Dance teaching qualifications?

[Moomin]

Personally I would look for a teacher who had a wide range of experience and was affiliated to one of the well known syllabi. With personal recommendation and demonstrable results I would be happy with non syllabus classes but I think the majority of parents would look for accreditation and you would be limiting your job prospects by not having that. I would imagine it could be difficult and not that rewarding to teach a dance style that you don't enjoy, most of the teachers I have met specialise in just ballet or tap/ modern, although I'm sure the more styles you can teach the easier it would be to find employment. Do the dance journals have job sections? If so it could be a quick way of assessing what qualifications/ skills are in demand?

[LinMM]

I think practical teaching experience is so important as no matter how much theory you know and even if you have the highest skills as a dancer personally it is not until you try to pass on that knowledge and interact with your pupils that you really find what it takes to be a good teacher.

As a young trained teacher full of theory myself once(but not in ballet)) in the end I learned most of what I know "on the job" over the years!! And even started to develop one or two theories of my own!!

 

But one does have to have a starting point so getting a good qualification is very important. Having had a career as a dancer is an extra desirable but if you just have a great passion for the art of Ballet you can still be an excellent teacher without this.

 

We had a Maths teacher once who had an honours degree from Cambridge! Very lovely lady but hopeless teacher of Maths ........at least to us hopeless maths brains lot!!