[Tango-L] Call to Tango...

[WHITE 95 R]

>From: "Caroline Polack" <runcarolinerun at hotmail.com>


>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.
..............
>Teachers can only do so much - it's up to the students to do their 
>"homework" a.k.a. practice.

You are absolutely right Caroline. As a teacher, I can not make a student 
progress if he or she will not practice, go to milongas, etc.


>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.

Again, you are correct. Tango dance teaching is not a a highly remunerative 
occupation.  And yes, there are overhead costs. Frankly, most people who 
teach tango in a regular basis, do it for reasons other than to get rich 
(-;. Smaller classes can be more productive and beneficial to the students 
as well as for the teachers. The trick is how big is too big or too small? 
I've seen teachers teach classes of over 80 students with success and others 
cannot handle more than a few people. It all depends on the teachers style. 
Some teachers are infinitely better one on one than in any size group class. 
Yes, the monetary aspect is important to teachers, but is not the most 
important part. There have been cases where students are allowed to take 
classes gratis because of extenuating circumstances.


>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?

This can indeed be a problem. There is no easy solution though. At certain 
point you might be ready for a more challenging level and must find the 
teachers/classes that give you what you want and need. It's very difficult 
to segregate students by level of proficiency. In many cases one would end 
up with multiple classes of one, two or three students... Many teachers just 
don't have the time and energy to devote that much time to teaching dance, 
most tango teachers have full time occupations where they make their living. 
They could not afford to teach tango otherwise.


>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.

I believe you are right. One on one teaching can sometimes be only way to 
instruct successfully. However, I disagree with you on one item. It is 
indeed very possible to "see" problems, and indeed, "seeing" might be the 
only way to determine the exact cause of certain problems. Sometimes it's 
very difficult to determine what the student is doing wrong when dancing 
with them. Yes, you can tell immediately that they are having a problem, but 
when they are in your arms, it's not possible to observe how they might be 
moving (or not moving), etc.

Manuel