About 2010 when a very warm-hearted administrator, Ann Bello, was hired and things were finally settling down at my school, I received an E-mail from the Arts Department of the City of New York. Because of my background in dance, I was invited to enroll in an alternate certification program through the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) at the 92nd Street Y to become a certified dance teacher.
I thought this sounded like a wonderful opportunity to get moving again - literally! The class met once a week for 6 months, and was led by Joan Arnhold - a long time philanthropic dance advocate and educator, and two other savvy dance educators - Ana Nery Fragraso and Ann Biddle. The 20 odd participants included veteran and amateur dance teachers and dancers, and yoga teachers. Through an intensive series of workshops we learned to design and lead classes that would accommodate all levels and age-groups to explore movement creatively and reflectively, and choreograph their own dances. Here is a picture of my class in one our the workshops:
 |
| I am in the foreground on the right with glasses. |
As a culminating activity, we were asked to pair up and create a dance unit. I paired up with Shahar Yanay, who was already working as a children's yoga teacher. I had never tried yoga before, so I tentatively picked up a couple of books on teaching yoga to children through animal shapes. The topic related surprisingly very well with creative dance exploration because children could explore moving as animals as they learned the yoga poses. Animals, of course, are very high interest material for children, and content-wise all children come to class knowing something about animals. In the end, my inspiration turned the project into a voluminous 60-odd page document of detailed lesson plans mostly authored by myself!
Four or five months later, my hard work paid off. I was delighted one morning to look in my mailbox and see my Professional Dance Teacher's Certificate from the State of New York:
No comments:
Post a Comment