something I haven't seen discussed much in this thread.

Make it easy for students and students-to-be to find your class information! It's great if you have a lovely website with fancy pictures and all the bells and whistles. If no one can find your class info you're SOL getting students to retain! Make the class section easy to find, give clear information about dates, session length, cost, location and payment. I'm constantly astonished at the class pages I find that are out of date, or I can't tell what year is being referred to, or that don't have futures class session dates listed. I am a hands off kind of person, I want to look up the info and make up my mind then. If I have to email the teacher because of their vague website I'm already losing interest.

On that note, get a FB page, start a mailing list, anything to get more buzz about what you do.

I agree with the idea of tapping your students into the community. For student's looking for a fun activity it can really keep them around when they make friends, get to go to shows, kick back at video nights, etc. I think this can also inspire students to stick with it when they have the support of other dancers and students, and when they get to see more advanced dancers they can use as role models.

I was in California for a visit this week, and went to dinner with one of the students I'd had while I was there. She brought up the subject of why she didn't stick with any other teachers that she tried after I left, and that led to a general discussion about why she stayed with me and not with others.

Obviously, this is just one person's opinion, but it's relevant to the thread:

Probably the biggest point she emphasized, several times in our conversation, was choreography. She has not gone back to classes that just taught technique and drills. And she has not gone back to teachers whose choreography style she didn't like. She said that when she decided to try belly dancing, she was looking for something that would make her feel more feminine, more beautiful, and she felt my choreography did that. She said that the choreography she has tried in other teachers' classes did not - it seemed to mechanical or something, whereas she thought mine was "juicy".

Fun. She said my general class behavior was warm, encouraging, and fun while at the same time maintaining the focus on dancing rather than on socializing. She said one of the contributing factors that made her leave another teacher was that the other teacher always seemed negative in her general attitude about stuff. My student was looking for a fun activity when she sought a belly dancing class, and she found that with me, but not with this other teacher.

The opportunity to be part of a troupe experience. Before I left California, she was part of a student troupe that I'd formed. We had sewing parties to make the costumes, and really made parties out of the occasion with food, etc. We went to the Bellydance Superstars show together as a group, as well as to local haflas. We organized some performance opportunities, including Summer Caravan back when it was still in California. So there was a mix of performing opportunities and group bonding that was appealing. Now, this was a mixed bag because some of the group dynamic we had at the time was toxic, and I think the group would have fallen apart even I had stayed in California. But, despite that, she loved the troupe experience and told me that she still enjoys going back and watching the DVD of our performance at Summer Caravan, and she's very proud of how good the choreography looked.

Originally Posted by jewelbellydance

Am I the only one here who's bristling at the idea of "those that can't, teach"? I'm damn good at both performing and teaching, and I know I'm not the only one. So there!,m::

I do bristle at that statement. It must come from one who has not taught or isn't any good at it, or perhaps that's their analysis after experiencing a bad teacher. I find the quote disrespectful and coming from a place of 'not understanding' to put it kindly.

Teaching is an art, and it requires so much care and consideration. Skills are built upon year after year. The growth process never stops. Done correctly it's a consuming process. Done poorly it's a horrible disservice to your students. The bitterness of experiencing a poor teacher is probably at the root of the statement.

Teaching dance I'd say requires even more varied skills than say teaching school (I happen to do/have done both). Teaching dance requires, in addition to being able to reach your students (no small task with the bulk of our students being adult hobbyists who pay for your services): business skills (hence this thread), tact, patience, directorial skills, costuming skills, choreography skills, and general cat herding.

We all owe a great debt to our teachers, so that statement has always bothered me a bit, not because I feel threatened, but because I find it sad to hear people really take our services for granted. Just imagine how many of us would know how to read in the US alone without teachers - and the repercussions following.

This thread has been really enlightening, and I'm going to try some of the suggestions. I've been in a rut of teaching beginners, and am ready for something new.

Thanks everyone!

KS

Originally Posted by khadiya

I apologise for upsetting anyone with the teaching comments but my point is that surely we can't think about teaching bellydance wholly in isolation from any other form of teaching. Yes, it has its own particular issues but it does also have a lot in common with other methods of disseminating information too.

I think Lauren pointed out that retention rates, and the whys and wherefores are just as much a part of any college comittee

As for the off topic issues about passion for teaching - yes, point taken many people out there love it and enter it because they want to do it. However, the current culture for entering teaching in the UK (emphasis on current and UK)is one where university students are blatantly offered large cash incentives (to pay off significant student debt) if they enter it. I can name 25 persons alone from my university year group who entered teaching for cash reasons only and hated it/hate it. My partner can name another 25 individuals who also hated it/hate it. The point is that getting involved in something like that isn't always done for the purest of reasons.

