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# Strictly Come Teaching

Saturday 21 November 2009
Tagged with

- Teaching
- Television
- Dancing
- Quickies

I should make it clear before getting into this that it’s my fiancee who watches Strictly, not me. My fiancee. I just happened to catch it out of the corner of my eye while I was doing something manly, like DIY. Anyway…

If you live in the UK, you’ll probably not have managed to avoid at least hearing about Strictly Come Dancing, a reality TV show in which professional dancers teach celebrities to dance (in the US and Australia it’s called Dancing with the Stars).

In recent years the big Saturday show has been supported by a half-hour gossip show every weekday evening, going by the name Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two.

In case you were starting to wonder where I was going with this, the first little bit of yesterday’s It Takes Two saw the professionals talking about the approach they take to teaching their celebs, and it makes for quite interesting watching. If you’re in the UK, you can watch it on BBC iPlayer, around 1:10.

What’s interesting is that all of the celebrities think that their pro is a great teacher, but from a dispassionate point of view there are differences. I think Brian sums it up nicely when he says “a really good teacher is a teacher who learns to adapt their teaching style to different types of student.” It’s noticeable that the professionals who have consistently done well across series have been the ones who adapted well to their celebrities.

And as Erin points out: “‘World Champions’ doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good teacher.”

Just a little something to think about.