Post Interview Field Notes

General recurring elements:

 - There seems to be a generalized idea that empathy + acknowledging students are some of the most important things a teacher can do.

- Dancers feel like the human connection is the best thing a teacher can give them. (This was the overall number one thing that stuck with them the most...).

- Having long-term goals is one of the most important things (psychologically) for dance injury management.

- Men seem to prefer a  more competitive learning environment than women.

When I first approached the book Decolonizing Methodologies, I truly struggled to understand the connection with my work/research/MA...it made no sense to me. But one sentence resonated with me...and that was along the lines of 'understanding our responsibility as a researcher'. We can't go, ask people to share parts of their lives, leave...and expect that nothing has changed in them, and in us. Something DID. I took it as my 'mission', in this fieldwork, to let my interviewees leave more uplifted than how they entered. 

I am no psychologist, but what worked was highlighting everything positive that my interviewees shared with me. A bit of the concept of a mindfulness journal. Bringing awareness to the good things that were in their life, and enhancing that. Not making them focus on the bad, (acknowledging it yes - NO TOXIC POSITIVITY HERE), but not enhancing it. Rather anchoring them in their good experiences/support system/circumstances. And I wouldn't allow myself to end the interview until I found that anchor.

These interviews made me understand the value of this MA. In all fairness I was struggling at times to understand what these three modules had to do with dance...at some point, I even thought little to nothing...

But NOW I see where they led me...to an incredibly rich source of knowledge. I interviewed people that were generous enough to unwarily show me the way to a potentially new teaching methodology. They taught me more than I could have ever learned in books, or even from my own experience alone. They shared what they craved from their teachers, what was missing, and what made a teacher or a class great. They showed me the connection and the importance of a non-distinction between being a human and being a teacher. They guided me towards the first steps of a new direction towards finding an enriched pedagogical methodology. The three modules led me perfectly to that. I am so grateful. I couldn't have learned more about dance technique pedagogy in any other way... It taught me the power of SHARED KNOWLEDGE... 

Back to Module One: What is knowledge? Who communicates it? Who teaches who how to teach? 

Very interesting indeed...