Re: Boys and Dance

remember that boys do not like to be shown up by girls. Since
girls often are introduced to dance at a young age, and since
the boys are not, consider introducing all students to dance
that is new to them all - such as international folk dancing,
square dancing, contra dancing, clogging, perhaps hip hop.
The issues here isn't what is "cool" in a teacher's eyes, but
what is possible for beginning students to master in a short
period of time without previous experience... Also consider
more gymnastic types of moves for the boys; they don't like
flapping their feet or precise positions that they must hold.
They like to move, jump, spin, roll. One thing my 8 year old
son loves is improvisation where he has to act out, with
movement, a scene and the audience must guess what he is
acting out. He acted out a snowball fight (meant to represent
winter) with another boy, complete with body rolls, throwing,
making snow balls, running, etc. It was dramatic and
exciting, quite a free for all. The girls tended to stand in
place and do predictable things...

One thing about international folk dancing is that in many
cultures, men have different, usually larger, movements than
do women. That allows you to teach specifically to the boys
rather than to the girls alone. In contra dancing, many
talented callers have figured out a way to call gender free
dances, which will allow you to let the students pair up per
their preference and not force the boys and girls to dance
together. In modern dance, you can show the students moves
that act out a story, and there is less worry that a boy will
be doing things "wrong"...

Hope this helps...

On 4/23/09, mt_preservice_teacher wrote:
> Hey,
>
> So I am a pre-service teacher and I start a five-week
> practicum with my grade 4/5 class next week. For PE, I
> will teach a dance unit. I have danced since I was 3 1/2
> and know ballet, jazz, folk, modern, hip hop,and
> ballroom. I have also been teaching dance for quite a few
> years now. However, most of my students have been
> female. If they were male, they were usually too little
> to care about the gender stereotyped associations that
> dance can carry.
>
> My mentor teacher has challenged me/ advised me to make
> dance "cool" and "acceptable" for the male students too.
> Any tips on how I could go about this?

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