Coronavirus Remote Education and Dancing 

Day Three March 22, 2020 SUNDAY

This is so FRUSTRATING!!

I was up until 3am last night getting things ready for tomorrow and I still feel so unprepared. After 5 hours of sleep, which is about right for me, I just couldn’t stay in bed any longer, I got up, put the laundry together and off to the laundromat I went, only to find out that they are closed for 4 days. That was really unusual, she rarely closes. I just hope that she is okay. So I got some bagels at the Black Seed, which is right next to the laundromat, and headed back to my humble 5^th floor walk-up apartment with my dirty laundry, had breakfast with my spouse and wanted to start working on this blog before I do my morning exercise and generally take care of myself.

Remember the number one rule: Take care of yourself first. Kind of like paying yourself first before you pay others, which I have always been really bad at, so I am trying to practice self-care to be ready for what is ahead. It is like when I was out of work for 7 months and decided to go to yoga classes to help ease my anxiety and center myself. Doing my morning stretching and dancing helps me to prepare for the day. I guess tomorrow I will need to get up at my usual 5:15am time to get myself ready for the day.

Which brings me back to my frustration. 

Yesterday, I video chatted with the theater teacher at my school to make sure all of my online programs were working correctly. We tested things out, exchanged ideas of what to assign and how to post them. She said something really interesting about feeling like an island.

As an arts teacher (music, theater, art, or dance) we are often the only one in our building that does what we do, which already makes you feel like an island in your school. Having to do all of this from home with mostly new protocols has intensified that isolation. I would imagine that everyone is feeling that right now. That is why it is so important to touch base with other colleagues no matter what they teach. Exchange frustrations, successes, funny stories and then go for a walk to give yourself time to absorb it all.

So I am going to stop blogging now, prepare myself for the day by doing my early morning exercise and self-care routine and then I am going to come back and tackle assignments, getting in touch with parents(I still have over 80 students out of 525 that have not responded to my e-mails), posting online, contacting my college students (which has its own set of stresses), going to the grocery store, taking a walk around the neighborhood (there is something soothing about the lack of crowds on the street, we live in a very hot and popular neighborhood), maybe even take some used clothing over to the shelter around the corner. And hopefully I will be ready for tomorrow. After all “tomorrow is another day”…..

For my adult students at MPHC and from elsewhere, I am working on getting a video up of my stretch class for you to be able to access and use at home. Hopefully in the next few days this will be ready to go.

Until later....

The Dancing Jedi

Coronavirus Remote Education and Dancing

Day Two March 21, 2020

I woke up totally anxious this morning at 5:30am after going to sleep at 1:30am. So it seems that the 7 hours I got yesterday was an anomaly and I am back to my old pattern. The difference is that I usually have to get up at that time, however today I woke up after 4 hours anyway despite the fact that I did not need to.

After attempting  to go back to sleep and being totally unsuccessful I decided to get up. All I was doing was lying in bed thinking about all I still needed to do to get ready for my students on Monday, not knowing how it is all going to go, stressing over my lesson plans, trying to understand four different online platforms because all of the places I teach are on different online protocols. My school is using three different ways for us to communicate to each other and then my cluster group is constantly on their cell phones exchanging ideas and glitches back and forth. ENOUGH!

So I decided to follow my own advice and take care of myself first. I got up, made breakfast, exercised for an entire hour, bathed, shaved, and gussied (yes, gussied) myself up. Now I feel ready to sit down at my computer and tackle all of the uncertainty that has come my way as a result of this pandemic. One good thing  is that Ken and I get to spend a little more time together and have made it our routine to do one outdoor excursion a day to go food shopping and take a walk around the neighborhood.

Whole Foods is limiting the number of people they are letting into the store so shopping for food has actually become a more pleasant experience. The wine store is still open because it is considered a necessity, and it is. So we usually stop by there to get a bottle of wine.

So it is now 9:00 am and I am just sitting down to tackle some lesson planning and online connections to my fellow teachers.

I just wanted to give a big shout out to the dance education community and their willingness to share their ideas and lessons as we move forward. That said, I do think there comes a point where each of us needs to stop reading and taking ideas from each other and trust that we got this, we know our subject, we are creative, we have weathered crisis before, and we are dedicated, passionate individuals who will make the absolute best of this situation.

