The Human Brain is Built to Mimic or I Talk Too Much
I just had one of the most successful in-class sessions of my entire teaching career. Why? What did I do differently this time? I shut my mouth! Before I get into the details let me give some quick background: We were working on Waltz Clog Pullbacks. I have explained to the class before how to do these and the kids have had mixed levels of success with them (some get them, many don't). Usually I will explain how to do it and then give them all time to work on it while I go around giving individuals pointers to help them get it. The results of this are usually some slight improvement. This time I did it differently. I had a contest with the kids based on them mimicking me. Basically I did a waltz clog pullback then counted them in and they all did one together. If they all do it right (for the most part) and most importantly if their sounds are all together, they get a point. If their sounds are almost all together it's a tie, and if their sounds aren't together I get a