June 13, 2022

By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President, Center for Inspired Teaching

Hooray for Monday is a weekly blog filled with questions, ideas, reflections, and actions we can all take to remodel the school experience for students.

Recently I had the great joy and honor of taking a dance class with my college professor, Julie Adams Strandberg. It was not just any class; it was Julie’s final class at Brown University, where she started the dance program in 1969, and where, at the glorious age of 80, she has just retired from full-time teaching.

Throughout her 50+ year career, Julie has challenged the notion that dance is the purview of an elite group of trained professionals. She is an award-winning dancer and choreographer and has taught, and danced alongside, countless professional dancers. However, Julie is just as proud of the middle and high schoolers; children on the autism spectrum; and elders with Parkinson’s Disease whom she counts among her students. And Julie often brings together this diverse array of intergenerational dancers to study and perform in the same classroom and on the same stage.

Julie insists, “It’s not a question of who gets to dance. Dancers get to dance!” (Watch a short video excerpt of our conversation here.)

And by looking at everyone as a potential dancer, Julie has learned valuable lessons that apply to all of us who are teachers.

Julie explains, “Dancing is always about limitations. Every dancer, including Baryshnikov…has a strength, and they have something that they have to keep working on.” In speaking about the elders with Parkinson’s whom Julie teaches, she says, “If you teach them as if they’re dancers, then you’re not teaching them about what they can’t do, you’re teaching them about what they can do…If you feel like you are focusing on what you can do, it’s a whole different mindset.”

Before joining Brown’s faculty, Julie was an elementary school teacher. When I asked her how she’d advise teachers today on supporting students who struggle to focus and concentrate in school, she replied: “The body has to move before it can sit down and concentrate.” She recommends sending students outside where possible or giving them indoor tasks that involve moving their bodies, in order to “wake up their nervous system” before asking them to sit and focus. (And of course, Julie points out that focus can and does happen when a body is in motion too!)

Julie’s teaching approach embraces asset framing, which I’ve written about as a mindset we should all understand as we strive to support our students. Her approach also emphasizes belonging, one of Inspired Teaching’s ABCDE’s of Learner Needs. Julie says that the community-building power of dance can combat the “sense of isolation and loneliness” that elders with Parkinson’s often experience, and that so many of our students have experienced during these past few years. “Once you’re a part of a repertory or a dance, then you are an essential part of a community that is relying on you to tell a story,” she says.

Julie points out, “You learn things from people with special needs that apply to all people.”

Though Julie has retired from her full-time faculty position, she continues teaching and advocating for access to dance through the many nonprofit organizations she has founded over the years.

As we look toward summertime, with the opportunities it offers to reflect on our practice, how might we see our students differently – as dancers, mathematicians, historians – and most importantly, as essential parts of our learning community?

Resources

4 Ways to Nurture Community this Summer

Join us for our Summer Institutes! Whether you become a Speak Truth Fellow, or participate in our July or August Institutes (both focused on self-care and strengthening relationships) learning with fellow teachers is an excellent way to grow your own group of essential community members.
Create a creative collective project. Community building comes naturally when we are engaged with others in meaningful work. Whether you plan a neighborhood potluck, a community trash clean-up, work with others to plant a butterfly garden, arrange a flash mob dance, or do something else that brings people together – you’ll find that the work is worth it when you share in the process of creating together.
Sign up for a dance class. Or if dance doesn’t feel right, try a yoga class, a rec league sport, or some other experience in which you are moving in community with others. Try something that is very different from what you normally do, the unusual nature of the experience will put you in the position of a learner, and that will make you lean into the community even more.
Thank your community. It’s always a surprise to discover that thanking others for the role they play in your life actually makes YOU feel good. We never have time for this during the school year, but summer offers a little more breathing room. Get a packet of envelopes and cards and write the names and addresses of all the people in your community that you want to thank on the envelopes, put stamps on them too. Then, whenever you have bits of time this summer, write one or two notes and put them in the mail. Be specific in your thanks, and challenge yourself to remember the particular things these people have done to build a community for you.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

What can dance teach us?
In this video, Julie explains the many connections that can be made between dance and history, reading, writing, and other subjects. She also explores the critical connection between movement and learning.

A Case for Dance in Education
This article describes one of Julie’s projects called “River East: A Developmental Dance/Literature Curriculum for the Elementary School.” It offers a compelling argument for why the arts, and dance in particular, are important not only in education but for the well-being of society as a whole.

