Preach and Practice

🌺Actions speak louder than words.

🌺love is a verb

🌺I can show you better than I tell you.

You can choose any of those statements, and the message remains the same. There is a value and weight to performing an action. Words start the process and get the universe listening, but action seals the deal. For example, there are many companies that made #blacklivesmatter statements/ banners, but I feel comforted and supported by those who took actions, like those who used their platform and presence to redirect consumers to black-owned businesses. Or those who took a closer look at their institution and asked the question who is missing from the table and offered them a seat. We all have valuable experiences that can better the collective but are you showing that you value those experiences/knowledge

" I have no dance experience" is what a good number of them say in our welcoming conversations, but this is often not true. This statement is generally a marker of where students have been taught to put their value and at times it is somewhere else. At my current university, I teach a general education course titled Introduction to Dance History. Like some other universities, my university is reflecting on our curriculum practices and asking are they relevant to our population and are we offering knowledge that will help them to be better humans. I am still mastering my pedagogical and andragogical approach, but I am clear of one thing we have to practice what we preach.

When we practice what we preach we offer what would like to receive. If I would like the world to be more inclusive, and open to growth then I need to be and practice those things. I often get headaches during this time because while this is " only dance" I have a unique opportunity to use dance as a lens to show love and appreciation for my students and then use this same platform to create an invitation for them to show love and appreciation for others.

As I prepare for each semester I begin my list of what I want to cover:

Western Theatrical Dance forms( Modern, Ballet)

American Derived Dance Forms ( Modern, Jazz, and Hip)

Vernacular and Sacred Dance Forms( Indigenous Americans Forms, Hula, Lamban, etc)

As I create my list my anxiety builds, these forms don't fit neatly into boxes, much like the history of the forms they overlap. Sometimes I get stuck because I have my ever-growing list but I don't even know my students yet. I don't know what they want to know.

There is a saying "students don't care what you know until they know you care." How can I show them I care? I need to show them I care because humans who feel they are not cared for do dangerous things. I need to show them I care because about who they are because it shows them how to care for others, or at least be open to listening to people they percieve as different. I am a professor , an educator and a teacher, but we are all teachers to a degree. Our actions teach the people around us how to treat us and sometimes how to treat others. If we want our community and society to be a more loving agreeable supportive place then we have do those things in our actions. The past few months have been an extreme lesson on how contagious infections( Hate and Covid) spread, let's use this lesson to spread some positivity.

🌺Actions speak louder than words.

🌺love is a verb

🌺I can show you better than I tell you.

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💛Mya

I hope you enjoyed this quick read.

#duafebc#thewoodencomb#quoteoftheday#quotesforwomen

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