[Tango-L] What Does It Take to Dance Tango?

[Kace]

I hate to see teachers get rapped for sharing their own versions of 
pedagogical
learning structure.   At least Keith is honest enough to put his outline 
on the web
for public scrutiny, and students who don't agree with his methodology 
should
just vote with their feet.  It is narrow-minded to leap from a course 
outline to
the conclusion that it won't work... the honest truth is that teacher 
transmits
much more as a role model than by his words alone.

There is no Gold Standard for teaching tango, only one teacher's opinion 
of the
Right way versus another teacher's.  Don't ignore the fact that the 
characteristics
of the students affect the approach as well --- once upon a time, the 
education
system in Asia was criticized as being rote learning and uncreative, but 
today
Asian students consistently score higher in mathematics and sciences 
than their
Western counterparts.

I prefer any critic of Keith's methodology to offer constructive ideas for
improving the teaching experience, if they have any.

One idea I have seen some teachers adopt successfully is the use of cycles
of modules.  It works like this: the teacher plans a syllabus of 5-8 
monthly
themes, and makes the student go through the entire syllabus several times.
Although the students may become bored the subsequent rounds, they
would have developed stronger techniques and greater body control,
making all the difference. 

Kace
tangosingapore


Chris, UK wrote:
> Keith of The Hong Kong Tango Academy, (www.tangohk.com) asked:
>   
>> What gave you such a negative view of tango instructors?
>>     
>
> There are teachers that I admire and respect, mostly for their 
> one-to-one teaching. And there are teachers of whom I have a negative 
> view, including class instructors who say they're teaching social tango 
> but in fact are teaching stuff such as your:
>
>  http://web.archive.org/web/20050205050606/tangohk.com/tango_figures.htm
>
> Taking a syllabus of figures and changing the labels Bronze, Silver, and 
> Gold to Beginner, Intermediate etc. does not magically make it 
> appropriate for learning social tango.