Dance Teacher Career Information – Pros and the Cons

If you are deciding whether or not you want to be a teacher of dance, here is some dance teacher career information you may find interesting.

As a teacher of dance myself, I find it both an enjoyable and rewarding career. It has many ups and downs, just like any job, and sometimes it is not easy to summon the energy required to get through the day, but overall, I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.

If you are running your own dance school, be prepared to give up a lot of your personal time, as there is always work to do, whether it is choreographing new dances, finding inspiring music, learning and revising the ever changing syllabus work and of course the mundane tasks like invoicing your students and doing the company books.

Sometimes you will need to deal with difficult students, and even difficult parents. You will also need an abundance of patience to teach dance. Just because you have been doing it for years and find it easy, doesn’t mean that your pupils will find it easy. Here goes your dance teacher career information…..

What Does It Take To Be A Great Dance Teacher?

To be a good teacher, you need to be able to pass on your knowledge to others and get on well with all walks of life ranging from small children to adults. Some teachers are great dancers but don’t necessarily have the patience to impart their knowledge. Others may not be the best dancers but make excellent teachers.

In order to become a dance teacher, you do not have to have been a professional dancer, but you need to have passed all your own dancing exams up to the advanced levels.

You will need to love working with children, as they will make up the majority of your client base.

Dance teachers need to have a good eye so that they can spot problems and faults in their pupils and correct them before they become bad habits.

You need to be highly organized and time driven. You need to be able to meet deadlines.

The Ideal Teacher for Ballet Dancing should possess the following Qualities:

1. Credentials from a recognized institution, a professional school, company or college.
2. Some professional experience, although not always necessary.
3. A patient but not pampering attitude.
4. Comfort with the material you need to teach, and an ability to organize the material logically and appropriately for each age group.
5. An ability to inspire a feeling of purpose and excitement amongst his or her pupils.
6. A critical eye for making appropriate criticism in an encouraging manner.
7. An ability to maintain concentration and discipline at all times.
8. Above all, a love for the experience of dance, and an unselfish desire to see the students improve.

Dance Teacher Career Information – The Good and The Bad

It is not all roses and performing on the stage, and like any career, teaching dancing has its pros and cons.  Here I have listed a couple of them.

Pros:

1. You get to choose your own working hours, and also how long you want to work for each day. This is ideal for those who have young families to look after or second jobs.
2. You get to dictate your own fees and control your own earnings. The sky is the limit.
3. You get to do something that you are passionate about each and every day.
4. It is rewarding to see your pupils achieve and improve over time, and some of them even grow up within the dance studio.
5. It is a very creative career choice as you get to create every day.
6. You get more leave than most people, as you normally take leave when the schools close.
7. There is lots of room for growth and the career possibilities are endless. You could eventually examine, or you could teach other teachers to become teachers.  You could also be invited to judge events and do workshops in other cities.  Another option is to choreograph other teachers dances for them for a fee.

Cons:

1. Dancing is considered a luxury by most parents, so when times are bad, dancing classes are the first thing that people will cut back on.
2. Most dancing teachers can only teach in the afternoon, due to children being at school in the mornings, so you may need to work quite late to fit all your classes in.
3. It requires quite a lot of energy to teach, so you can’t afford to be sick, have a bad day or worse sustain a bad injury.
4. You lay yourself open to criticism from parents, pupils, and the public, and so you have to be quite tough sometimes and not let negativity get to you.
5. You need a lot of space to teach dance, so rentals can be a bit high. It is also challenging when hiring from schools and church halls, as they sometimes cancel on you at the last minute.
6. You need to have good business management skills, or the admin work will get you down. If you can afford it, I strongly recommend you hire somebody to do this task, which will leave you free for teaching-related tasks.
7. You also need to be super organized and stay on top of things at all times.
8. Studying to become a dance teacher can take several years, and is not cheap. But then again neither is going to University.
9. Once you are qualified, you will need to continue with your professional development by doing update courses on an ongoing basis. There are always new things to learn, and you need to keep on top of the latest developments.

I trust that this dance teacher career information has helped you make some important decisions. Please leave your comments below if you have any questions or anything else to add.

If you would like to find out more dance teacher career information, you may be interested in this.

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