Skype Call Sunday 2nd October 2016

Really enjoyed the Skype call on Sunday this last week. The Journey. We often seem to talk around this theme as we look at where we are all coming from, which seems to be so diverse, where we are and where we are going to. I think the longer I am on this course the more I have appreciated the Skype conversations and now feel bolder to contribute without feeling like what I'm saying isn't valid. I say this to encourage those of you who are on the first module. The question that I asked and wanted to talk about we didn't really get to, which is absolutely fine, but I have put something about it on LinkedIn which I'm hoping people will respond to.
We discussed reflections and whether they are a means to an end, a beginning of something or part of the journey. I think they are all 3. We often start a journey reflecting on something, for instance when we start on module one we are reflecting on our journey up to this point. What have we learnt before we got to this MA stage of our learning journey. For me the first module made me realise that I actually have a broad amount of learning that I hadn't even fully realised was there. Not to say I know everything as if I knew everything I wouldn't be on this course! There are areas of our teaching that we want to learn more about and this is what we start to reflect on through module two. Finally narrowing that down was hard!!
Now in module three I'm still reflecting as I gather the evidence of my research and realise that actually my thinking and reflections are changing. Is this OK? On talking with Helen this morning she says yes and that even this is part of the process/journey of learning and therefore part of the research.
I'm excited about my research at the moment as I look at the interviews I've already done, read more literate that helps to ignite my thoughts and look at the experience I have through working with my students. Yes I worked out what triangulation is!!!! I get frustrated though as well as I start to see things in a new light and wonder why others don't see it the way I do. Why does our society seem to put so much emphasis on the brain and think lower of our bodies even disregard our bodies and their intelligence? I've just read an article from The Guardian that talks about children and young people and the rise of mental health issues which apparently the government sees as one of it's priorities to deal with and yet the pressure on children to do well academically at school has increased and continues to increase? Anyone else see a correlation?
Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment.

Skype call 3rd April 2016

A great Skype call today. I've been doing lots of group interviews over the last couple of months but work has been so crazy that I haven't been on top of reading. I'm going to defer until January so I can get the most out of this journey. I was asking the question about how people have decided on their artefacts?  Julie said to try to think about how the people I want to reach to tell them about my research would be able to hear it. How will they be able to access the information in the easiest way? Adesola was saying how can you show the process and how you did it? It's another way to show what you've learnt rather than in an academic way, not being locked into the university world.
It's not just been work that has been crazy this last term but my youngest son has been studying for year 6 SAT's which the school are piling on the pressure for. We keep telling him that the tests actually mean nothing for him as he already has his secondary school, but he puts pressure on himself. Although for my research I'm looking at GCSE girls and how dancing and continuing their dance during their GCSE's has an effect, I'm becoming more and more aware of what an exam testing orientated society we live in and if a child doesn't conform to where the government says they should be at a certain time they are labelled.  Surely this isn't right. We all learn in different ways and at different times and we are all good at different things. Why are we telling people there is only one way?
Questions and finding answers. The more I study and read and look at dance and life the more I realise I don't know much, although I thought I did! We may ask questions and not get a definite answer or there may be more than 1 answer. Society generally tells us there is an answer and it's right or wrong. Does this lead back to the exam society? Are we trained froma young age to think like this when actually life isn't always like this? Trying to retrain your brain  may therefore be hard but maybe this is what needs to be done in order to accept what we know to be true, we learn through experience and through our bodies not just through text books. Maybe this is why when I'm talking to people about what I'm learning it seems to start to make more sense.
What do you think?