“It is the mission of the educator to perceive the needs of a culture that go beyond the financial. Our society with its resurgence of racism, its questionable ethical practices, and its lack of communication and interpersonal understanding with the peoples of the world, is a civilization expressing other kinds of needs – needs as compelling as its requirement for more technical knowledge. The arts in general and dance in particular transmit culture, teach skills, and fulfill. There is perhaps no better description of education than this.” – Carolyn Adams and Julie Adams Strandberg

InspiredTeaching · June 13, 2022: Essential Community Members

Micaiah Anderson

Community Outreach Specialist

As a Community Outreach Specialist, Micaiah is responsible for program promotion and outreach support for Inspired Teaching events and workshops. Micaiah has a passion for collaborating with community members to build-power and connect. She is an educator with a heart for youth and has experience supporting students fight injustices within their schools and communities. She has a BA in Political Science from, the real HU, Hampton University & anticipates graduating in May 2024 with a Masters of Arts degree in Educational Policy Transformation from Georgetown University.

AUTONOMY

"I want to have a say in what happens to me."

Autonomy is the need for independence; the ability to make choices, to create, to explore, and to express oneself freely; to have sufficient space, to move around, and to feel unrestricted with opportunities to exercise free will.

Brady Maiden

Outreach Coordinator

As the Outreach Coordinator, Brady helps maintain Inspired Teaching’s social media presence and supports the organization’s mission to connect with DC community leaders, educators, and parents. Brady has her Master’s in Public Policy from George Mason University and her BS in Political Science from Northern Arizona University. She is passionate about community, equity, and coalition building recognizing that learning and growing with the community at large is how we continue to be impactful.

What brings you joy in life?

I find joy in spending time with my friends and family and meeting new people. I like going to concerts and festivals, and finding new books to read.

The Learner’s Cycle, Wonder-Experiment-Learn, and the Teacher’s Cycle, Observe-Plan-Instigate, comprise Inspired Teaching’s approach to engaging students in inquiry-based learning.

When they are engaged in the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, students are immersed in learning. They take the lead in designing authentic learning experiences around their own interests and their school’s standards of learning. Each discovery leads to a new question which in turn leads to more wondering and more learning. In the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, Learn is not a destination or an endpoint; it is a deeper understanding, leading to a deeper wondering and new possibilities that create new entry points to further exploration. The cycle continues because what students have learned generates more wonderings that require more experiments that foster more learning – and on and on.

The Observe-Plan-Instigate Cycle is the work of an Inspired Teacher. While a student is expected to follow the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, the teacher joins them on the learning journey while following their own cycle of Observe-Plan-Instigate. This cycle ultimately serves to ensure an inquiry-based atmosphere is at play in the classroom.

Jaqueta Abbey

Teaching and Learning Specialist

Jaqueta is the Teaching and Learning Specialist for Inspired Teaching. In addition to her current role with Inspired Teaching, Jaqueta is a first-grade teaching assistant. Her background features a variety of traditional and non-traditional experiences in the field of education, including working as an adjunct professor, teaching summer reading programs to children and adults, and tutoring children in the foster care system. Jaqueta earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.A. in Interactive Media from Elon University.

What brings you joy in life?

Creative self-expression! In addition to my passion for storytelling, I love dancing of all kinds. I've studied belly dance, bachata, and Brazilian Zouk among other styles. I also enjoy glass fusing, crocheting, photography, and cross stitching. These art forms allow me to express myself and build connections with other people at the same time. I think life would be a lot less vibrant without artists and storytellers!

Michelle Welk

Communication & Marketing Specialist

As Communications and Marketing Specialist, Michelle is responsible for finding and creating new ways to highlight Inspired Teaching and promote its programs in order to expand and deepen the organization's impact. Michelle has worked in communications in an array of settings, from creative agencies to state politics to national nonprofits. She has a BA in Journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia and is passionate about education, access, and equity.

What brings you joy in life?

My son, the beach, making a persuasive argument and good food!

Max Peterson

Real World History Assistant Teacher

Max received his Bachelor’s degree in History and African American Studies from Boston University in May 2016. He has worked in museum curation at the Museum of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Max has worked with young people of varying ages from young children to young adults transitioning to college.

Feedback and Accountability

We grow through feedback and an understanding that the quality of our work is a reflection of what we are learning, but the shift to remote learning this spring disrupted a lot of the tools teachers were used to using to evaluate student growth. How might we do things differently this fall? Participants in this workshop will explore ways to bring meaningful assessment into the virtual and/or socially-distanced classroom and approaches to student feedback that strengthen motivation, and build relationships and achievement.