I managed to find an in depth extract from Tom Ortega on the web. This was found on his blog and therefore has a very personal aspect to it. This literature focuses purely on the topic at hand “jack of all trades or master of none.” The reason for choosing this is because Tom goes very deep explaining his thoughts and I found this literature interesting and I liked the fact that I didn’t agree with most of the points made. Tom was extremely direct and the extract had a very depressing feeling, however I still enjoyed the piece.
The piece is very honest so I was gripped by his passion ”Here’s the thing though. I’ve lived what…35 years of my life in misery, literally, misery and agony trying to find that *one* thing I’m supposed to be master of.” Tom has experienced this confusion, my inquiry that I want to make sense of. Tom is constantly questioning himself throughout the extract, why, what, when and how. “Why can’t I figure this out? What’s wrong me?” Every other day, I find myself alone somewhere.” This has encouraged me to ask myself these questions, which is something I didn’t even think about doing before.
In my inquiry I am only concentrating on “The performing Arts” concept, whereas in his literature he is very much generalising all different kinds of areas. Tom talks about famous people including Mozart, Shakespeare and Frank Lloyd Wright, again this has motivated me to learn about successful people working in my industry and what path they took in order to achieve triumph. I do feel everyone has a different definition of success, mine is to reach my goals that I set myself, not to be famous. The feeling I got from Tom was that he believes you have only reached mastery when you are famous, so maybe we are coming from two different angles.
In the middle of the literature Tom states “I think that’s why many “greats” and “masters” have horrible personal lives. If you have one focus, one overriding passion, everything else fades. It’s like a drug” I can comprehend where Tom is coming from here. As I do believe that if you desperately want to achieve a certain amount of success sacrifices do need to be made. I feel very few people who have great success have a normal home life, and friends and family could easily be forgotten.
I really liked the way Tom concluded his blog, he left me thinking about what he had written and this concept is what I want to create when writing my inquiry. I want my audience to finish reading but not stop thinking about what I have written.
My next literature source is an article from the letters of dance produced by Lady Cailtidh nicFhionnlaigh bean Cato. The reason for choosing this piece of literature is because I wanted to find a dancers view on “teaching dance” and what makes a good teacher. Cailtidh’s views again are quite different to mine, however, the article has encouraged me to think outside my box. The article persuades me to look at dance more in a fun manner, which I struggle with as I feel dance is my job and I like to remain the best I can be. Don’t get me wrong I have a lot of fun with my clients that I teach, and my classes always have a lively atmosphere however my concern is about ‘me” and what I can do. I always worry that I am not trained enough; do I know what I am talking about? I start to distress when I am not feeling confident in a class, and to me this is a weakness as a dance teacher.
Cailtidh states “I can do some very intricate dances, and though I have been dancing in and out of the SCA for over eleven years, I still do not know the names of some of the steps or dance sequences. This "lack of knowledge" has not stopped me yet from learning (and teaching) the dances to others.” I do partly agree with Caltidh, in terms of being a good teacher no you are not required to know everything, however I think a certain amount of expertise is needed to call yourself a teacher.
Again a fairly agree with Cailtidhs statement of “In order to teach dance one should know dance. I am not saying that one should have formal training in classical ballet, but just a knowledge of how a dance is danced.” I sacrificed a lot to be where I am today. Learning to be a dancer is costly, takes time and a lot of determination and strength within. If everybody went to a few dance classes and then thought they were an expert then the whole ‘dance industry” would be a joke, and yes there are dance teachers out there who really haven’t got a clue. I feel Caitidhs is suggesting that you don’t need to be an expert, if you can teach in an appropriate way and the clients are happy then you have done a good job, this concept I do agree with.
The impression I get from this article is a positive and vibrant outlook on “the teaching of dance.” It is written quite well, easy to understand and Caitidhs understands what she is talking about. This article relates well to my inquiry and again I have more questions and ideas I want to look at.
My next article is from SSCo Kim Spiller offering advice to primary teachers about delivering high-quality dance. She has produced the article partly in bullet points. I liked this as it was easy to read and she put her points across very forthright. Other people have commented on this article, which I found interesting as everybody had very different opinions. The article is based on non-specialist primary teachers delivering high quality dance in their schools. The word quality to me means experience, excellence and the very best. So how can non-specialist and quality be in the same sentence?
I found the whole article to be very annoying and completely degrades the profession that some people have committed their life to. Dance teachers need to be qualified to teach in schools, you wouldn’t go to a doctor who wasn’t qualified, would you? Don’t worry about having to demonstrate moves. You don’t have to be an expert dancer yourself to teach dance.” I feel as dance teachers you must show them the moves, if you can’t do them, how do you expect a child to?
This again relates to my inquiry as this article focuses very much on “you don’t need to be a master or to even be a Jack to be able to teach dance.”
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/lod/vol1/teach.html
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