More later from the “Dancing Jedi”

Coronavirus, Remote Education, and Dancing

I haven't posted in quite awhile but as I am at home preparing to go online with my 500 plus students I thought it would be a good time to record what may very well be a truly historic event. So I am going to attempt to keep a blog journal of my day to day experience as an internet dance educator for my Elementary as well as College students. I am not sure how long this will be going on but I am going to do my best to document everyday as much as possible. 

So here we go

Coronavirus, Remote Education and Dancing 

Day one, Friday March 20, 2020

Happy Spring! Which was yesterday and the earliest it has been in over 124 years. The last time this occurred was in 1896. The actual equinox was at 11:50 pm last night March 19, 2020.

First I want to give a big shout out to all of my colleagues at PS 79 for taking part in the monumental effort of preparing ourselves, our parents, and our students for changing over to an online educational system. This was and will be no easy task as we all prepare to work from home remotely with our elementary population and do our very best to keep them on track.

It was humbling to see how hard all of the staff was working yesterday to prepare ourselves for what may be a month or more of remote education. Learning new programs in one session, checking out resources online, collaborating with fellow staff, keeping social distancing and other recommended health protocols in place, and overall trying to comprehend the enormity and seriousness of what we are attempting to do.

I must say I was a little depressed at having to leave the school and my colleagues behind as I contemplate being at home working without social contact and trying to impart the importance of dance, as a physical, social, and cognitive activity, to my students and parents.

I was working hard at creating videos of the many different activities we do in dance class so that my students will  be able to replicate as much as possible what we do together in my classroom. The key word here is “together”. I felt it was important to connect with my students so that they still feel a part of something bigger than themselves. Creating videos of myself doing the warm-ups and dance activities is one way of helping them feel connected. If it means making a new video every week (even in my cramped apartment) then so be it.

So much of what occurs in a dance classroom goes beyond learning the task, or routine, or specific project that we are working on. It is about the social connection. I know that when my students walk into my classroom they are genuinely excited because they are about to partake in something that goes beyond what has been asked of them in their other classes. That at its heart dance is a social activity that we are participating in all together.  I am hoping to replicate that to the best of my ability as we enter into this next phase of virtual reality.

So on day one of being at home and still in prep mode (we do not start actually online with our families until Monday), the very first thing I did was take care of myself.

First I slept for over 5 hours for the first time in years. Then I got up, made espresso, had breakfast, and exercised in my kitchen, as that is the largest open space in my 320 square foot apartment. I am logging this in because I feel it is important to take care of ourselves first in order to be our very best in helping others and without a gym or dance classes my kitchen will have to do.

Then I got right to work as I finish contacting all of my students and families, of which I have over 500 and prepare them for Virtual Dancing with Mr. Jannetti starting on Monday, March 23, 2020. More to follow soon……

Grief, Empathy, and Dance

It has been a year since my last blog input. Sometimes life just gets away from you.

Life imitates art. 

Tuesday was one of those days. A week ago I was facilitating a professional development workshop for the NYC Department of Education. The people participating were teachers of elementary school children. The theme of our workshop was “Grief and Empathy” through the lens of a famous dance “Lamentation” by Martha Graham. Not an easy topic to approach with elementary school children. We were exploring how to teach metaphor and abstraction to 3^rd through 5^th graders. During the workshop we learned excerpts from the piece. Graham’s intent was to embody grief, to become grief, to get inside the emotion and live it not just imitate it. In the process of learning and doing I really felt like I had a deeper understanding of grief and empathy.

Exactly a week later my brother-in-law had a massive heart attack as he was waking up. After contacting 911, my sister attempted to administer CPR. He did not survive. By 8am people were trying to get in touch with me to let me know what occurred. By 12:30 I was leaving school and driving to Connecticut to pick up my nephew from college and drive him back down to South Jersey. We arrived in the evening to a house full of people stopping by to offer condolences. When things are so public grief takes on a certain form. It is almost polite. Visitations from empathetic people allows one to relive the grief but also relive the memories before the grief.   One imagines “what if” as one is remembering “what was”. As Joan Didion wrote one enters the realm of “magical thinking” where all things are possible if I just did one thing differently. This is good and of course unrealistic or “magical” and somewhat necessary as one tries to make sense of such finality. 

