Leading, Following and Co-Teaching
I was observed this week. Meaning that someone came to observe me teaching. Realising that I was one of two tutors in the room, they asked me if I often co-teach. The answer is yes. Co-teaching is my absolute preference. However, I realised that I couldn't explicitly say why.
The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if this preference came from my practice as a swing dance teacher. It led to a bit of a reflection on how my two teaching practices have influenced each other. What follows are some of those thoughts.
The P Word
'Pedagogy' has become a pretty sexy word in the swing dance scene in recent years. There are now whole events where teachers come together and discuss 'pedagogy.' Frustratingly, these conversations are generally not about pedagogy they tend to focus far more on the how than the why.
That’s because the majority of Swing dance teaching is still quite often teacher-centered. Teachers are the authority figures. They lead the class using activities that are visible and structured. I am speaking quite generally. I've taken some classes that break from this structure. Relatively few though where the goal was not to complete a task set by the teacher in a fairly ordered sequence of steps.
When I first started to teach dance I simply borrowed this structure and replicated it. I thought that the most common structure must be the best structure. I didn't really consider 'pedagogy.' Ten years later, after teaching, attending and organising workshops, I have developed a few more thoughts on this. They are complex and intermingled but here they are (not very neatly) arranged into two packages. On the surface they sound different but I think they are probably quite similar.
Two roles, two teachers
I taught dance in different partnerships for years and it was (mostly) great. Firstly, there's always someone to check in with. You can discuss how you think the class is going and if anything needs to change. Your co-teacher can help you keep pace, calm you down when you think it's going wrong and run the class while you attend to emergencies or flailing students. However, these practicalities are not really the point. The most important thing for me is that two people offer two different points of view. I find this particularly useful in how it relates to the dance as a socially constructed moment. There are no facts or absolutes in a social dance. As a co-teacher, Saul Albert once (beautifully) said "in a partnered dance, everything is up for negotiation." When two people dance they bring different ideas, different ears and different bodies to the game. It makes sense to me that a class might be set up in such a way as to prepare you for this reality.
There are people who advocate for 'one teaching voice' in a dance class. Personally, I think 'one voice' or an overly didactic approach tends to present the dance as more straightforward than it really is. I much prefer the excitement and honesty of teaching with someone who sees things a bit differently to me. The respectful need for in-the-moment negotiation feels authentic to the realities of the dance. That students see this, I believe prepares them to be more accepting of these realities when they inevitably encounter them.
But two teachers in a design class...?
I like co-teaching so much that I seem to have dragged it into my design teaching. This feels quite logical to me. Design, like dancing, is a radically contextual activity. Designers need to learn to balance a whole range of views, concerns and needs sensitively in any creative project. Success in design tends to be a good balance of what is creative and what is appropriate given the resources available. If you think of a dance as a creative moment (as I do), you can see where I am going with this.
Co-teaching offers opportunities to acknowledge moments of dissonance and conflict. This can be really useful. Students see that multiple viewpoints are possible. The studio becomes a world where many worlds fit. Like dancing, design, is rarely about a singular voice or point of view. It's about finding a balance and being able to do that creatively and positively.
Planning for the hidden outcome...
Our design workshops are often highly structured and intensely practical. On the surface the task is quite linear, but we tend to break this up with frequent reflection points. At those points, we might invite the students to reflect on what they learned and how it works for them personally. This is often my favourite part of the class. It can be really surprising.
Students generally 'get the point' of the activity but they often find it meaningful or useful in ways that we don't expect. They might have applied the ideas in a new or novel way or made a link we couldn't have predicted. These moments offer opportunities to take classes in entirely new and unexpected directions.
I learn a lot about teaching and design in these interactions. I am really honest about that with the students. It can be quite useful for them to see that they have 'taught' the teachers something. That they are creating something. There also are times when they don't find the activity useful. These moments are great spaces to unpack that and consider why.
Which is the opposite of...
My preference here is almost certainly a reaction to dance classes, which I find are often goal driven in all the wrong ways. There's a move or sequence for the students to achieve and they measure their success on how well they have performed the given task. This need to 'get through content' has broader implications for how we think of our own agency in a dance.
At worst, I think dance classes can inadvertently encourage a form of pattern-response. A + B leads to C and if it doesn't, some-one/thing is broken (thanks Skye for that turn of phrase). This simplified and overly technical style of teaching dance is quite divorced from the creative and surprising realities of social dancing. I guess to borrow from Vygotsky - it's a very thin representation of a very thick experience.
Dance classes are sometimes focussed on 'dancing like the teacher.' To teach like that, you need a very, very detailed understanding of how your body moves. You need a good idea of how to break this down in a way that someone with a completely different range of movement can replicate. I simply don't believe that many teachers have that level of understanding. I also question as to why this might even be the goal?
I've certainly taught A + B = C design classes. I've also been in 'dance like the teacher' design classes. In a former teaching post, I was given a folder of workshops. Each had a workshop brief detailing a step by step structure, learning outcomes and a list of 'deliverables.' Students followed the steps and produced the deliverables. They were never invited to reflect on what that process was, what it meant to them, or what they got out of it. That simply didn't feature in the plan. Students often did not see the link between these activities and their practice / projects. They didn't apply the learnings in their work. The value was placed on completing the task rather than stepping back to reflect on how it fitted in the broader context.
So, going back to pedagogy...
There was definitely something quite useful about starting my teaching journey by replicating my own experiences of a dance class. I had a hand-me-down structure and a traditional approach to pedagogy. These were constraints that I could experiment within. In considering the value of implicit vs. explicit outcomes and of opposing viewpoints in class, I think I have learned to be less prescriptive about the form an outcome should take. I've also found the value of making space for students to share their 'outcomes,' positive or negative, during the class. This approach, and particularly this type of 'live' formative feedback can be quite challenging, particularly if you are attached to your role as 'teacher' and the authority that traditionally commands. It can be challenging for students too, particularly those with certain expectations about teachers and authority.
'Incontestable' knowledge
This approach foregrounds any class as a collaborative learning process between the students and the teachers. To apply these approaches, you need to understand what you believe (design or dance) knowledge really is. It's not possible to teach in this way if you tend to think of your subject as a discreet body of incontestable knowledge. This happens in both graphic design and swing dance. The idea that the best way to practice is to simply replicate the practices of the past, in the same ways, over and over.
I am not inclined to think of either practice in that way. At least not these days. I'm happy to accept that any body of knowledge is constantly evolving, situated, contextual, contestable. Matthew Crawford put this beautifully in The World Beyond Your Head. He is speaking here about traditions and what it means to practice traditions in a modern world. I think this quote has particular relevance for both design and swing dance.
“Perhaps it is more generally true that in order to learn from tradition, one has to be able to push against it, and not be bowed by a surfeit of reverence. The point isn’t to replicate the conclusions of tradition [...] but rather to enter into the same problems as the ancients and to make them one’s own. That is how a tradition remains alive.”
There's an accountability in sharing teaching. It requires reflection on your own norms. It offers you a perspective on a different approach - all in the physical moment of teaching. Co-teaching also offers a certain amount of safety, giving you a structure in which to experiment with a running buddy that can reign you in!
In dance we tend to talk about the role of lead and follow. I think I used to think my role as a teacher was to lead and the role of the students was to follow. These days I actively seek opportunities to follow in my teaching. Sometimes I am following a co-teacher, and sometimes I am following my students.