The Research Process: Uncovering one’s own Assumptions

 Doug Risner in the article ‘Politics of Personal Pedagogy: Examining Teacher Identities’, writes that ‘...critical pedagogy is an approach to teaching that seeks to help students question and challenge assumptions and practices that limit, marginalize and disenfranchise human agency and freedom’ (p95, 2008).  As I embark on planning and undergoing a research project, the inspirations of which have grown out of my own experiences as a dancer, my own pedagogical practices and the many activities and interactions that populate my immediate environment, I am noticing that in researching around a particular theme (as Risner, who is looking at the politics of gender in dance pedagogy)and reflecting on my own ideas and approaches through conversation with associates, and engaging in literature, I feel that a lot of these early stages are involving an uncovering of assumptions, my own and other’ around me. I am curious to see if this continues throughout the project. 

Having taken quite a while to Blog on this theme since the months’ skype discussion, I feel I could now add many more loose ideas and impressions.  One that I seem to be coming back to is the extent to which ours assumptions are compounded by language, when we resort to clichés and tropes, when we rely on short hand terms to express our ideas and feelings without being really explicit or clear through our language about what we mean. 

What does it mean when we say someone is not dancing on/with/to the music?  Is this short hand for saying someone is not dancing on the beat of the music?  What about saying someone is dancing musically?  Would music have to be present within the environment for someone to be seen to be dancing musically or could they be dancing musically in ‘silence’?  Is ‘musicality’ simply a way of listening and interpreting music through the moving body?  I don’t know.... 

From a slightly different perspective I was brought up on the correction ‘pull-up’ through all the countless ballet teachers I experienced, but never really understood what I should be feeling or aiming towards.  It took me a long time to recognise the extreme tension and inability to breath that that remark inspired in me, and a much longer time to understand that to feel balanced and ‘centred’ required the co-ordination of many elements one very helpful for me being giving the weight to the floor, pushing down to spiral upwards.  Each person seems to respond to and is inspired by different ways of relating to the body.

When I teach I feel acutely aware of the importance of the language I use.  Sometimes this sensitivity feels like a stumbling block.  It is something I am working on.