DANZ QUARTERLY No 10 December 2007
Dancing the Key Competencies
The five key competencies are a central part of the revised New Zealand School Curriculum, launched in November 2007. They are: relating to others; thinking; using language, symbols and text; managing self; and participating and contributing.
They have been a source of strong discussion in education circles but they do present some excellent learning opportunities for dance and a kinaesthetic learning approach.
The importance of the key competencies is their contribution to the essential skills for living, lifelong learning, working, and contributing to the community. Dancing is a highly effective context for them to be explored in because these skills need to occur in a shared social context to develop.
The dance that can be explored is vast - dance is an umbrella term for many styles and genres (cultural, social, performance styles) and it can be used as a tool for exploring a wide range of topics such as ‘respect’, different ways of ‘greeting’, ‘working together’ etc.
Dance students can learn dance techniques in a specific style, particularly cultural dance and thus gain a great insight into that culture through understanding the context and protocol of the dance. This gives affirmation to the students who come from that culture, who may well have the skills to lead the dance under a teacher’s guidance. A member of the cultural community with appropriate expertise can be brought in to support the student. This opportunity provides a ‘way in’ to the culture and inspires knowledge for those who know little about the culture. Understanding the diversity of our cultures in New Zealand, confirming identity, team work, leadership and negotiating are all involved in this dance making and support key competency learning.
Students can explore and create their own movement style or they could use dance as a learning medium to study another subject altogether such as science. The exploration of the evolution of volcanic development through movement is a strong way of instilling knowledge learned through literacy.
Social and cooperative skills are needed for dance and choreography. Students need to articulate ideas and negotiate content of the dance. The ability to listen and recognise different points of view, negotiate, and share ideas is integral. The non-competitive nature of dance encourages those who may be socially challenged to be more involved in a class. Dance is a powerful tool for people with language difficulties or for those with English as a second language.
Students will use their creative and critical thinking abilities to learn a dance style or produce choreography. Through exploring personal and innovative movement, by working on dance design, theme and creation tasks, students will exercise problem solving techniques and they will need to think critically and reflectively during this process about their own and others’ choreography and perceptions of dance.
Symbols, language and text can be explored as students learn to present and read the abstract language of dance through their use of imagination and interpretation and will recognise how choices of physical symbols affect people’s understanding, readings and response to the dance.
Managing the self and participating and contributing to the whole are essential in the dance process, from creating and performing the dance piece to the cultural or dance genre experience. The key competencies back up the holistic approach to dance found in the curriculum of both the arts and PE areas. Kinaesthetic learning through dance is a powerful tool and deserves to be well integrated into students learning programmes.
Dance equals confident, creative, connected and involved students.
|
