On 5/07/09, HS wrote:
> 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?
Well one thing I did when I taught square dance was that I let
the boys grab wrists and not hold hands. This worked well and
the dance still looked the same. A way to make their dance cool
was that I let them create their own dance composed of the
squared dance moves we learned along with a couple of their own
moves in it to. The kids loved it!! They had square dance moves
that mixed into some gymnastics that transitioned into modern
dance moves. The boys who had less dance skills were assigned
roles that fit them perfect. They aided in the dance other ways
that made it so cool. We taped it and they watched it one day.
It was a blast to do. Hope that helps a little.

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