Flamenco dance course in Herttoniemi and reflection moments in the lessons

Today has been the last flamenco lesson in the course I have been teaching this autumn in Työväenopisto in Herttoniemi. It has been very nice to be able to do this new course in Herttoniemi and I have learned a lot during these lessons.

I have learned a lot from the students: they have been asking many questions, giving feedback, ideas… and I always tell them that thank you for doing that because it is important for me to reflect on my teaching, change things, incorporate new ways or ideas in my teaching, improve and especially to know how they receive what I propose and what they need.

Today, at the end of the lesson, I have left a bit of time for them to give feedback and comment what they wanted about the course and what has been positive for them.

I think these spaces are also necessary, it gives so much information to the teachers and I also realized that I got to know the students much better. (Maybe, then, I am thinking now it could be done also in the middle of the course instead of in the last lesson to get to know the students earlier…)

One of the things that have made me reflect more it has been this comment that it has been very positive and nice for them to have reflection moments in the class and the fact that I asked them and was interested in what they were saying. This is something I didn’t even realize I was doing but it is true that I many times ask how they feel about something, what they need etc and try to listen to their needs and then modify/build my teaching on that. It is something that I realize now that I learned, especially, in the music and movement lessons at the Sibelius Academy inside the Orff-Schulwerk approach. We would always reflect at the end of the lessons and it was important as we were future music educators to reflect on what had happened, how it felt, what we could do more or different, how to develop some idea, how to approach it with students…

Even if I didn’t realize I was doing it now in this flamenco dance lessons it is somehow so much in me, that there is this space of reflection in the lessons after certain exercises/activities/moments…

And I was reflecting today with the students that I think it should be incorporated in all dance lessons in general, too. I think we teachers are learning all the time and that’s what I love about teaching: it is a constant learning from the students, so the learning process goes both ways, not only one direction, like the traditional way (from the teacher to the student). I think this is important to take into account and I have been telling the students many times that thank you because I learn a lot from their questions, ideas, comments and feedback.

Another important discovery/exploration in these lessons has been the space I have left them to improvise. This time I have done it a bit differently than in the other similar course I was teaching. This time I left them complete freedom to improvise in all the lessons, and it has been an interesting exploration and I got a very good idea from a student that while they were improvising they could also interact with each other (looking at each other, dancing somehow together while improvising…) so already from that moment the student suggested this we tried it in that same lesson and have incorporated in the next lessons until the end. So again, thank you to this comment I could incorporate an element in my lesson that I wouldn’t have thought before when planning.

From this improvisation, last week came the word STILLNESS, also thanks to the feedback of one student, and this is a topic I would like to reflect on a future post. “Stillness in flamenco”.

Anyway, I could go longer but for now I would summarize this post with the topic of having reflection moments in the lessons, getting ideas, feedback, questions, input from the students… this way the teacher’s job makes sense. It doesn’t make sense just to go and teach and show something and not knowing how they are learning that, processing, receiving it… what they need…

THE LEARNING IS BOTH WAYS.

#mylearningjourney