"Are you good enough to teach me?"
I was doing some spring-cleaning of my documents in my laptop when I came across an article I had written many years ago. Although I'm pretty certain I posted that article as an entry on this blog, I cannot be 100% sure. In any case, I think it's worth a re-post, so here goes that article reproduced with some minor editing...
I started learning bellydance in 2003 and teaching bellydance in 2005. At first I taught only a few private students, but then later the numbers gradually increased and I started big group classes at studios. It’s been such a blessing getting to meet so many wonderful women while sharing my knowledge and love for bellydancing with them. Their keenness to learn is what drives me to continue teaching and meeting more and more women to share my passion with. However, at certain points throughout my teaching career, I have come across students or potential students who have been, for want of a better word, “difficult”. When I say “difficult”, I’m not referring to slow learners or students who can’t seem to grasp the movements. These students are usually the more earnest ones who will do whatever it takes to understand the dance better. These students are a joy to teach. When I say “difficult”, I’m referring to the attitudes portrayed by some women towards the dance and in looking for potential instructors to learn from.
One day, I received a phone call from a prospective student enquiring about my bellydance classes. Claiming to be from a certain foreign country, she said that she has been dancing for a long time and thus considered herself as an “advanced student”.
The first question posed to me was whether I was advanced enough to teach her, you know, since she’s very experienced and all. My answer to her was that I will never know whether I’m advanced enough to teach her before actually watching her dance and looking at her movements myself. Furthermore, whether a student can be considered “advanced” or not is a very subjective issue. Some dancers repeat beginner or intermediate level courses so that they have a solid foundation before moving on to the advanced levels and call themselves "advanced students". A few others go for one beginner level course and call themselves professional bellydancers already. So there’s really no telling a student’s level merely by speaking to her over the phone.
The next question was whether I had any formal qualifications or certifications to prove that I’m a qualified bellydance teacher. This was the first time someone had asked me that question, and I was slightly taken aback mainly because any advanced dancer should know that bellydance is a cultural and social dance traditionally passed down from generation to generation and thus, has no official grading system or certification that can formally “qualify” one to be a teacher, unlike many other dance styles like ballet. No doubt there are many teacher training courses out there that provide successful students with certificates as proof that they had attended these courses, and no doubt there are also certain established bellydance academies in the world that award teaching certificates to dancers, but these in no way prove that a dancer is now a good teacher. Certificates merely prove that the dancer has successfully completed the courses. Such courses can definitely improve one’s teaching skills and make her a better teacher than before, but what makes a “good teacher” is highly subjective, especially in the world of bellydancing, and it takes more than a certificate to become a good teacher. Many of the world’s greatest master teachers learnt bellydancing from their mothers and grandmothers and did not require formal teaching certificates to prove that they are good or qualified bellydance teachers.
After explaining this and giving the details of my bellydance lessons, I provided her with the contacts of other bellydance teachers in KL who, in my opinion, are more advanced than me and would be better off teaching intermediate to advanced students like her. This included some local Chinese-Malaysian dancers who are respected and well-known in the KL bellydance circle. That was then the end of our phone conversation.
The following day, the same person rang me up again. After some re-introductions, the person then shocked me with the following statement, “I don’t want a Chinese instructor. I want an Indian instructor, because as you know, bellydancing comes from India, Egypt, Turkey, etc...”
At this point, I wasn’t sure whether I was more amused or offended. As an advanced student, she/he should be very well aware that:
1. Bellydancing does not come from any one specific country. This issue has been widely argued and debated over for many years and since then, there have been some accepted views adopted by many dancers. One such view is that bellydancing is a mixture of many movements and elements from different cultures fused and blended together to form what it is now, but it has never been accepted that bellydancing had come from one specific country. In any case, the widely accepted theory is that bellydancing came from the North African and Middle Eastern parts of the world, which does NOT include India.
2. In no way does the race of a teacher determine her level of capability and your money and time’s worth to learn from her. Bellydancing has now grown into a global dance practised and perfected by women (and men) of many different cultures and backgrounds. A dancer’s race does not determine how good of a dancer or teacher she is. The only reason, in my opinion, that a person should take the teacher’s race into consideration is language barriers.
When the phonecall was over, I heaved a sigh of relief. I spent the following days pondering over many questions - What makes an “advanced student”? What makes a “good teacher”? Are certificates important in bellydancing?