In the US we have a similar program called Teach for America. Some of the TFA workers are great, others are finding teaching is not for them. Interesting. It's the odd (to me) thought that anyone can teach because we've all been to school. Ha! If nothing else, perhaps when these indebted students do find their niche, they'll appreciate what teachers do.

:)

KS

Shira, I understand your friend's opinion, and a lot of students share it, but for every person who feels like she does, there is someone at the other end of the scale, complaining that she came to class to get some exercise or dance around and do her own thing, instead of memorizing routines or working toward a performance she doesn't want to be a part of.

I think most green beginners do like choreographies because it gives them a sense of accomplishment as opposed to being completely overwhelmed at the thought of trying to take a bunch of little moves and assemble them into an attractive pattern to music that may still sound very foreign to their ears. However, I think teachers have to be careful not to over-rely on choreographies because it does turn some students off. Choreographies can wear out their welcome in a class. A student who is not preparing for a performance may not want to spend hour after hour rehearsing a piece. They may be of the mind set where they think, "Okay, I've got the general idea here. Let's move on." In that case, it may make more sense to siphon off students who do want to perform and have them rehearse at another time, instead of eating up the class slot.

My other point is that it is important for the teacher to continue to provide a steady flow of new material for students once they get past the very first stage of the learning process. If you are in the situation where you have a cycling two-month basic class but no separate intermediate class to move students forward, you need to have a repertoire of simple choreographies, not just one. It's not surprising that students will drift away from your lessons if six times a year you try to teach them the same thing. I realize that many teachers are not in a situation where they can support a multi-level structure, but there are beginners who no nothing, and beginners and low intermediates who know some things, and the second group needs to be recognized, supported, and made to feel like they are not trapped on Groundhog Day with the newest recruits. In light of that and the "fun" aspect, a teacher should strive to make each student feel that she/he is responsive to their needs. Particularly when you have the mixed old-and-new-students dynamic, it is important to be inclusive and welcoming. Nothing is worse than feeling like you are intruding in someone else's clique--either because you are the new student in an already established class, or because you are a more advanced student in a room of newbies.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

Shira, I understand your friend's opinion, and a lot of students share it, but for every person who feels like she does, there is someone at the other end of the scale.

Well, of course. You have stated the obvious. A sample size of one person is not representative of every student in existence.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

However, I think teachers have to be careful not to over-rely on choreographies because it does turn some students off. Choreographies can wear out their welcome in a class.

I agree with your statements, but I thought this thread was about retaining really beginner-level beginners. I think an 8-week session of learning choreography is fine, if that's what a teacher feels comfortable doing, but once students have been in it for more than 8-12 months they can benefit from moving the focus of class away from "yet another choreography" and into other skills such as technique refinement, musicality, stage presence, etc.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

My other point is that it is important for the teacher to continue to provide a steady flow of new material for students once they get past the very first stage of the learning process. If you are in the situation where you have a cycling two-month basic class but no separate intermediate class to move students forward, you need to have a repertoire of simple choreographies, not just one. It's not surprising that students will drift away from your lessons if six times a year you try to teach them the same thing.

I agree. I have enough beginner level routines that a student could take my class six times before returning to something she'd learned before.

I think those mixed-level classes that keep repeating the same material all the time are partly responsible for the phenomenon of insufficiently-skilled teachers. If a student keeps being re-taught only the same dozen moves over and over for a year, she just might start to think (understandably) that that's all there is to belly dancing.

I really believe in teaching in blocks and keeping the class together to move forward. I've had many students tell me that they came to learn to bellydance but ended up also making great friends with their classmates. Learning this dance is such a great bonding experience!

As a dance teacher (and I teach middle schoolers by day) I have to find that balance between keeping them challenged and moving forward with making sure they're also having fun. I do that by presenting the challenging stuff such as new moves/combos at the first part of the class then switch to something familiar/fun then revisit the challenging stuff toward the end of class. This seems to help keep the frustration levels down. You really have to be aware of when your students reach the saturation point and be ready to switch to something else.

