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This is the podcast for us dance teachers balancing our teaching job with other jobs, commitments, and just life in general! We don't need to know how to run the whole studio, work with students 20+ hours a week, or win big at competitions; we just want practical advice and real conversations about how to be the best dance teachers we can be with the little time we have with our students. Join Maia on the casual dance teacher's podcast and in the casual dance teacher's network on Facebook.
Welcome to the Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast. I'm your host, Maia. No matter who, what, or when you teach, I'm here to share all my best tips and tools, along with real and practical conversations with fellow dance educators to help you be the very best dance teacher you can be. Let's talk about it.
Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me for this one.
It is the last episode of season two of the Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast. Boy, oh boy. I've got to be honest.
I feel like season two was long. I had the best time putting all of these episodes together, especially the interviews with guests. We had some phenomenal guests throughout the season, and I'm so, so grateful to everyone who shared their expertise on the podcast throughout this past season.
It's really been a joy, but it also, towards the end of the season, has started to feel like work and feel like something that is pushing me a little bit as far as getting all the content put together for you, edited, uploaded, all of that fun stuff. And so while I was originally envisioning that the final episode of the podcast would be the final week of April, so it'd just be a nice square cutoff, the end of April, and then have three months off, May, June, July, I'm taking that last week of April off as well, and I'm not going to formally announce when we'll come back yet. And with that said, why am I even making this last episode of me just chatting about it being the last episode? I don't have too much to say in the way of dance teaching tips or advice for you or anything like that, like I typically do on the podcast.
I did want to make a final episode because this season has been very different from the first one in a lot of ways. I started out talking about the things that had changed in my life that were changing my perspective on my career and the whole way that I view dance teaching, and that I wanted to have more open and honest conversations about kind of where I am and where people are personally in their journey as dance educators and that that would become a bigger part of the show. And that absolutely has been true throughout many of the conversations that I've had throughout this season.
I hope you all have enjoyed that, maybe found some inspiration, some hope, some guidance, whatever it is that you needed in all of that. I know that I certainly have, and it's really helped me with my own personal journey to be able to open up about that and discuss it with various different guests coming at those issues, problems, and things that we're dealing with from varying perspectives. So in closing, I just kind of wanted to summarize where I'm at and how this season has continued to shape my perspective on dance education.
The first thing that I will say, which doesn't necessarily have to do with teaching dance specifically, but just in the broader sense, one thing that I did at the end of season one was kind of announced to everyone what my exact plans were for taking that break May, June, July, coming back in August, continuing at season two. I wanted to make it very clear that I had a clear plan and goals and a direction that the podcast was going. Now, wrapping up season two, that's still true.
I have a plan, I have goals, and I have a vision for the direction that the podcast is going. However, I'm not going to share the specifics of all of that with you right now, because one of the things that I've learned is that sometimes even the best laid plans will not necessarily play out the way you plan them. And it's okay to keep an open mind and leave space within those plans for things to take shape in a way that you didn't necessarily expect.
But that doesn't mean that they're wrong or they're less than the initial plans or goals that you set. So yes, I do have plans for the podcast moving forward. I want you all to stick around and stay engaged with me and with the podcast because I'm excited about where we're headed and what's to come.
However, I also know that there are going to be things coming for the podcast and for the community that I've built around the podcast that I can't even predict right now. And I know I wouldn't be able to grow if I was only setting goals and plans around the information that I have and the connections that I have right in this moment. So I'm really looking forward to where things take me, you know, new connections that I can build and ways that that can enhance the plans that I already have in place.
Now, if you're not already part of the community, please join us in the Casual Dance Teachers Facebook group. That will be a place where I will continue to share even when I'm not producing new episodes of the podcast. And I just have to say this because the community has been growing, but I am very precious about maintaining that as a space for dance educators.
So I am currently the only admin of the group and I get a lot of requests of people wanting to join the group. However, I will not accept someone into the group unless they answer the required membership questions. So when you go to join that Facebook group, there will be a couple simple questions.
It's nothing crazy at all. It will not take you very much time at all. If you are a dance educator and you would like to be part of the Casual Dance Teachers network on Facebook, answer those questions.
Otherwise, you are not going to be admitted to be a member of that group, okay? And anyone listening, anyone who has anything to share regarding dance education, please feel free to share it in that group. That is absolutely not just a platform for me to share with all of you. It is a platform for dance educators to share and exchange information amongst themselves.