Skype call

Really enjoyable Skype call tonight. Some really interesting discussions on getting back into studying, critical reading, transcribing, working with peole who don't want to take dance as their career and processes. I'm trying to work out whether or not to transcribe the whole of my group discussions or whether to just transcribe the parts I feel are relevant. Ainsley was saying how beneficial it had been for her to completely transcribe as it had given her opportunity to listen without being part of the discussion and she heard different things. Someone else was saying that they had just transcribed the parts that were relevant and still had them as audio files . How do you put onto paper people's thoughts and voice intonation? I'm sure I'll find my way but wondering if anyone else has any ideas or thoughts on this? It was interesting to see how Suzy put clips of her actually interviews into her oral presentation.  We talked about how this showed her interviews were quite informal and how where you conduct the interview can make a difference as to what happens in the interview. We also talked about how to guide the interview or discussion and how to draw out quieter people. Ainsley said her surveys had really seen the quieter people come out to say things. I was due to have my second group discussion yesterday but unfortunately it wasn't able to take place. I'm looking forward to the next one as I'm finding them so interesting.
Processes!  It's something that is coming up all over the place. Life is a process and I feel we need to stop looking at the outcomes and results of things we are doing and focus on the process and what we are learning from that. Society is so focused on the end product and not always interested in how we get there.  However, that's often the interesting bit and makes us what we are and what we've learnt. One of the reasons I deferred my first module was I was enjoying the process of writing the AOL's and I have no time limits on doing this MA so why rush a process. Yes it's important to try to stick to deadlines but its about balance as well.
Hoping you are all enjoying the process. What will happen this term? Excited!

Ethical Consideration

So I'm finally deciding that I'd like to look at the psychological side of teaching dance. What will this mean as far as ethical consideration is concerned?
-I'm looking at psychological issues in children so I will need parental permission for all children involved.
-I will need my DBS check to be in place.
-Some parents may wish to see any questionnaires or want to know the sort of information being asked of their children, so I will need to provide them with this.
-If I decide to video any classes again parental permission will need to be attained.
I will need to check the insurance policy of where I work to check I'm covered for the work and research I want to do.
-I will need to obtain permission from my work place to carry out this research.
-I will need to have the children's agreement to be involved in the research.

Anyone with any further thoughts would be gratefully received.

Why are you thankful for dance?

I saw a Facebook post called "Why are you thankful for dance?" which Ainsley posted and after reading it wanted to add my thoughts. It could almost be a research question!
I'm thankful for dance for many reasons and these have changed over the years, however I think they all contribute to who I am today. When I was little about 6 years old my parents divorced. For various reasons I had to grow up quick but my dancing was where I could be who I wanted to be, which was me. I wasn't the little girl in between my parents or trying to put on a brave face because our family home was being sold. I could express myself while I was dancing and loved the exertion and complexity that I was being asked to do. The studios became my home from home.
When I moved from Australia to England at the age of 14, dance was my connection to my home of Australia. It was what I knew in a world that had become very unfamiliar. Having lived in a country which was very safe and I could go where I wanted pretty much whenever I wanted, to an all girls boarding school in Hertfordshire in the middle of nowhere. Dancing was my release and my safe place.
At dance college I found a new way to express myself other than ballet which is what I had done largely up until then. Contemporary dance released so much more and going to London Contemporary Dance School to study contemporary and choreography allowed me to delve deeper. I gained new movement to express myself and my new Christian faith.
Teaching allows me to pass on my love of dance and still allows me time to look at how I'm developing and growing as a person with and through my dance.
Dance for me is a vital connection into who I am as a person. Not just as a teacher but as a wife, mother, friend and Christain. I am thankful that dance has been a part of who I am to help me in life and to help me to understand myself better.

Martha Graham and George Balanchine

Martha Graham and George Balanchine
Notions of knowledge,certainty and body positivism.
I've really enjoyed looking at these two incredible people who had such a huge impact on American dance and also dance worldwide. They came from very different perspectives in Graham wanting to dance in an expressive way that wasn't controlled by what she saw as the confines of Ballet technique. Balanchine came from a very classical  view point and wanted to to see this ballet technique developed. Graham created a movemnet vocabulary for the human body to express itself whereas Balanchine used the existing ballet vocabulary to express. I beleieve both had an uderstanding that their bodies were able to express and learn through movement often by-passing their brains. Balanchine is quoted as saying, "Don't think, dear, do!".

Graham is quoted as saying "I wanted to begin not with characters or ideas, but with movements... I wanted significant movement. I wanted it to be fraught with inner meaning, with excitement and surge." Balanchine also often started with movements rather than characters and was the first to develop a full length ballet without story line in "Jewels".

Whilst Graham wanted to impact political and social views in society with dance that reflected much of this, Balanchine wanted to create an audience that could appreciate the Arts in all their 'beauty'. They both were challenging the world around them but in very different ways. Graham's way was far more raw and wanted to get to the heart of issues whereas Balanchine wanted to create culture in America and it to be American not European.

They both believed that the body was an instrument to be used to communicate experience as action. Not necessarily stories but they were able to show the experience they had of life through the body and therefore understood the body could gain knowledge through experience. Therefore they both must have beleieved in embodiment.