And I'm in year 24 of teaching hormonal children with large feet many of whom have learning and behavioral problems. I do it because no day is ever the same, I enjoy the kids, and I do occasionally help someone. I didn't get into teaching because I couldn't do anything else or wanted a big paycheck. Most people wouldn't last a week doing what I do.,m::

Originally Posted by *Shira*

I agree with your statements, but I thought this thread was about retaining really beginner-level beginners.

This is how I see it, too. There are a *few* beginners who want a serious dance education, but not enough to keep a class going in my town. (there are serious instructors who cater to their needs, though).

The vast majority of my beginners (like 99 out of 100) are recreational and never intend to go pro. If I'm thinking *student retention* those are the ones I have to focus on.

By the time they get to Level 3 at my studio, that percentage has totally reversed, of course, and I can be much more serious in my instruction.

But more importantly, I've never had a serious student complain that they didn't want their instruction to also be fun.

Making things fun doesn't mean teaching poor technique. It takes nothing away from the serious student at all.

Originally Posted by *Shira*

A sample size of one person is not representative of every student in existence.

Your friend's opinion is representative of what a lot of students feel. Just like this thread discussed the potential mismatch between students and teachers on the subjects of fun/exercise vs. dancer training, and formally vs. loosely structured classes, how much the teacher uses choreography is another fork in the road where students can decide whether they want to keep coming back to your class or not. Students may form opinions on how they feel about choreography very early on, although I think it is more common in the later phases of beginner learning than in the first step of the process--and this thread is about retaining those beginners, too.

Not every student is receptive to the idea that choreography can be a tool for learning how to find your own artistic voice because it helps you to understand how other dancers approach their music. To a few students, choreography interferes with their own "artistic passion." Maybe this is because they have done some online research and hoped the class would focus on improv, or perhaps they just don't like their teacher's style. Occasionally you see a student who masters the material faster than her classmates and feels that a beginner's choreography is beneath her, and consequently, her less talented classmates are impeding her path to greatness.

It's also not uncommon to find beginners (typically students who are older and/or self conscious about their appearance) who come to their first class having already decided that there's no way they can, will, or should perform, and as a result they balk at learning class choreography, especially if the goal will be a public performance down the road. They don't tend to be as disruptive or disgruntled as the Day 1 Divas, but they still represent a student faction who prefers a less performance- or performance-skills-oriented class.

[Continued...]

Of course, no long discussion on teaching choreography to beginners would be complete without acknowledging the extremists in the pro-choreography camp, too. I find it very frustrating to be in a class with students who don't want to do any dancing that isn't nailed-down choreography. Some students, especially beginners, are overwhelmed at the thought of creating their own dance, and it is easy to become so overly concerned about doing it "right" that you're afraid to try--those are understandable reasons why a student might want to hang back and conservatively rely on the expertise of someone else--but often the pro-choreography camp just comes across as lazy. "Feed me." "I don't want to think for myself." "Just tell me what to do, and don't expect me to learn anything beyond the bare minimum." "I've already bought a costume and I'm just here for an excuse to wear it. How many classes do I have to take before I can perform?" I realize not all students aspire to be great dancers, but who takes a class to learn as little as possible? I don't understand that attitude. It's like trying to learn a foreign language by memorizing a phrase book. You're not learning to express new ideas, only canned, static ones.

For me, the bottom line is that a teacher has to balance what the students want against what they need to learn to be well rounded. I knew a teacher who used to start teaching her beginner choreography at the first class. She felt this was empowering ("See, look how much you've learned in an hour! You can already start doing a little routine!"), but the students didn't always see it that way ("Geez, back off! I haven't even decided if I like this yet, much less if I want to get dressed up and do it in front of other people!"). In light of that, it's important to make sure students understand that choreography has an academic purpose, and it's about more than a push to the stage.

The comment on choreographies wearing out their welcome goes back to what I wrote in Post #81. If you are unable to teach choreography in any sort of efficient way because of wandering attendance, you work at a studio that requires you to teach drop-in style, etc., it will take far longer to cover the material than it would if students were conscientiously coming to class every week--and you are probably going to see retention problems. If you spend Week 2 reviewing what Suzy missed in Week 1, and Week 3 reviewing what Judy missed in Week 2, and Week 4 reviewing what Betsy missed in Weeks 2 and 3, some of the students who come to class faithfully and have been keeping up with the material will get bored. Maybe they'll figure attendance isn't important and they'll start skipping class, too--or maybe they'll figure it's just time to find a new hobby. Any time you put a student in the position of thinking, "Why am I doing this?," "I already learned this," "This is stupid," or "I don't want to learn this," you open the door for them to walk out.