To complete the Learning Opportunity 1 assignment write a two page, double spaced paper that advocates dance in K-‐12 education. The purpose of this assignment is to encourage you to reflect on what draws you to dance, why you have found it to be important and how it can be used in our K-‐12 educational system. Think about why you originally signed up for this online course. It is possibly because you are passionate about dance, it was the most interesting among your class choices or you thought it would not be a challenging class. Allow yourself to be very honest in your reflections. Then start to critically think about your reasons and use the material you have already learned in class to help you. Each student has a unique experience with dance but the majority have expressed through discussion posts and the survey an appreciation for dance.
You can look to outside sources such as online articles, websites, etcetera about advocating dance in education as a way to spark your thought process. This is not, however, a research paper. Did you take dance in your K-‐12 education? What was that experience for you? Was dance available in K-‐12 but you chose not to enroll in the class? Why? These are just some of many questions that you can explore as you write and advocate for dance in K-‐12 education. Many of the schools in Arizona have dance education programs however this is not true for most of the U.S. So far in this class you have read about dance as a vital art form. What would this art form look like in K-‐12 education? If it was more available and supported in K-‐12 education what are potential outcomes? I want to emphasize that your approach to writing this paper should be to reflect on how dance has been apart of your life and what would have been different or the same if dance was a more common option of study in your K-‐12 education. From this I hope you can synthesize what you have been learning and your personal experience with dance. I also hope you can develop critical questions around the topic of dance education in our primary and secondary schools.