Skype call 4th October 2015

Finding Time
We spent quite a while talking and sharing about ways to 'find time' to study for our MA. I found this extremely useful as I tend to be the sort of person who likes to block out chunks of time and if that gets interupted I struggle and feel like I'm on a slippery path away from ever getting to do the MA. Some useful advise was to make sure your family are on board ,which I know mine are. However sometimes they forget!! Also to get work on board which I know I haven't particularly done and will try to do.
The next thing was to find small pockets of time. I get to the point where if I have a spare 30 min I think I haven't got time to get anything significant done, so I don't. Some of the others on the skype call were encouraging to say use this time to read even just a few pages of a book or go back over something already done. If I can make a list of things that I need to do then when I have a few moments then I can jump straight back in where I left off.
Another suggestion was to keep notepads and pens around the house so that if you think of something that is related to your MA you can easily jot it down. Helen was also suggesting that if you're in the car to use voice memos.
Finally having cut everything into bit size chunks the other suggestion was to take a whole day and sit in a library without your phone so that you can get away and really focus,
I'm hoping to try a combination of the above and really hoping that this term goes really well.

Day 4 of the Summer Intensive

I haven't written on here in ages but doing the Summer Intensive has made me realise how important this space is so I thought I'd share my reflections from today.

20^th August 2015

A good day today on reflection. I felt much calmer today than yesterday although I have felt quite tired. We had a good session of Gyrokinesis with Adesola. We went further with the movement than we had on Tuesday and I really enjoyed moving in this way. I often talk to my students about when we dance we need to dance from within and then out to the audience. By working in this way, although very different from ballet, the thoughts of having the 5^th line I think is a similar thing to what I say about starting your dancing from inside to out. It’s about energy and where that energy comes from not just about the exercise.

Maybe because I’ve been tired today I have felt a little frustrated with a couple of the conversations that I had. I’m not always someone who puts my view across forcefully and have felt a bit over powered by people in conversations. I don’t like confrontation and so tend to let these things just happen. On refection how do I deal with this? Not very well and probably should carefully say something rather than just letting it wind me up. Maybe I’m winding other people up.

We had a conversation with a beanbag today and once we’d had this conversation talked about how the conversation had gone from one thing to the next through different themes and emotions and would probably be best described as a rhizome. I found this way of having a conversation very ordered and structured in a good way as you weren’t supposed to interrupt and you had to think about the connection from one to the next. We’re back to the connections theme.

Just a thought that occurred to me, none of the movement classes that we’ve done have had music. It hasn’t felt like we needed it maybe because of the use of breath and that rhythm coming through.

We talked about social media and how we can use it as a network. I think the whole Blog thing is starting to make more sense to me. However I still think this whole process needs you to be a little brave to step out and say what you think. Sometimes people will agree and sometimes they won’t. I know I won’t like it if people don’t like or agree with what I’m saying but I need to remember that doesn’t mean they don’t like me as a person. Finding out what other people think about a subject helps us to think about all sides of the subject and may even mean we change our minds which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

This afternoon we watched another TED by Dave Isay. It was all about an interview pod and how interviewing 1 to 1 can be a great way to listen to other people and to be able to share with other what we really feel. Having real interaction with people can produce authentic experiences. These can be really important when researching something but remembering that by doing interviews we are not looking at finding the answer in those people.

We went through the structure of an essay again which helps as every time we go through it I seem to get I think a slightly better understanding of how it should be. We got into groups to try and put a mock essay together. I’m not sure how well this worked but I’ve tried to finish it off tonight. I feel like I still have some gaps in my understanding of what the Methods are but I’m hoping I can go through module 2 a bit more as I think some of this is in there. 

I’m starting to think about my research and whether to do something on the difference between teaching children and students ballet. I want to start finding some books and also talk to a few people to thrash out some ideas on this a bit more.

Module One

I did it! Feeling quite proud, very exhausted and really tired! Having deferred from handing in module one in January as the pressure became too much juggling work, family and MA, I have handed in today. Not quite sure how I did it as my husband has been really sick for the last 4/5 days and then my eldest son came home from school today sick as well.
I'm really pleased with what I've done. Whether I pass or not I have learnt so much and realised how much I do know about my job. Looking back and reflecting on all the different areas has made me realise how much I've done.
Bonus news of the day, one of my ex-students has been offered an apprenticeship with Atlantic Ballet!
Anyone who reads this I hope you have found the process as encouraging as I have. Onto the next module!!!

