This article shares the author's experiences in teaching dance in an elementary school setting and initiating a project that involves teaching dance through several subjects. The author first started by collaborating with other special subjects teachers to teach songs and dances and develop an opportunity for students to physicalize their homeroom…

This topic stems from the author's experience in the technique classroom, and from her training in Laban Movement Analysis. The three fundamental branches of Laban's system--Body, Effort and Space--offer an opportunity to approach teaching through these separate, yet inextricably linked, lenses. This article defines each of the three categories in…

There are many body therapies from which dancers may choose in order to gain and maintain strength, flexibility, and balance and to avoid injury or facilitate rehabilitation from injury. The questions are: which system is best for the given student, and how can educators incorporate the many somatic perspectives into their curriculums. This…

Reconstructions are critical in giving body to the history of dance. For student dancers, participating in reconstructions is a participation in both the legacy of dance and in dance as a form of cultural discourse. When choreographers generate movement vocabulary and improvisational parameters together with performers, the resulting collaborative…

Crossing artistic modalities so that students respond aesthetically to dances rather than through written critiques can enhance the teaching of dance technique. This integrative method encourages the practice of artistry, the act of finding voice, along side the learning of technique. The use of a basic premise from expressive arts--that art…

Those who have advocated for dance in public education have also found their discipline to be easily malleable to fit whatever goals and values seem in style. In different times, dance education has been marketed as a way for students to become healthier, better adjusted, better problem solvers, better critical thinkers, better team players, more…

This article explores continuing professional development. I teach in a community college where 93% of the students are black and Latino. I am a Caucasian teacher, and my background is primarily modern and jazz dance. In recent years I have been studying African and Latin dance forms, so that I can address the deep hunger my students have to learn…

This article profiles Jill Jayne, who was working as a registered nutritionist in the New York City public school system when she was assigned to a group of 25 urban students in an after-school program in East Harlem. In the spring of 2006, Jayne took her "Jump With Jill" show to the streets outside Central Park, collected tips in a tin…

Support from school partners is absolutely necessary. Every teaching artist knows this, and every arts education organization strives to cultivate this support. In this article, the authors create some powerful strategies for achieving this support, such as agreeing at the outset about the focus of the residency. Lessons that develop meaningful…

Teaching dance can be a challenge because of the unique classroom-management situations that arise from the dynamic nature of the class content. Management is a delicate navigation of advance planning; rule setting; the establishment and implementation of daily protocols, routines, and interventions; and the teacher's own presentation. This…

This anthology of articles, selected from writings in the "Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance" and the "Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport" (previously "Research Quarterly") over a 10-year period, offers insights into the growth in dance education and the changes during those years in pedagogical, creative, and…

Dance educators need to be aware of current career trends and focus their programs on practical needs of their students. Teaching, dance journalism, therapy, and photography are career options for the dancer who is not a professional performer. (DF)

With an increasing emphasis on creativity and innovation in the twenty-first century, teachers need to be creative professionals just as students must learn to be creative. And yet, schools are institutions with many important structures and guidelines that teachers must follow. Effective creative teaching strikes a delicate balance between…

Founded in 1966, and premised on the idea that motivated sixteen-year-olds are capable of college work, Bard College at Simon's Rock is an educational "experiment" from the sixties that has endured and prospered. "Educating Outside the Lines" looks at Simon's Rock as a pioneer of the early college movement that has begun to…

Background: Studies on heteronormativity in PE either appear to have explored the experiences of and conditions for non-heterosexual students, or adopt a retrospective point of view. Further, the relation between heteronormativity and movement and how movement activities embody social norms and values related to gender and sexuality has not been…