In his highly popular TED talk on education reform Ken Robinson calls for a shift in education towards a model that better accommodates the needs of individuals. Any effort to do this is inherently a perspective that validating the student’s subjective experience of how he or she experiences his/her world is important. In a blog post earlier this year I discussed the deep relationship of this perspective to aspects of somatic philosophy. From the start I debated how I was going to present Somatic content in the workshops. A typical authority/observer model didn’t seem to be a responsible method for teaching such a highly experiential philosophy of human physicality. I could tell my workshop participants about what somatics is, or what it means to lead a somatic lifestyle. I could show them examples of how others have adopted such an outlook on life whether it is a scientist like Neil Shubin, environmentalist like David Abram, writer like Nicholson Baker, or a somatic practitioner like Thomas Hanna, etc.., or I could craft an environment where they could experience what somatic philosophy means for themselves. I ended up with a mixture of all these possible scenarios, but the last seemed the most authentic option in terms of embodying the content of class as I taught it. Somatics is not about learning from an expert source. The ultimate source for learning is one’s own exploration, and it is up to the teacher to craft the type of experiences he or she wants to student to discover. I found this approach most challenging because it is less direct than simply sharing information and resources with students occupying a more passive role. I ended up crafting most classes around a model explained by Glenna Batson in her article “Revisiting the Value of Somatic Education in Dance Training Through an Inquiry into Practice Schedules” which was published in the Journal of Dance Education in 2007. Essentially this teaching method involves an structured movement improvisation, followed by time for either mental or written reflection and group discussion. The following is excerpted from a reflection of how I planned and conducted the opening improvisation of my first workshop session,

When I envisioned the workshop starting, it didn’t feel natural to jump right into a structured exercise or into conversation about content. I also questioned my plan to discuss concepts before opening up time for movement exploration because I feared the participants’ creativity would be over-informed by content. I felt that strategy would have been irresponsible to the subject matter. Somatics isn’t about learning from an expert source. Somatics is about learning from within from the start and absolutely trusting that instinct. That is one thing I have struggled with in learning about education because many educational settings are set up with a singular expert dispensing their wisdom into twenty-some passive receptacles. Teaching in a somatic way isn’t about handing out information, it is about setting up situations to allow individuals to discover what is already present to be discovered.

                  In the end I decided to open with an exercise that simply asked the participants to get moving. We walked around the space and I explained how I use walking through the space as a means to clear my physical and mental state of being. Such a routine action, for me, clears the slate from the pressures of the day. Then I asked them to catalogue a list of the substance of their bodies. They had the choice to focus on substances like blood, water, their dinner, or to focus on major systems, organs, or bone. I asked them to pick one item from their list and consider it qualitatively and invite those qualities into their movement. After this opening we had a conversation and shared what we had thought about. They seemed to understand the metaphorical aspects of thinking about the tissues in the body quickly, and our conversation soon started going in a more whole-bodied direction. The opening seemed an effective way to warm up and effectively framed what we would do for the following hour.

In the workshops we looked at and discussed images of bones and animals, read passages with extremely vivid sensory imagery from David Abram’s Becoming Animal: an Earthly Cosmology, and Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine, in addition to our own experiences. The intention to include multiple modalities for learning was certainly influenced by similar goals in creating SimplySomatic.org. Interestingly I felt that this type of multi-modal learning lead to conversations that addressed the body in a more three-dimensional sense. In the first workshop, for example, we discussed how bodily substances can be understood through many, sometimes conflicting, metaphors, yet all are valid. One participant wrote, “my bones can feel flexible and yielding at times, especially in the feet. Other times bone can feel hard and unmoving. Typically bone feels like an entirely passive supporting entity: solid and straight, yet joints are surprisingly mobile.” We discussed many of these conundrums, and what I particularly enjoyed was the recognition among the participants that mobile versus stable and brittle versus strength are words that have meaning on many levels of experience. They also recognized that they had an emotional opinion about which side of these dichotomies they ‘liked’ exploring more in their bodies. In the following workshops these conundrums took different forms as the content changed, but the challenge of experiencing and discussing them remained the same. Although we rarely ended on definitive answers to these conflicts, I think that my establishing an environment to allow those kinds of questions to arise from the students, instead of solicited more explicitly by myself was a great success.

In the second and third workshop, I learned a lot about adjusting lesson plans based on a variety of factors. Originally I had planned the second workshop as two separate sessions, however no one came in that first week because of busy schedules. I felt the material in both workshops were important enough not to abandon altogether so I decided to lead the second workshop in two parts. I chose activities from both lesson plans that compliment each other best so the combined workshop would still feel cohesive, even though there was a distinct shift in gears part-way through. I led a more explicitly directed movement phrase that we first used to experience inner sensation, and later used to explore energetic intention. I think using the same physical phrase helped tie the class together even though the focus had changed when we came back to it in the second half. In the last workshop a similar break in the flow of the class occurred when we changed spaces. As we went outside I directed the workshop participants to attend to their entirely sensory experience of changing environments, however the focus on this did not last for the entire walk down to the Skoglund hill. I realized I had lost an exercise that would have been instrumental to the rest of the session so when we arrived I redirected the participants in a similar experience through a different, more directed exercise. I was glad I was able to have a sense of flexibility in these situations, however they illustrated how important transitions are in leading a class. Transitions are the spaces in a class required by a necessity to shift gears or focuses, yet the challenge is how to continue to make that space active. Transitions are probably the most difficult moments in class because they serve a functional purpose for the teacher; yet also provide opportunity for the class to lose focus.

Through this workshop experience, I’ve learned I prefer to teach a slower-paced, reflection-based class. I try to be patient in allowing students to fully explore the concepts or exercises I introduce, and am very sensitive to clipping experiences short. After interning at Prairie School of Dance I can see the value of keeping a class moving quickly for some audiences in some situations, but I think the slower paced class suited the Somatic content better, especially for college students who are very invested in finding depth in their learning experiences. There were some moments in discussion that ran a bit dry, and in those moments I caught myself wondering about questions such as, “Are they thinking about this? Is this too much? Do they need more from me before they can respond to this idea? To they find this question relevant? How long do I push this before moving on?” Sometimes, in lecture classes, I see professors intentionally drawing out silence in response to a question to make a point to the students that he or she isn’t going to simply provide the answer. This teaching strategy is one I really respect, but haven’t learned how to implement most effectively. In the final survey about my teaching strategies, I received very mixed reviews about this strategy and the way I used it in the workshop. Some participants felt the awkwardness of the silence, yet others appreciated the opportunity to mentally go deeper and allow the question or experience to sink in before sharing their thoughts right away. I think questions about this strategy also apply to movement experiences. On this note, Sherry advised me, “For the most part, the people who can go to the depth that you want will appreciate the “drawn-outness” of a longer experience, and the people who need more time to get there will take it.”

In the end I felt like most of the participants rose to the challenges I presented to them and that I could have even given more. Interestingly this is also what I experienced teaching a few classes at Prairie School of Dance. People, (even eight-year olds,) who are eager to learn will take in as much as you dare to give them, so be bold in teaching and be unafraid to hand them 200%!