Humanity is a quality that we owe to each other...
Humanity is a quality that we owe to each other...
Q: What does it mean to teach through mirroring? What does it mean to learn from reflection? What does it look like to educate through partnership?
A: As the Manager of our CEEP Program at Red Clay Dance Company these questions and others occupy my thoughts. As an organization we seek out and welcome opportunities to engage and partner with communities through dance education. These partnerships require many things including: authenticity, transparency, teachers, learners, time, material to learn, and moments to share knowledge gained.
Q: What kind of environment houses this manifestation of dance education? How does something as common as learning happen in community? Who does the work?
A: The simple answer is we do. Every person that decides the work of education, of teaching and learning is important makes a commitment to the community of education. These community members decide to become partners in the work of education but what does that mean? For us here at Red Clay Dance it starts with a conversation full of questions similar to how this blog post began. One of the first centers on identity, in order to move forward together we must know who we are and what we bring to the partnership. In Zimbabwe and South Africa the philosophy of Ubuntuism, roughly translated as “I am because we are” focuses on the idea that a person discovers their identity, their humanity through their interaction with other humans. Because this discovery takes place within a group setting, students learn empathy and, through mirroring and reflecting understand who they are in community through the perspective of others.
Q: What does dance education look like when humanity is the starting point for teaching and learning? How do our students learn when we choose to be a reflection of what they understand?
A: With dance as the container, education gives all participants, teachers and learners, administrators and supporters, the opportunity to be the mirror. A partner in dance education actively gives a vested interest into the collective prosperity of each partner in the learning environment. Each partners’ success is inextricably bound up, caught up in the others, this occurrence of ubuntu is the foundation of quality partnerships. These are the partnerships worth cultivating, and they require work. There is a goal of unity that must be met and every partner must do their part well for the everyone to succeed. Many hands make the work light when all hands carry their share of the load.
The answers to the questions above are meant to start a conversation around quality in dance education, teaching and learning, community and partnership. I am excited to hear your thoughts as well and will leave you with one final question:
How can we each carry Ubuntu into the work of Dance Education?