pennsicdance: Planning Dance at Pennsic

[Greg Lindahl]

> > when the overall dancemaster might think he can handle it without
> > their help.
> 
> But one of the things we're discussing is how to make the teaching go
> faster so we can dance more.  And having one single instructor for
> several sets is (assuming equal competence among instructors) never
> faster than individual set teaching.

As you can see, there is a lot of diversity in opinions on this topic.

With 2 sets, my experience is that it is pretty much NEVER faster to
have individual set teaching. With 3 or more sets, it depends on who
the helpers are.

A bad helper distracts other sets, teaches too slowly or too quickly,
wastes time insisting on a regional variation, teaches incorrectly
(heys!), and prevents the main teacher from making the special points
they want to make. When I teach a dance, I often have 1 thing I want
everyone to learn, including the experienced dancers. I usually teach
this one thing at the very end. If everyone isn't listening, I can't
get that point across.

A good helper rescues confused sets, catches up with the main thread
of teaching, and then gets out of the way. A good helper teaches the
same variation that the main teacher is teaching.

-- gb



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