But What about My social life?

Hello and welcome to my first action project for the winter term of 2020. In my humanities class I have been working on the idea of argument and what that really means. To do this we have studied the Declaration of Independence and we have learned about what an argument really is. Argument really means to make clear. To help us with this process we observed an council meeting and we talked to an alderman. In my action project I have made my own Declaration of independence for a class that I think would be useful for kids. So sit back and relax while I explain.

INTRODUCTION

Movement is inevitable. Everyone moves, but for some reason, some schools don’t encourage this way of thinking. Now I don’t mean literally, but some schools you can’t even go to the bathroom without a hall pass and sure some schools allow a poms team, or even a dance team, but does any school allow kids to learn about body movement and how it connects to their social life? It helps people who have hyperactive disorders. It helps kids release from anything that is going on with their life. I’m doing this because of my personal experience with dance. It helps me forget about all the stress I have in school and it allows my brain and my body to relax.

The purpose of school and learning is to give students a chance to learn new things so that they can be successful in their future no matter the path they want to take. There are somethings that I think people don’t talk about in education which is their social life. This is the most important thing because before they learn how to do math they need to know how to communicate and ask questions and get involved in discussions. Being able to have a conversation with your classmates is important because it allows for students to learn how to have personal connections with others. As we all know our declaration independence states that as human beings we have the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but do we really? The definition of liberty is “the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.” If we don’t allow our students to think on their own and create their own life are we really allowing them their own liberty? With my declaration I am declaring that students have the right to control their own bodies and their own movement through a social way.

Syllogisms

Premise 1: All students are human.

Premise 2: All humans have the right to be free within society.

Conclusion: Therefore all students should be able to be free within society.

Berthan Mooney, “Time” 2017

Course name: The social body

Guiding question: How does movement affect your social life?

Historical evidence:

In the 1940’s dance just came into the spotlight for a lot of African Americans. Before this they weren’t allowed to express themselves and dance in the companies that they wanted to. Alive Ailey and Katherine Dunham wanted to break those standards and they started their own dance styles that affect the social standards. With my class I hope to break stigmas and show people that dance can be a social interaction.

Resources:

Books: “Experience and Education” by John Dewy

“The dance of your core healing” by Angelika Maria Koch

“Female bodies on stage” by Sally Banes

Course Layout:

Unit 1: What Can the body do?

• In this unit we will be getting into understanding the way that the body can move and we will learn how to not restrict ourselves
• We will engage in an improv class in the dark that will allow the students to move freely without being judged

Unit 2: Social life

• This unit will be about understanding everything that relates to our social life such as social media or just social interactions
• We will expose ourselves to people that we don’t know with our movement

Unit 3: Social Movement

• In our last unit we will connect everything we have learned to create a dance that explains something that each student is passionate about

What I Need:

• I will need students approximately 6 or more
• I will need a dance space
• I will need a radio/music
• All students will need to have “The dance of your core healing” by Angelika Maria Koch

Desired outcomes

Through this study of movement and socialism, I want students to learn how to let go of everything that holds them back and realize that they can be just as great as everyone else. Most of the time the reason why kids are not social is because of the lack of confidence they have in themselves. As studies show people who incorporate dance/movement into their lives are better at networking or communicating. It has increased people’s social interactions and social lives in general. Now I’m not saying everyone should be talking during the lesson plan, but they shouldn’t feel like they have the right to speak.