I'm also on Instagram at the Casual Dance Teachers podcast and I'm also on Reddit. My handle is Casual Dance Teacher and I really enjoy connecting with folks there. So wherever you feel most comfortable reaching out and connecting with me, I am more than happy to connect with all of you on any of those platforms.
So with all of that said, I also just kind of wanted to summarize a personal theme that's popped up for myself as I've been going through the work of creating the podcast as well as in the actual conversations and the way that this relates to the dance classroom. This recurring theme seems to keep coming up in season two that it's important to make space for things that might not feel like they are directly serving the goal that you have in your mind. Looking at the very first episode that I ever published of this podcast in season one, Curriculum Planning, we really broke down how to define your goals and then set individual benchmarks and build your lesson plans to have every single thing you do in class build towards those goals.
Yes, I stand by that 100% as a dance teacher, especially if you are a casual dance teacher seeing casual students who are only coming into the studio a few hours a week. Yes, we need to maximize our effort and efficiency towards those goals. However, there are times that students might not be able to progress towards those goals because they have mental blocks.
We've talked about various techniques that can be implemented very briefly and very simply into the classroom, but you do have to carve out a little bit of time that you're not working on dance technique, you're not working on steps, you're not working on choreography. You're just working on getting those students past those mental blocks. Sometimes maybe the class isn't jiving and there's a drama and they're having a hard time getting along and that's blocking students from being able to pay attention.
So you might have to take a step back and do something fun with them, do some bonding activities, do some icebreakers, have them sit down and have to have a conversation with each other or play a fun game together. And we've had lots of episodes throughout this season that give recommendations for ways that you can do that. It might feel like, well, when am I going to do that? I have to do tendus.
I have to do choreography or I have to do arm conditioning today. You know what? Sometimes those things are just not going to serve the students if there's something else blocking them. So that's one of the main themes and the way that that has kind of manifested for me is that the beginning of this season, I ended up taking a step back from teaching dance and that was really hard for me and felt a little painful for me because, you know, I'm the casual dance teacher, right? My goal is to connect with people specifically around conversations of dance education, teaching dance, and how am I going to do that if I'm not teaching dance was my perspective.
But when I removed that weekly grind of teaching dance classes, there were a lot of opportunities that I was able to pursue because I had more time available that created connection with other dance teachers, with other artists. I have talked about this, I think a couple times throughout the season, but I've started exploring other creative outlets that I enjoy and they're not directly related to dance necessarily, but they are very fulfilling and relate to just expanding my creative vocabulary, which I think will definitely serve me in the long run. I just wanted to share that with all of you.
As dance teachers in the classroom, practically, sometimes we have to take a step back and do some things that might feel like they're only very tangentially related to the practice of dance in order to move forward with the technique, the strength, the artistry, whatever it is we're pursuing as our dance goals. Personally, wherever you are in your career, if you're feeling really stuck and you're feeling like you're really struggling, and dance is this thing that you love, and teaching and choreographing is this thing that you love, so how could it possibly not be for you right now? How could you possibly take a step back if that's what you really want to do? There might be space for you, and I'm not encouraging anybody to up and quit their job, right? My situation, if you listen to the first episode, is very unique. There's a lot of factors that were beyond my control, so it's not like I just woke up one morning and decided to quit.
But I just want to give anyone who's struggling permission to have that conversation out loud with a trusted friend, with your boss, with another dance educator, with me if you want to reach out to me. I'm so open to that. Have that conversation.
Use the tools that I've provided through many of the episodes throughout this season to be able to analyze your own personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, areas where you might be able to develop your career more. Give yourself some space to think about where growth might happen where you least expect it. With that, my friends, I won't be publishing any new episodes in the immediate future, but absolutely stay tuned.
More things are happening. Make sure to connect in the Casual Dance Teachers Network on Facebook, on Instagram at the Casual Dance Teachers Podcast. Huge shout out, as always, to GB Mystical, who's provided the theme music for the show since day one.
I absolutely love the theme music. It's so fun. And GB Mystical has lots more music available that you can check out.
And with that, I will leave you with our final quote of season two. This one's from Zig Ziglar. "What you get by reaching your goals is not nearly so important as what you become by reaching them."