Being a good tango teacher is not just showing steps and make them repeat after you. It’s not knowing a lot of fancy names for the steps you teach, as well. Being a good teacher has to do with who you are as a person. It has to do with how do you relate to the material you teach and to your students.
It’s strange how sometimes just one sentence said in the right moment can change your life…
“Ivica, what’s the reason you’re not teaching tango? You have all it takes to be a good teacher”, she said.
My teaching career started there, at that moment. If she was someone else, it wouldn’t make me reflect on what and how I do, but she was a experienced university professor. In that time I was just a practica organizer. We were a small group of dancers who needed time to practice independently. We gathered on weekends and practiced. That was a time where in our community there were no regular teachers and schools, so we used this practica to share what we knew.
Before that moment I didn’t saw potential for me to become a teacher. I sometimes explained a step or a technique to the less experienced dancers, but for me that was still not a teaching. And then she told me that I have a great talent.
Although I still learn and I will never stop learning, the feedback that I get from some students is that she was right. The results in their dancing are visible as well. I have seen many teachers who are better than I am and I always try to learn from them – to build on the skills and talents I already have.
There are many teaching styles, but there are some things that are beyond that: some things which one must posses if he or she wants to be good tango instructor.
If you’re like I was and not sure can you become a tango teacher check this list – if you think you have them there’s a good chance you might become a great at teaching tango.
1. Being a good dancer
If you’re not a good dancer you can’t be a good teacher.
The quantity and the quality of the knowledge you accumulate will be the basis on which you can build your teaching career. One can never be a good teacher if he/she has no knowledge to share.
If people like to dance with you and give you compliments (make sure they’re honest) than you might consider that you have that knowledge. Now, you will just have to find a way to transmit it to other people.
If you already are a good dancer, there are certain things you must have in mind: be curious to learn more and go deeper; respect your experience and try to learn from it; and stay humble.
Curiosity drives you to learn more. It is not enough to just know how to make certain step, but to know its variations and origins, to know how it would work in different contexts, etc. If you are not a good student, you can never be a good teacher.
Experience is maybe overvalued, but it is necessary for a good teacher. One might have a great amount of learned skills and theoretical insights, but only time can teach one the subtle wisdom of how the knowledge develops and enters the heart of the dancers. It takes time to come to the state of seeing the big picture. This also might include teaching experience.
Humility is often a forgotten value, but I never experienced any human activity that needs it more than tango. I see people learning fast and, when they get little attention from the dancers of the opposite sex, they stop. They close up with false feeling that they know enough, that they are masters.
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2. Analytical mind
Good teachers are not only transmitters of knowledge. There isn’t an eternal super-source of tango knowledge or some sort of ultimate tango manual where teachers can learn and later transmit that knowledge to their students. Tango is alive, everchanging experience, and not a standardized dance.
As a teacher you should instead think about the process as an exploration of your own knowledge. You have to find out why and how it works in your own dancing. Than you should also be able to find out why or how it works (or doesn’t) in your students. For that you need to be analytical.
There isn’t an institution that gives licenses for tango teachers, so there is no point where you can say, “I passed the exam, so now I know enough to be a teacher.”
Being a teacher is a process. To teach means to discover things – about your own dancing, about dancing of others, about your students, about tango culture, about history, about the music.
And you do that only by analyzing.
3. Flexibility to improvise
There’s no perfect school, perfect workshop, where students can learn in a perfect way. If one expects that I can bet he/she’ll be inflexible and disappointed.
Of course, it’s good to have a teaching plan and goals, but a good teacher has to be able to change that plan on the fly. It sometimes happens that the level of the students is not high as expected – so sticking to the original plan created for advanced dancers, will be too much and people will not learn. If you notice that your students can’t keep up with the material, you’ll have to change the plan immediately.
Having this kind of flexibility is possible only if the teacher has one of the traits I talked about in other points in this article – like knowledge and life experience for example.
The teacher also has to be able to connect to the students and to decide if they need some adjustments to be made in the plan.
4. Life experience
Teaching tango is not only about tango itself.
Good teaching follows this pattern: start with what is familiar and continue to the unfamiliar. Familiarity is often a step which was previously learned, but often it must be derived from universal human knowledge.
How can you explain the roles of the man and the woman in tango if you don’t compare them with a real life relationship? That’s something everyone is more or less familiar with.
Or, how can you teach about the difference of the good vs. bad embrace if you are not able to compare it to a comfortable vs. uncomfortable car driving?
The teacher needs to have a little more life experiences in order to come up with comparisons and examples form regular life, something everyone is able to identify with.
5. Self-confidence
Students need someone who can lead them.
You need to be able to express your thoughts loud and clear in front of group of people, and to do that in a convincing and charming way. People need to believe that what you say is true, so they can put more effort in learning it.
If you’re insecure about what you are explaining it will activate the students resistance and place doubt in what they learn. This is sabotaging the learning process even before it started.
Let me clarify something: I’m not saying here that students should be machines who accept all you say without doubt. In fact, I tell them to always question everything they learn. Whenever someone is telling them something they should always ask “Why is so”?
On the other hand, if you know the WHY, you need to teach it in a convincing way. That will give them a clear direction – which you can provide only with being sure of what you are talking about.
Dear teachers, self confidence is not given talent – it should be earned by preparation and work. So, do not waste time, be always prepared.
There’s one more important reason for being a self-confident teacher. Students often come without energy, many are confused, tired, too relaxed… A good teacher should be able to give them energy and will to work more. This can be done only if you know what you do and do it in a confident way.
6. Connect
You work with people. Establish a relation. Read them. Help them read you.
Your students will have different backgrounds, talents, abilities and it’s your job to access that and to adapt the teaching style to their needs. Some learn by explaining; others by seeing.
You will also have to be aware that for many of them tango is just a hobby, a convenient way to spend productive time after work. They do expect you to teach them, but they also expect to have fun in the process. So, make it fun.
One more thing: sometimes students see you as a leader in things which are not part of your job as a teacher, so you will have to become their parent, psychologist, priest, friend… If you have energy for that – it is OK, but don’t let that interfere with the teaching process.
This list can, of course, be much much longer, but I limited it to just only six out of practicality. I believe these are the most important ones. Do you agree?
“Pedagogic skills” is what I am missing in this list
I have taken lessons with different teachers. Most having all the skill described above.
What kept the good apart from the average was there ability not only to tell me what to do, but also to teach me how to get there if I could not. In small stept if needed, based on my – individual – abilties and limitations. And to explain it to me in a way that I could understand. And that can be different for different students.