Tam Howard

Skype Call 1st Feb

Ok so now I've worked out again how to post!! The last skype call was good and got me back into thinking about what I should be doing. I deferred from handing in module 1 until May as it was all getting too pressured and I knew I wouldn't get the most out of the AOL's if I rushed it as I knew i would have had to.

I've re-read where I'm at and just about to hand in my re-drafted AOL to Helen. We all seem to get a bit lost and confused but then hopefully find our path again which I guess is all part of the learning. Taking on this MA is huge when trying to fit it in with work and family life but I know I want to keep going and get through even if it takes a while.

Tam Howard

Tam Howard

I need to do this more regularly

So I've finally sent my first draft to Helen for my first AOL. I actually really enjoyed writing it in the end but boy it took a lot to get it done. I'm now waiting with trepidation to see how much is right and how much I need to change! I had a good talk with my hubby last week about how this is all going. The conclusion really was that as I've got a lot of credits to make up this may take me longer and I would rather get an extension or something and do this whole thing right than panic and make a mess. Who's that going to benefit except I might get the MA but not really have learnt anything from it.
If anyone is looking for a really good book Ballet Pedagogy by Rory Foster is great.
I don't know if anyone will read this but I've had problems trying to get the referencing system. Has anyone else?
I hope everyone else is on track adn enjoying the course.
Tammy

Skype Call 2nd Nov 5.30pm

I thought I'd get straight onto this rather than putting it off which for me would probably mean not doing it! Tonight's skype call was really good as I felt able to join in a bit more rather than feeling nervous and that what I might say people would not feel was relevant. I'm just putting together my titles for my AOL's so the discussion on illustrations and what you can use ie pictures, DVDs, fliers, programmes etc was very useful. We also talked about the fact that you can make things now to support your AOLs such as videos and that some AOLs might be more practical whilst others are more about your personal growth.
We also talked about Time Management. I definitely feel behind but find that some weeks I get a fair amount done towards my MA and then things happen and I don't have as much time another week. Everyone seemed to agree that this is normal which was encouraging.
We then spent time talking about blogs and Linkedin. Most of us find it easier to go to Linkedin and respond to the questions on there where as the blogs seem harder to know what to write and sometimes how to respond to the comments. I think the general consensus was that we would all try harder to blog and read other peoples blogs. I read a couple of blogs this week and actually found them really encouraging as they reflected some of where I am at. I hope my comments were received OK.
I think the final thing I want to put on this blog is that today I've gone back to read some of the handbook again to work out how to put the titles of my AOLs together and I found I understood the handbook better this time. It wasn't that I didn't understand it the first time but I think it is more in context now that I'm actually in the process. I'm enjoying discovering what I've done to get to the point of where I am now and just hope that I'll be able to write the AOLs clearly to show other people how I've got here.

Last night I joined the 5.30pm Skype call a little late but it was a good call. I shared about how I had beeen working through the Module One Handbook and found the section on what sort of learner you are really interesting. At first I really struggled to work out what sort of learner best describes me an Activist, a Reflector, a Theorist or a Pragmatist as parts of all of them seemed to describe me. I finally decided that I am a Pragmatist and was able to write about an experience that I felt shows this. I then continued to refect on a situation that had happened that week at work that showed there was evidence of me learning. I was able to put these into my refective journal as a starting point which has helped me to think more constructively, I think, about my teaching.
I also shared about how I'm finding that the anotated CV is taking a long time to do and people on the call confirmed that it does but that at the end of it they found it to be very rewarding. I'm looking forward to that point!
I'm struggling to find time at the moment, or at least last week was a particular struggle as work was very busy. I'm hoping I can catch up a bit this week.

Buying books

I'm getting to know what I'm doing now although I need to customise this page better. I will do this but very excited as I've just bought my first MA book! Looking forward to reading it and getting stuck in. Been talking to Trevor about organisation. It is going to be handy having a husband who already has 2 MA! Also thinking about writing a reflective journal and clearing the study. Now looking forward to talking to Helen tonight.

Starting Up

Hi! I'm Tam Howard and I'm starting this blog as I start my MA in Dance Pedagogy at Middlesex University.