Abstract:

 

The goal of education is to support and assist students to achieve their goal and to become a whole-person who can integrate their achievements within the society. Therefore, I believe education should be based on the needs of students. The learning takes place when new information is built into and added to an individual’s current structure of knowledge, understanding, and skills. We learn best when we actively construct our own understanding. (Pritchard, 2014, Kindle Locations 477-479) I also believe dance education can provide a unique outlet for students to grow as a whole person.

 

 

Dance for All

 

Movement activities should become as important as so-called “book work.”

This attitude has become more and more prevalent among scientists who study the brain. (Jensen, 2005, p.67)

 

I believe the purpose of dance education is to build a solid foundation for students to grow as a whole person. Dance education enables students to enhance critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and self-expression.

Nowadays, dance education is valued more than ever before, but yet it still has room for improvement. From my teaching experiences, I found that the students have distorted view of dance and therefore have resistance to dance classes. Students tend to think dance is only for women and even girls feel uncomfortable to take the dance lessons because they believe the dance is only for talented people who can dance beautifully. This is mainly because of bias and stereotype of the current education system where the value of dance education is not yet recognized.

 

 

Dance for Young Students

 

I think dance education is as important as the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) field, because every movement in dance is part of a decision-making process – students should constantly think about their positions in space and time, and their relationships with others when they explore, create and perform the movement.

 

Movement lesson improves the ability to concentrate not only in dance classes but also in other regular classes. For example, there was a study about positive effects on student performance before and after dance education. The study was taken at a suburban elementary school in a north-central state which had 9 disabled students, 3 EEL students, and of remaining 30 % was qualified for free or reduced lunches. Among these students, the majority of them had difficulty in understanding and remembering the information no matter how frequently class materials are read, discussed, and reviewed (Skoning, p.171). Yet, Skoning stated that “after integrating movement into the lesson, movement becomes an expected activity and an integral part of the learning process rather than a problematic behavior.” And after serious of integrated movement lessons, students started to show improved understanding and behavior in the classroom. It clearly shows that rather than passively listening to the teacher through the lecture, actively making movement during the class will result in higher concentration and class participation.

 

Moreover, special needs students are able to join classes when movement is integrated within class materials. Sknoing showed three successful examples on inclusive classroom applications. Firstly, there was a 4th-grade boy laved EBD and ELL who rarely participated in classroom activities. Once he was exposed to movement sessions, “he slowly began to participate in these activities and to develop friendships with other students (Skoning, p.173).” Secondly, a 5th-grade boy with LD and ADHD had trouble in managing classroom settings because he had writing difficulties, behavior problems, and was always in motion. Soon after the movement sessions, he emerged as a leader and strong choreographer. Skoning states that “he recognizes the preferred movement styles of his classmates and organizes the group to plan dance performances for himself and others (Skoning, p.173).” Lastly, another 4th-grade boy with a language-based learning disability could not recall any of the characters or events when he finished reading the book. However, “during the reading a book, he was asked to move the way a particular character in the novel would move, he can describe that character and many events in which that character is involved (Skoning, p.174).” These applications showed that teaching through movement can build more inclusive classroom which can offer effective instructional strategies to meet the diverse learning needs of students.

 

The benefits of dance education will improve over time as students learn to express their thoughts through movement, which can broaden their perspectives and insights. Unfortunately, these aspects of dance education are under looked in the current education system and the society. Thus, I believe that dance education should be recognized more by revealing its benefits for all.

 

 

Dance as a Tool for Integration

 

I believe dance is not only an artistic form of a body but also an intrinsic form of communication and expression. People use many facial expressions, hand gestures, body postures to transfer their thoughts and feelings. It helps people to interact more effectively and intrinsically by providing non-verbal information. Body and mind are closely related together that are hardly separable. Dance education allows people to feel the connection between body and mind which enables cognitive and physical development at once.

 

Some researchers showed that dance education can help cognitive understanding. Giguere conducted a research to see how children use cognitive process in dance making. Her research presents that there is much cognitive development in creating a dance. It demonstrates that movement can be an effective cognitive strategy to (1) strengthen learning, (2) improve memory and retrieval, and (3) enhance learner motivation and morale (Giguere, p.60). Active learning which is connected to students’ everyday life can promote the cognitive development and strengthen the memory. Dance education naturally promotes multiple intelligence theory, developed by Howard Gardner, which helps to meet the needs of various types of learners.

Moreover, dance has worked as a channel for integrating people in the society. Dance has the capability to gather people together by creating an enjoyable atmosphere. Simmonds addressed that dance can be an accessible and empowering creative tool for individuals and groups to express their identity, feelings, histories, and aspirations (Simmonds at al., 1997). The authors also stated that dance artists working in community contexts are frequently unacknowledged and undervalued by the dance establishment which gives great value to highly stylized forms of dance that demand specific body types and extensive training (Simmonds at al., 1997). I believe the dance education should work to bridge the gap between people by encouraging the society that everybody can take advantage of the dance.

 

 

Learning with Engagement

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In the context of constructivist theory, learning is an active, not a passive, activity. (Pritchard, 2014, Kindle Locations 765-766)

Learning is not something that others can undertake on behalf of learners.

It is something that learners must do for themselves. (Pritchard, 2014, Kindle Locations 762-763)

 

The engagement of students is the most important factor in learning. The cognitive engagement has to be active in order to learn new things, otherwise, humans are not able to learn anything. In order to maximize learning engagement, the teacher should pull out the students’ interest and prior knowledge.

 

Because each student has different background and ability, considering all of the possibilities during a class is not feasible. However, it is important for teachers to trigger students’ interest as much as possible to engage in the lesson contents. Adopting various teaching styles in a lesson could also help generating many different interests among the students.

 

The goal of education is to support and assist students to achieve their goal and to become a whole- person who can integrate their achievements within the society. Therefore, I believe education should be based on the needs of students. The learning takes place when new information is built into and added to an individual’s current structure of knowledge, understanding, and skills. We learn best when we actively construct our own understanding. (Pritchard, 2014, Kindle Locations 477-479) I also believe dance education can provide a unique outlet for students to grow as a whole person.

 

 

 

 

REFERENCE:

 

Pritchard, A. (2014). Ways of learning: Learning theories and learning styles in the classroom (Third edition. ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group

 

Jensen, E. (c2005). Teaching with the brain in mind (2nd ed., rev. and updated. ed.). Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

 

Simmonds, Jacqueline. & Poynor, Helen. & Australian Dance Council. N.S.W. Branch. (1997). Dancers and communities: a collection of writings about dance as a community art. Walsh Bay, N.S.W: Australian Dance Council, Ausdance, (NSW)

 

Giguere, M. (2007). The mind in motion: An examination of children's cognition within the creative process in dance (Ph.D.). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I. (304828863).

 

Skoning, S. (2010). Dancing the curriculum. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 46(4), 170-174.

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