"It's a man's world..."

My Grade 4 class is dominated by the male species and as we all know, (ok, i didn't know this, but was informed by my roomie who is a psychology major) that boys have an inherited, biological tendencies to be aggressive. Perhaps this explains the behaviour of the boys in my class. There was a main group of them who were very aggressive, argumentative and controlling. However, despite my negativity, I did enjoy these boys for their sense of humour.
On with my story...
As I have mentioned in a previous post, one of the things which I did on my block was create and teach the dance unit to my students as part of their phys ed. curriculum. I knew going into this that I would have problems. Boys don't like to dance. It's a fact. Sure there are the exceptions, but young pre-pubescent boys do not like to dance! Perhaps this mixed in with this Freudian theory of inherited, biological aggressiveness explains why these boys chose to give me such a hard time in dance class.
Resistance. Maybe that's the right word to use. The boys resisted as much as they could and just complained and complained whenever they were to participate in learning a new dance. I had boys running and sliding across the floor instead of participating in warm-ups. I had boys fighting with each other... it was just ridiculous! Halfway through the unit, after one particularly awful class (it was like pulling teeth trying to get them to learn the "cotton-eyed joe") I had a talk with the students. I told them I was disappointed in their behaviour in dance class. I realize that some students don't want to participate but this is something that has to be done so let's just grit our teeth (for some reason I like to make teeth references... hmm... weird...) and get through this.
I knew that having a "stern talking" with the class would not be enough. Yes, I needed them to smarten up, but I also needed to make this more fun for them. So back to the drawing table I went...
Friday's gym period arrives and is greeted by the newfound "boooo gym class" which was never an issue before. However, I had a few tricks up my sleeve which I was hoping would engage the students some more.
I decided to do a "dancing through the era's" with the students. Their warm-up was to the "time warp". That, in itself, was priceless because clearly with the age of these students none of them knew what the heck the time warp was! However, they gritted their teeth like I asked them to and they got through it.
So on to the lesson...
I took my usual spot on the stage and the students lined up in their usual formation on the floor facing me. I started the lesson completely different though. I asked for two volunteers. One great thing I loved about this class was that there were always volunteers! For this class, my strategy to make it more fun was to involve the students in my explanations of the different dance eras. Being a retired competitive dancer, (retired at 21... sounds like something Britney Spears should have done!) I have an abundance of dance costumes collecting dust in my closet. I made arrangements (which became even more difficult after we were hit with a whole bunch of freezing rain... but nonetheless the costumes got here) to ship the costumes from home all the way to me at school. My two volunteers came to the stage and one was dressed up as a flapper girl using one of the costumes I danced in (a black and gold swing dress with a matching head piece) and the boy was dressed in my old charlie chaplin costume (a sequined black suit coat and an old 1930's style sequined hat). The class LOVED it! I had the students model the costumes as I explained the dance era back in the 1920's and 1930's. Then I had the class stand up and learn some of the moves from back during this era (can-can and charleston).
The next time I asked for volunteers I've never seen so many eager hands fly up in the air! My next two victims were dressed up in a 1950's get-up. I had a girl in a poodle skirt with sequined records on it and a kerchief in her hand. The boy was a greaser with a leather coat and sunglasses. Same routine followed- modeled the costumes, explained the era and then the students learned how to handjive and twist!
The final era is the one they had been waiting for... FINALLY the students were going to learn some hip hop. I pulled up two more volunteers (and what made me happy was that the boy who came up was the boy who had given me the most problems). The lil' girl was dressed in my longest sweatshirt which goes down to my thighs so it was almost at her feet, with the hood pulled up and her hat on sideways. The boy had on my bosh jersey (CB4!) which is way too large for me so it went past his knees! as well as dark sunglasses and a backwards hat. It was amazing. The class was so into it. My favourite part was when the boy decided to pose "gangsta" for the class. It was awesome!
So the students learned about hip hop ... both old skool and modern. They learned a routine which they absolutely loved! I was on recess duty a few days later and I had students run up to show me they had been practicing! I loved it!
Near the end of the period, the class formed a circle in the middle of the gym and the kids just free styled. I let the hip hop music play and one at a time the students would enter the circle and just show off their stuff! These kids were fantastic! I had kids breakdancing, doing the worm, just lettin' loose! It was very cool to see them finally excited about something which I love to do! The final performances of the students which they were to choreograph on their own the next class were also a hit... the dance unit ended quite nicely!
So to those boys who are aggressive, demanding, controlling and love to complain... thank you! You turned something that you hated so much around and did a wonderful job at it! You also forced me to re-think what I was teaching and become more creative. This lesson pretty much just made my block for me!