However I think what Graham was after was something more personal. It is what one experiences when one is alone at night, when the pain of the loss is so great and you feel your heat ache so strongly, as if someone has reached inside you and ripped it right out and you are not sure whether you are scared, sad, angry, exhausted, or all of that rolled into one total expression of grief. The grief and the empathy that happens in the middle of the night when you hear your sister sobbing, alone and afraid and you go to her and let her know that you care and that she can just let it out because you will be there for her to do so.

The first dance that I created to be shown professionally was after my father had died. His death propelled me to officially enter the artistic world as a choreographer. My dad was 56, I was 26. The piece, “Passing On” was about transitioning from this world to whatever lies beyond. 25 years later when I was devastated by my mother’s death I created a piece, “Margaret’s Lament”. This time not about transition but about devastation. One artist’s attempt to make sense of, to understand, and to express such strong and powerful emotions.

Grief is here, it is with us everyday, it crops up out of nowhere and sometimes takes us over when we least expect it. We have all experienced it in some form and when we see it in others and recognize it we show our humanity and capacity for empathy, compassion, and understanding. The past three days have put me in that place again and all of the emotions and feelings surrounding grief and empathy are right there on the surface.

So was learning “Lamentation” a preparation for this week’s events. Does “life imitate art” and/or “art imitate life”. Or through the lens of the artist isn’t it all life.

NDEO and Beyond

November 28, 2014

Now that I have a little distance on the NDEO conference and have finally come down from the post conference high of the men’s performance and al of the workshops that I attended. I thought it might be fruitful to reflect on some of the issue that came up during the conference and in the DEL Foundations course that I am currently taking at the 92^nd Street Y that is being conducted by Jody Arnhold and Catherine Gallant.

This conference more than any other that I have attended brought up a number of issues that go to the heart of dance and its importance in both performance, collaboration, and education. What is dance in education? Does it belong there? Does institutionalizing dance in academia take away from its essential and very primal power as a communicative art form? Is performing one thing and teaching something else altogether? What is collaboration in the dance classroom and beyond? Where does the performer’s heart and the teacher’s heart intersect?

Being given an assignment in the DEL course to describe “my teacher’s heart” was more challenging than I had anticipated. Having started dancing in college and earning a degree in Speech and Theater with a dance concentration and a teaching certification, I never considered that my art form was separate from my teaching practice. They developed simultaneously and were always intimately connected. So my “teacher’s heart” and my  “performer’s heart” are very closely linked in a symbiotic relationship. I have always performed and I have always taught about what I was performing.

Without studying any formal pedagogical method, my teaching practice seemed to evolve naturally around a number of progressive ideals and practices.  Educational theories that I knew nothing about seemed to be at the very heart of my teaching. When I finally read John Dewey, Howard Gardner, bell hooks, Ira Shor, Jerome Bruner, Alfie Kohn, Mabel Todd, and many more, I began to see how my practice already reflected their philosophies and practices. Without prior knowledge of their theories I was already on the path of progressive educational thinking.

It is fascinating that in following my true nature and the nature of the art forms that I work within, my practice intuitively developed on a very progressive pedagogical trajectory. This is truly a credit to the dance and theater instructors that I had throughout my life and particularly my very first classroom dance teacher, Linda Roberts. Even though my formal training started with Linda it certainly didn’t stop there as I went on to study with many of the great modern dance icons as well as accomplished acting and singing teachers, whose philosophies on performing and teaching matched my own nature, desires, and aesthetics.

On that note I invite everyone to check out my facebook page and take up the challenge to honor a transformative dance teacher in your life by posting your appreciation on your own social media as well as making a donation to NDEO. Give back to all of those teachers that gave so much to you by supporting the organization that continues to promote and support dance educators throughout the United States and beyond. Follow the links on my facebook page or in this posting to show your appreciation today. Together we can make Dance Education go viral on December 2 by doing what we do best, “get involved”. I did my part it’s your turn now!!

