Foundational Criteria for the Course
As a gathering of playful, inquisitive and knowledge-seeking individuals, the class truly becomes a laboratory as defined by the university’s course description. The following criteria are the foundations of the course:
1. Students as Co-Creators
The instructor checks in weekly with student progress, questions and confusions, and she adjusts class content accordingly. As members of a learning community, students and are expected and encouraged to try new behaviors and practices. This expectation of exploration is supported by the safe space of the studio, which requires every participant to be considerate, both of themselves and others.
Students' expertise in and knowledge of their art form and daily life activities is acknowledged and incorporated into the use of the Alexander Technique principles. At no time does McCullough instruct the students to not do what their professors are coaching and advising on the playing of their instruments, dancing or theatre work. Still, students are understood to be experts, both as artists, and as people living in their bodies and knowing what any given day demands of them.
2. Community Building
By mid-semester, and often sooner, the class has coalesced into an engaged learning community. Students have taken responsibility for their role in creating an environment of inquiry and exploration. It sounds simple, but the importance of welcoming every student by name as they enter the studio cannot be overestimated and goes a long way toward setting up a community for learning. Students are also expected to learn each other’s names and often report this is an unusual component of their university experience, which they greatly appreciate.
3. Relational Learning
From the semester’s start, statements are made about the Technique being learned in relation to others and with others. Students move between whole group activity to small group discussions, to partner work with movement practices, to observation as the instructor works individually with their classmates.
Alexander Technique colleagues are mentioned and cited throughout the classes, with examples given of the myriad ways one may learn the Technique: workshops, small group classes, Master Classes, traditional university course, one-on-one instruction.
4. Trust/Vulnerability
Establishing trust between instructor and student is a foundational aspect of successfully learning the Technique. Initial connections are best fostered through the weekly assignments. Responding in writing to each student’s submission, referring to a particular observation they made or a thought they had goes a long way in setting up a healthy connection early and well.
5. Curiosity Cultivation
The first slide of the first-class power point presentation is a massive question mark, made up of many question marks. And students hear this: We are here to ask questions, to inquire, to be curious, to wonder, to play, to experiment, to change.
6. Kindness
OSU Dance Department Interim Chair Susan Petry summed up the importance of kindness in our pursuit of knowledge and experience, in her final email to students and staff, fall semester 2021. An excerpt is quoted below:
"In these weekly emails, I have inserted reminders about kindness, self-care, slowing down, paying attention, and letting go. For my last message of the semester, I want to say in no uncertain terms that the work of doing good in the world takes focus, discipline, rigor, consistency and moral aptitude. Messages of hope, sweetness and permission are not meant as banal platitudes. Taken thoughtfully, they are meant to help us lean into our convictions, locate the joy in the work, and home in on the particularities of our own unique paths."
Yes. What she said. Cultivating kindness, toward oneself and others, allows learning to occur. Fear-based learning, stress-based education, has no place in the understanding of the Alexander Technique, and indeed, prevents learning from happening.