What I came to realise is that there will never be a 100% correct answer to any of those questions. What is important is that all bellydance practitioners respect the dance fully and not judge other fellow dancers by their race or skin colour.
I started learning bellydance in 2003 and teaching bellydance in 2005. At first I taught only a few private students, but then later the numbers gradually increased and I started big group classes at studios. It’s been such a blessing getting to meet so many wonderful women while sharing my knowledge and love for bellydancing with them. Their keenness to learn is what drives me to continue teaching and meeting more and more women to share my passion with. However, at certain points throughout my teaching career, I have come across students or potential students who have been, for want of a better word, “difficult”. When I say “difficult”, I’m not referring to slow learners or students who can’t seem to grasp the movements. These students are usually the more earnest ones who will do whatever it takes to understand the dance better. These students are a joy to teach. When I say “difficult”, I’m referring to the attitudes portrayed by some women towards the dance and in looking for potential instructors to learn from.
One day, I received a phone call from a prospective student enquiring about my bellydance classes. Claiming to be from a certain foreign country, she said that she has been dancing for a long time and thus considered herself as an “advanced student”.
The first question posed to me was whether I was advanced enough to teach her, you know, since she’s very experienced and all. My answer to her was that I will never know whether I’m advanced enough to teach her before actually watching her dance and looking at her movements myself. Furthermore, whether a student can be considered “advanced” or not is a very subjective issue. Some dancers repeat beginner or intermediate level courses so that they have a solid foundation before moving on to the advanced levels and call themselves "advanced students". A few others go for one beginner level course and call themselves professional bellydancers already. So there’s really no telling a student’s level merely by speaking to her over the phone.
The next question was whether I had any formal qualifications or certifications to prove that I’m a qualified bellydance teacher. This was the first time someone had asked me that question, and I was slightly taken aback mainly because any advanced dancer should know that bellydance is a cultural and social dance traditionally passed down from generation to generation and thus, has no official grading system or certification that can formally “qualify” one to be a teacher, unlike many other dance styles like ballet. No doubt there are many teacher training courses out there that provide successful students with certificates as proof that they had attended these courses, and no doubt there are also certain established bellydance academies in the world that award teaching certificates to dancers, but these in no way prove that a dancer is now a good teacher. Certificates merely prove that the dancer has successfully completed the courses. Such courses can definitely improve one’s teaching skills and make her a better teacher than before, but what makes a “good teacher” is highly subjective, especially in the world of bellydancing, and it takes more than a certificate to become a good teacher. Many of the world’s greatest master teachers learnt bellydancing from their mothers and grandmothers and did not require formal teaching certificates to prove that they are good or qualified bellydance teachers.
After explaining this and giving the details of my bellydance lessons, I provided her with the contacts of other bellydance teachers in KL who, in my opinion, are more advanced than me and would be better off teaching intermediate to advanced students like her. This included some local Chinese-Malaysian dancers who are respected and well-known in the KL bellydance circle. That was then the end of our phone conversation.
The following day, the same person rang me up again. After some re-introductions, the person then shocked me with the following statement, “I don’t want a Chinese instructor. I want an Indian instructor, because as you know, bellydancing comes from India, Egypt, Turkey, etc...”
At this point, I wasn’t sure whether I was more amused or offended. As an advanced student, she/he should be very well aware that:
1. Bellydancing does not come from any one specific country. This issue has been widely argued and debated over for many years and since then, there have been some accepted views adopted by many dancers. One such view is that bellydancing is a mixture of many movements and elements from different cultures fused and blended together to form what it is now, but it has never been accepted that bellydancing had come from one specific country. In any case, the widely accepted theory is that bellydancing came from the North African and Middle Eastern parts of the world, which does NOT include India.
2. In no way does the race of a teacher determine her level of capability and your money and time’s worth to learn from her. Bellydancing has now grown into a global dance practised and perfected by women (and men) of many different cultures and backgrounds. A dancer’s race does not determine how good of a dancer or teacher she is. The only reason, in my opinion, that a person should take the teacher’s race into consideration is language barriers.
When the phonecall was over, I heaved a sigh of relief. I spent the following days pondering over many questions - What makes an “advanced student”? What makes a “good teacher”? Are certificates important in bellydancing?
What I came to realise is that there will never be a 100% correct answer to any of those questions. What is important is that all bellydance practitioners respect the dance fully and not judge other fellow dancers by their race or skin colour.