I am making a donation in honor of my first dance teacher, Linda Roberts, who was there when I accidentally fell into dance at the age of 18 as a computer error in my college schedule. I have had many fabulous dance teachers over the years, including some of the great modern icons form Nikolais to Hawkins but Linda was there and witness to when I first fell in love with dance, an affair that has lasted over 40 years. Thank you Linda for starting me on this wondrous journey. I challenge all you dancers, dance teachers, and colleagues at NDEO, NYSDEA, NYCDOE ,and at BAX, to make a donation in honor of a dance teacher who was transformative in your life whether you are still dancing or not. 

The challenge has been thrown down are you "Human or Dancer" enough to meet me halfway. No Donation is too small. Thank a dance teacher and donate today!!! 
Take the ‪#‎ThankADanceTeacher Challenge. Let the Thanksgiving begin! www.ndeo.org/givingtuesday ‪#‎ndeothanks ‪#‎givingtuesday

Go here to see my posting online: https://www.facebook.com/andrew.jannetti.9

I am back in Manhattan after attending the National Dance Education Organization conference in Chicago.  Four days of a whirlwind of dancing and meetings and workshops and networking and seeing old friends from all parts of the dance world and making new friends as we forge into the future.

As I reflect on this conference so many things come up. First, out of the 4 conferences that I attended this was hands down one of the best, for a myriad of reasons. Partly, it could be that after 4 years, I finally got the swing of how the event works and was able to navigate the plethora of workshops more effectively. But a big part of it was how this particular conference, as a man in dance and dance education, was framed.

I started the conference working on a dance collaboration with 20 plus of my fellow male dancers, which was an incredible experience in itself that I have many reflections and thoughts about. I ended the conference attending a presentation about a collaborative multi-arts project that has been going on at South Dakota State University for the past 8 years. Starting and ending with these two activities speaks directly to the nature of dance, our participation in it as an art form, and what not only dance but the arts overall gives to us as a society. I have a lot to say about it all but I will attempt to be succinct and to the point in my reflections.

Twenty plus men coming together to create, to share, to explore, to bond, to goof around, to pay homage to their physicality and to their elders, would have sent me running and screaming from the room had it been in any other setting. As a gay male, who found solace in dancing because it was removed from the mythology of “male bonding ”and the images of “superior male physical prowess” this scenario could not have been more uninviting.  Being one not to shy away from what frightens me and knowing that this was a safe environment in which to experiment, I jumped in “feet first” and hoped for the best.  

Working for over 8 hours in the physical realm on a common goal with a group of men with a multitude of individual expressions and personal identities created an environment that was more than the sum of us all. By the time we got to the performance I think we all felt the importance of what we were doing and why we needed to be together as men in all of the many ways that each one of us expresses ourselves. From the bravado to the intimate, from the young to the old, from the ballet influenced, to the moderns and post moderns, to the jazz,  hip-hoper, contemporary and beyond, there could not have been a better representation of the variety of male expression in dance today.

Something truly special occurred in the process of creating this dance and we all knew it from the beginning and from the feedback that we got.  The audience felt it also.  But I must drive home the point here that it was the process and not the performance that made it possible to do what we did. The performance was a culminating statement but the process was the nitty gritty and for the next two days I missed not getting together for rehearsal so that I could share in a common goal, in the intimacy, in the bravado, in the intergenerational support, in the camaraderie, in the exploration, in the reverence, in the goofing around, and yes, dare I say it in the “male bonding” or as I see it the “human bonding”. 

In the end is this not what we all want whether it is male or female or however we identify ourselves. I have bonded with many females in much the same way. One does not preclude the other and is not to the exclusion of the other. This was a great way to start a conference on dance and dance education. I would love to see other affinity groups do the same as we move forward toward 2015 and beyond.

Wow, I just realized how long it has been since I have entered anything into this blog. I guess I have been really busy. Hope to write a bit more now that I am taking the DEL Foundations course at the Y as well as continuing to study Flamenco with JoDe Romano. And I Am sure I will have a lot to say about the NDEO conference in Chicago next week. So stay tuned for updates and coming attractions.

