Recently, I was asked by a student, which type of lessons were the most effective?  It seems that she had called a school in the area that told her you could learn nothing useful in group lessons and the she called another school that told her group lesson were the best way to learn. So naturally, she was confused.

 

Being unaware of the politics involved between these two schools, I was forced to give her a serious answer.  If group lessons were ineffective, then public schools that teach other ssubjects in large groups called classrooms would be wasting taxpayer's money.  Likewise, it private lessons were useless, then all those students who are home schooled and those who enlist private tutors would also fail.

 

Both of these scenarios make little sense.  There is a benefit that comes from group lessons.  There is also a benefit coming from private lessons.  In an ideal learning situation, both types of lessons are taken together.

 

Why do some schools insist on teaching only one kind of lesson?  Let us analyze this.  I can see several possible reasons for specializing in one type of lesson over another.

 

The first reason is financial.  Group lessons have the highest profit margin.  People will only pay so much for a dance lesson in any area, so there is a maximum you can charge for a private lesson.  You can lower the price for group lessons and have more students for each teacher.  In this area of the country, private lessons range between $45 and $75 per lesson.  you can charge $10 per student, have ten students and you have already surpassed the maximum range for a single private student.  However, advocates of private lessons only, argue, that people who take group lessons exclusively, do not generally commit to long-term learning.  So the short term profits taken from group lessons cease quicker and in the long term, private lessons tend to generate a more stable long-term income.

 

The second reason is practical.  Many teachers do not have the technical skill or training to teach private lessons.  Group lessons are easier in the sense that you can focus on "the steps" without teaching anything about posture, partnership, movement, styling, or musicality.  Also, some teachers may not have the necessary people skills to teach groups and through a lack of skill or prejudice, denigrate group lessons.  I will readily admit that the way most group lessons are taught is ineffective.  The way I was taught to teach group lessons was ineffective.  I had to develop a different methodology for teaching group lessons so they would not be boring.  I now use two techniques.  The first, I call "the shotgun approach" where I shot out a lot of information and some of it will stick.  This allows me to teach groups with several skill levels and have everyone learn something.  The second, I call "organized chaos".  With this technique, my group lessons at times look like anarchy but people learn at a comfortable pace.  Both of these tecniques are harder of the teacher but the students learn better once they acclimate to the method.

 

The third reason is the student themselves.  Many students are sanguine social types and they respond better to group lessons while others are shy phlegmatics who respond better to a private setting.  Ideally, students should be open to all forms of teaching.  In group lessons, you will learn how to do your "steps".  Int the private lessons, you will learn other aspects of dancing like leading, reading the lead, movement,amd styling.  In the practice sessions, you will learn how to dance in social context.

 

Inour school, we encourage you to combine private lessons, group lessons, practice sessions and outside social dances together.  In private lessons, you learn how to adapt your body to dancing.  Each person is different.  They have different body shapes and in private lessons, your teacher can adapt the dance to suit you instead of forcing you to adapt to the dance.  In group lessons, you learn foot movements and how to interact in a small group.  In the practice sessions, you learn to dance in a closely regulated social context.  It is a lot like "boot camp" in the military.  Boot camp is where you practice going to war before they begin using real bullets.  Finally, we encourage you to dance outside the school at social dances in other venues.  This is dancing in a situation where there is no control.  You dance is a setting where few people have had any type of dance training and if they have training, they have never advanced beyond the basics.  We call dancing in these outside venues as "swimming in the deep end of the pool".  It usually takes awhile for people to acclimate th this harder type of dancing.  Also, we encourage our students to play with their dancing.  By playing, they revert back to the learning style they practiced as children. Children learn the majority of their skills through play.  We tell our students, "any figure you can walk away from was a good one and we don't make mistakes on the dance floor.  We just have fortunate and instructive little accidents."

 

Both types of lessons have their place in your learning, so do not be afraid to try both kinds.  If you find that one works better for you than another then take the majority of your lessons in that form but do not neglect the others.

 

 

© 1998 by Kenneth Howard- All Rights Reserved