[Tango-L] Call to Tango...

[Caroline Polack]

"It is not inevitable. It is inevitable only of poor bulk teaching.

A teacher can have smaller groups. A teacher grade the students better. A
teacher can use assistants, so that different abilities can get focused
attention.

A good teacher adapts to avoid putting the majority of the class in over
its head."

There's alot of pressure on teachers wherein it's been my observation that 
the responsibility of improvement falls upon the students. If they don't 
practice, they forget what they learn and thus, not yet ready to advance to 
the next level. For example, in my class, I've never seen any of the 
students at milongas whereas I have been going to milongas since I started 
the first level class. As a result, I'm far more "advanced" and far more 
able to learn new steps more quickly than the other students. My techniques 
is better as well as my movement and ability to follow. Teachers can only do 
so much - it's up to the students to do their "homework" a.k.a. practice.

Secondly, tango teachers don't make alot of money - if they have smaller 
classes, they make less money. They need to pay for their space, for the 
teachers, for the music equipment, for the utilities and for "assistants" 
that you suggested.

But I've just started going to another school wherein one can go anytime 
they want to learn valse, milonga and movement technique - of course the 
difficulty level is much higher but you have the advantage of learning among 
students of all levels of experience and skills which makes you learn faster 
as you try harder to be as good as the others. Peer pressure goes a long way 
in terms of rate of advancement. The teachers make the students switch 
partners all the time - and if anyone was the odd one out - they dance with 
the teachers until the next switch.

Conversely, in my Intermediate Level II class, I feel as though I'm being 
forced to regress as I learn among students who don't make the effort to 
practice outside of class. And it's starting to piss me off a little - I 
feel like asking them why are you here if you don't care enough to exercise 
what you learn? Another issue of contention is that the teachers don't dance 
with the students, they prefer to observe. That bugs me because they can't 
always "see" what the problem is - I would appreciate it if they would dance 
with my partner if I was having problems with the feel of his leading.

So, between those two schools - I found that the attendance at the school 
where there's a high mix of skill levels  in the same class that the 
attendance is higher and the drop out rate is virtually minimal. And 
furthermore - it's much more enjoyable.

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