reflections and further developement

I now feel I am beginning to pick up the pace with my research once again, I have started to produce two literature reviews to do with the benefits of dance to young children. My inquiry title is:

 

What are the different approaches to teaching dance to two to five year olds and what do teachers say are the best approaches?

 

However I do feel the benefits of dance should be covered in my research also, as teachers would not teach if they did not feel it was beneficial to there students.

 

The first review focused on dance as an art form and as part of the arts world, and did not want it to be viewed as a form of physical exercise for children. So this article focused more on the mental positive dance has for young children a quote from it is;

 

We are concerned with studying dance as dance, i.e., as an aesthetic domain with its own goals and characteristics. We use both terms ‘dance’ and ‘aesthetic movement’. We use the latter term to refer to movements of an aesthetic kind, i.e., movements that have a representative form (a gestalt).’

 

I particularly like the part where it sates it is looking at dance just as dance in its pure form, this is something that I have not come across as much in my research as it is normally always related to health benefits.

 

            The other review I looked at was a booklet advertising the benefits of dance for young children, and this stresses the importance of how healthy dance is for children:

 

‘Dance is a universal language and in an age where child obesity is increasing and the taking of exercise is decreasing it has never been more important to present dance to young children in an enjoyable format. In doing so it is more likely that in some form or other participation in dance as a form of exercise may continue into adult life.’(Fouracre.M)

 

This I find seems to be a more well advertised positive for children, which is again a very key factor when looking at the physical well being of this age group. It is giving them a healthy life style in a fun and enjoyable way.

 

I have carried out two interviews so far with two teachers who teach this age group and older, the recording of this is below.

 

This is the first interview I have carried out for my research so the questions and answers aren’t very detailed they give me a summery however of the areas that they teach and the different styles they use, I now intend to focus more specifically on some of the questions they have answered to create new questions and develop them into more detail about there teaching styles and methods.

 

            I am currently working as a dancer on a cruise ship so at the moment having access to the internet is slightly limited. From here I intend to go forward with some more interviews with other professional people via email or skype I am just awaiting there confirmation, and hopefully plan on getting my SIG group more up to date this week to develop some conversations with more professional people in this field. I also intend to hold a second interview with the teachers but make it more of a group discussion developing there ideas and theories.