Tag: k-12

Aiano Nakagawa Is Building Personal Power in Young Dancers

In Aiano Nakagawa’s creative-dance class at Acorn Woodland Child Development Center in Oakland, California, a student wanted to run really fast instead of exploring shapes as planned. Nakagawa didn’t dismiss or correct the desire. Instead, she yelled, “Yeah! And can you try a sharp shape at the end?” Another time, teachers were asking students not […]

Ask the Experts: How Do I Better Include Students With Disabilities in My K–12 Class?

Q: How do you approach a K–12 class when one of your students has a disability? A: Growing up watching my deaf sister get left out of conversations made me sensitive to ensuring everyone in my classroom feels included. If you have a student who is disabled, you’ll need to put in a little extra […]

Expand Your Students' Musical Literacy and They'll Grow as Dancers

Teachers from coast to coast are pushing students to move outside the constraints of popular music. There is a consensus that the earlier you introduce varied musical forms, the more adept and adaptable a dancer’s musicality will be. New York–based jazz scholar and teacher Melanie George notices that many students’ relationships to music can be […]

Independent-Study Projects Can Boost High School Learning

Though she loved choreographing, the high school student showcase wasn’t quite enough for Julie Deleger, a recent graduate of The College Preparatory School in Oakland, California. The answer for her was an independent-study project during her last semester there. “Choreography is so personal that sometimes you need to take more or less time with it,” […]

Shawl-Anderson Youth Ensemble Empowers Teens to Grow Into Their Own Skins

The Shawl-Anderson Youth Ensemble, a key component of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center’s youth program in Berkeley, California, strives to develop the whole person, not just improve dance technique. And its caliber of performance has made SAYE visible and respected in the San Francisco Bay Area over the past 13 years. As a pre-professional, audition-based, modern performance […]

TWU's Matthew Henley Has a New Approach to Grading in K–12

Looking back on his early dance education, Matthew Henley, an assistant professor at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, remembers the grading process as being rather “opaque.” “Any assessments seemed to be verbal, informal and casual. Most everyone got A’s,” he says. Henley spent eight years teaching in elementary schools as a guest artist in New […]