Whilst here I was discussing the aspects of teaching arts within Germany with fellow judge and Romania Soloist, Rares Pop. He makes a direct comment regarding my inquiry.
"Well ideally you have both. You need the paper that says you can teach. But you also need knowledge and this comes with experience. You can't teach after one year of performing. I don't understand why more schools in Munich don't have more experienced artists in there schools" (Pop, 2013).
It seems that even when I travel to Munich to work, after making the conscience decision to sign off from my inquiry. It now seems to encompass my practice. This points out the relevance my inquiry has to my practice and that fact it underpins my future work as a practitioner. Like it or not, it's all things inquiry.
I will catch up on comments and your blogs as soon as I'm back...
Hi Ahmet.
ReplyDeleteI think I agree with him. I personally gained my teaching qualifications while in full time training as a dancer then went off to perform for a few years prior to a career in teaching. I also ran my own school. At this time I found it difficult to find people who had all of the desirable skills, often coming from 'either' an academic degree background or a performance background. I found that those teachers who had been in the business often had the ability to inspire the children through impressive demonstration, passion and greater confidence. However they also needed to committe to professional development (to put in the time and money to train in order gain relevant qualifications and to fully understand the complexity of teaching and learning).
Your trip sounds very interesting Ahmet. Enjoy it, we have cold snowy weather here.
Gemma
Gemma
I agree, how can you teach a subject you have very little experience in. In my inquiry, I have found out that all the teachers are working professionals in the business. When you have a course that is mainly practical, you need a sufficient experience in to talk to students about the business, expectation and teach new and upto date techniques.
ReplyDeleteHi Ahmet,
ReplyDeleteI agree also. My best training was at college when we had working professionals teaching us rather than my school education where we had 'qualified' teachers teaching us. I found that passion and experience flowed at college education where my school education was rather 'rigid', perhaps if my school teachers had previously been performers they would of had a better understanding of 'performance' education. Which is all about breaking boundaries. I am rather hoping like you i will be able to inspire my pupils as well as have the knowledge of teacher training in order to coach them.
Have a safe journey.
Nice work Ahmet! It really is interesting how the inquiry has become an integral part of our professional practice. Even though we perhaps feel that we are "removing" ourselves from it physically, it is now impossible to detach ourselves from the continuous professional development which leads us to a deeper understanding of our work.
ReplyDeleteYou already know my thoughts re. teaching qualifications and experience, but I think that Pop has a valid point.
I have recently experienced many of my new clients telling me about classes they attended where the teacher just told them to "join in" rather than being taught properly! When I told them that anyone can set up dance or drama classes within any prerequisites, they were shocked that this was possible - I wonder if there should be a more stringent code of conduct and perhaps a regulator for extra curriculum classes held in the U.K? I appreciate that this is an indirect observation, but all relevant to the purpose of understanding what qualifications or experience a teacher should need to teach...
I look forward to hearing about your trip!
Best Wishes,
Jo
April 2nd is our next MDX ‘First Tuesday Coffee House meeting’. We will meet on SKYPE at 7:30pm London time. Don’t forget the clocks change this weekend as British ‘summer’ time begins!!!!
ReplyDeleteIf you want to join in the ‘First Tuesday Coffee House meeting’ please SKYPE me to make a connection before Tuesday if possible or send me an email with your SKYPE address so I can reach out to you. Let other people know about it too.
Adesola