Learning Thursday

Everyone present. Everyone on time.

Lots of paperwork to start. Reading assignment texts. Reading assignment instructions. Links to websites - including the blog. Chance to go to the Amazon Germany site and listen to a few samples from Die Mutter. Tony has a couple of these CD's ordered at the moment.

Today, all about LEARNING AND TEACHING. We started with Hide and Protect. (and Grandmother's Footsteps). We then did quite a lot of work on Contact Improvisation in pairs.A and B. One offers. One accepts. The main points here are that:

• The energy of accepting should be no more and no less than the energy of offering.
• That while the one who offers must have confidence, the one who accepts should have trust.
• That both the offering and accepting should be unconditional

Then, in pairs, we taught one thing to our partner and learned one thing from her. Maybe a dance step, a rhythm, a nursery rhyme, a trick. In pairs we had to present it to the rest of the class.

We then looked at the whole question of learning styles; visual, auditory, kinesthetic.... Of how both learning and teaching are entwined. Of the teacher's responsibility to the student... and vice versa. And the trust, vice versa. About the presentation of what has been learned. Of performing it with confidence. As well as with care.

Of the ying and yang of Brecht. The dynamic of opposites. Of discipline and playfulness

Talked about discipline balanced with playfulness. Alertness of the people waiting to creep up on Grandmother. Stillness of people ready to sneak up. But the moment she turns her back - they are full of tricks. Full of mischief. Full of life. Full of movement. Stillness doesn't = lifelessness.

Yin and Yang connected to Dialectics?