Let’s start with the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL)

The DEL Foundations course, is allowing me the luxury to look at my own practice, solidify many of my current teaching methods, and learn some new approaches and techniques that will increase my effectiveness in the classroom. I have always heard such positive feedback about the practical tools and applications that DEL provides.

Here are some thoughts on my first two weeks in the program.

First week was fun and interesting from the name game right up to the road map of how we got there. I actually really enjoyed making my map and then hearing what others had to say about their maps. It is a truly intriguing group of students from all walks of life and levels of experience with the common desire for and love of dance and movement. What struck me strongly about the evening was the diversity of the people in the room from age, to race, to nationality, to experience, to professions, and to styles of dance backgrounds.

I must admit that I am anticipating that some of the material we will be covering will be redundant to me so I am looking at ways to see with a fresh eye, to find things that I may not have or do in my current practice. I am looking at this experience as a way to see the big picture not just what my practice is or what I can do in my own classroom. I am very interested in seeing what is possible outside of my own practice and what kind of impact the acquisition of new material combined with my experience will have on the field of dance and dance in education.

This led me to thinking about my dance education philosophy. At the center of my philosophy is my belief that dance is essential to the growth of each person’s search for authenticity, as well as each person’s individual expression of “self.” In addition to promoting physical well being dance expands the psyche, encourages social interaction, and promotes thoughtful critical thinking. It also supports the development of each person’s specific voice and his or her unique way of self-expression through movement (something which I got from studying with Erik Hawkins). I believe that promoting the pursuit of this authentic self-expression will produce the next generation of forward thinking dancers, choreographers, and educators and thus enliven the aesthetic elements of dance in performance, research, and education.

I am going to end here for the night and let my philosophy on dance and dance in education have time to sink in and work its way through my thought process. More to come soon. Stay Tuned!

First of all I was very excited by the Common Core when I was originally introduced to it. As a performing artist ti made a lot of sense, as an educator it seemingly valued all of the things I value and find important. 

THE BASICS ARE: 

• Demonstrate independence

• Build strong content knowledge

• Respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline

• Comprehend as well as critique

• Value evidence

• Use technology and digital media strategically and capably

• Come to understand other perspectives and cultures 

All things that I could easily get behind. I even conducted workshops at my school for parents in helping them understand what it is and how to make use of it at home. The problem is the over bureaucratic and rushed implementation of the standards devoid of any creative aspect. 

The push for testing does not help either. It's depressing to see how much time we spend at my school on test prep and the push for kids to perform well on these tests. What are we preparing students for? Since there seems to be strong backing for the Common Core from large corporations, I am viewing it with a bit of skepticism. I want my students to be creative thinkers and to have marketable skills. However I am not so sure I want to hand feed the corporate structure. Students are not commodities that can be pre-programmed. 

If I am to truly honor the Common Core I want my students to be independent, knowledgeable about content (which may include knowing facts not just where to find them),be flexible and responsive to others,work at understanding with a critical eye,use the current tools at hand but not be dependent on them, and most importantly question and search for evidence. I want their education to be experiential and I want them to relate what they learn in literature, art, dance, science, math, etc. to their lives in a real way. That is at the heart of eduction whether I teach dance or science. 

The Common Core probably should have been tested out first on a few select schools and then gradually rolled out. We were given standards to meet without getting the tools or training to help us out. As usual we are flying by the seat of our pants, which works for a little while but is not a wise long term strategy. What could be essentially a great template and/or guideline for learning becomes an overly commodified tool to supply a workforce to an increasingly de-humanizing corporate hierarchy. 

The same is true of the Danielson protocols for effective teaching. Something that was meant as a tool for teachers to be self-reflective and aid in improving their teaching practice has become a overly micro-managed evaluation system that has teachers scurrying around to make sure that they are operating at a highly effective level all of the time. 

The fact is that teaching is messy and does not always occur or operate at a highly effective level all of the time. Like everything in life, things are just not going to go the way you planned and sometimes you even fail. And as any artist knows, it is necessary to fail and then to get up and try again. Failure becomes part and parcel to the learning process. How we make use of our failures to inform our process and progress ourselves as human beings is what is important. This is what we should be focusing on and not meeting some prescribed set of standards, Common Core, Danielson or anything else that comes along the way.