From: jtn@nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Teaching and noise
Date: 24 Jul 92 06:11:36 GMT
Followup-To: rec.org.sca
Organization: SCA

Greetings to all the good gentles of the Rialto, from Angharad.
This is in response to the "dancing" discussion, but isn't about
dancing; it's about teaching, and why I think teaching dance at
the War hasn't worked up to now.  

First of all: there is dancing, and there is learning to dance, 
and I agree that they should mostly happen at different times, so 
that -- as Aryk observed -- the dancing itself can be enjoyable 
and social and all that good stuff, and the dance masters can 
retain their sanity.  (And no matter how good everyone at the
Ball is, just that many moving bodies would make too much noise.)
That being said:

In response to Master Justin's recent posting on the difficulties 
of acting as dance master in the Pennsic Barn, Lord Alan Fairfax 
Aluricson said,

>  There is another way of looking at this problem.  If the dancers can't
>be quiet enough to be taught, don't teach them.  Simply do your best. 
>If you can't be heard and people aren't paying attention, stop teaching.

It may be more useful to think of this not as a problem with
dancing, but as one of trying to teach under adverse conditions.

Arval suggests to Lothar that if you are trying to provide a
service and people aren't cooperating, they probably don't want it.  
I think the problem is more complicated, because it's at least in
part a question of _who_ does or doesn't want it.

Much of this problem is that that many people use the barn.  If 
the dancers are quiet as mice, but half the rest of the war is 
also using the barn and talking with each other in normal speaking 
tones, then there's still a problem, and Master Arval's response 
(which is Lord Alan's in different and more tactful dress) doesn't 
answer it. Tibor suggested that dance masters use dancers to "shush" 
talkers, but that still involves distracting the learners.

Say someone is trying to teach, and many or most of those present 
are trying to learn.  If there are others who are not, even greatly
outnumbered, they can make the teaching and learning impossible.  

_If_ the time and place are officially reserved to teaching and 
learning, people disrupting the process can reasonably be called to 
task and politely asked to change their behavior or leave -- 
whether they are supposedly there to learn or not.  I hold to the 
(admittedly unpopular) view that students are at least as responsible 
for their motivation, and the behaviour that accompanies either 
its presence or its absence, as their teachers are.  I also don't 
think ill mannered persons should be allowed to interfere with 
courteous ones teaching and learning.  If you are in a place 
reserved for teaching and don't want to learn, leave.

But if the time and place are _not_ so reserved, there is a real 
problem that is restricted to neither dance nor the barn.  In
a nutshell: you can deal with this if the disruptive behavior is
legitimately describable as inappropriate, but not in a setting
where it is as appropriate as anything else that is going on.

Directed learning can't happen in a highly populated place without 
maintaining the necessary conditions, including quiet.  If we
want people to learn to dance at the War, dancing should probably
be treated like any other activity for which classes are offered: 
set aside a time and place.  (And just as the barn is not the only
possible site for war court, nor is it the only possible site for
dance practice.)

On the other hand, if we get a reserved setting, I hope that
some people behaving inappropriately will not result in others
assuming that nobody wants to learn, or letting those who don't
make it so.  So long as socializing is appropriate to the time
and place, it will happen.  If it is inapproapriate, it will
happen anyhow, unless concern for the rights of those who are
there for the appropriate purpose overrides fear of upsetting
those who are not.  We do that too often now.

Best wishes all, and hope to see many of you at war!

-- Angharad/Terry 
Organization: Engineering Design Research Center, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA