Ballroom Dance

J M (Mike) Nelson
Email:jmnelson@cloudnet.com
Phone: 612-810-0157

Curricula

If we were to consider the typical ballroom dance curriculum in relation to our public school curriculum, we would easily conclude that even elementary aspects of curriculum design are lacking in the typical ballroom dance curriculum.

Consider for a moment our public school curriculum regarding reading, writing, and science. Suppose you had been provided courses in biology, chemistry, physics, cosmology, astronomy, geology, or other narrow aspects of science, and no preparatory class in general science. Suppose you had been provided courses in the short story, novel, technical writing, poetry, news reporting, but no preparatory class in general writing. Further, suppose that the mathematics and grammar associated with the aforementioned classes were expected to be acquired incidentally through the different classes. Clearly such a scenario provides a good argument for our evolving curriculum in the public schools wherein we are exposed to general concepts and skills prior to specialization. If we don't understand elementary reading, basic grammar, general science and elementary mathematics, we are not ready for a more focused course in a narrow aspect of science or literature.

In contrast, ballroom dance curricula rarely contain a general course where fundamental skills and concepts are provided in a systematic manner in preparation for studying a specific dance style. Rather, these fundamentals are expected to be acquired incidentally while being taught specific styles for which they are requisite. No public school would even consider such an irresponsible approach to curriculum design, yet we readily accept it in the social dance curriculum.

This does not speak well for any of the people involved. Not only is a studio unlikely to take a rational approach to curriculum design, but the general public would not likely accept it. Such a studio would probably lose clients to their competitors who offered style-specific lessons. Thus, even the more responsible approach to a dance curriculum by a commercial studio would likely fail. As further indictment of our anti-intellectualism, community education, typically an arm of the public school system, also ignores pedagogy in this and other aspects of the community education curriculum. This does not speak well of us as an intelligence species.