[TANGO-L] Community growth...Teacher Challenge

[Tom Stermitz <Stermitz @RAGTIME.ORG>]

The end of the year is a time to evaluate the past and to make
resolutions for the future.

First a note of thanks for all the local tango teachers. I think in
most places, Tango is being built on classes of 8-10 students rather
than 20-30. The economic consequence is that very few local teachers
are making much money, yet it is primarily due to their efforts and
ongoing weekly classes that people learn tango. Master teachers can
inspire, but the local teachers do the week-to-week that results in
community growth.


I sense locally in Denver, and perhaps more broadly, that tango
communities are in a slow-growth or perhaps stable state. Newcomers
arrive, but old friends drift out about the same rate.

I'd like to propose a teacher challenge:

"Over the next year, change what you are doing to produce JUST 12
students (1 per month) who can dance nicely and have really joined
the community. If you produce only 6 in the next year, you get a
half-star."

Let's see...10 local teachers, times 12 months...my gosh that is 120
people! If achieved, I most communities would grow 50%, and many
would DOUBLE in size.

Simple enough? Did this happen for all your local teachers in the
past year? I'll bet not!


So what is going wrong?

It would be nice to hear from  others...I'll jump in with some fairly
obvious platitudes.

For example, you have could have better outreach or higher retention.

One can always market more, and get more people in the beginner
classes, but once you have them, what if you could double your
retention rate? Even an easy-access dance like salsa has a high
fallout rate after the first 4-week class, but I think some tango
teachers have fallout rates of 99% after the first series. How many
teachers have retention rates of 10% or even 20%?

So my challenge is to make changes in what you are doing to increase
your retention rate. 120 new beginners over the next year and 6
successes would be 5% retention. What does it take to jump to 12
successes, or even 24?


There are two critical points for a newcomer, and therefore the
growth of the community:
   (1) The transition from Beginner to Continuing-Beginner
   (2) the transition to Community Member.

The FIRST is highly dependent on teaching methodology, teaching
skill, personality, and somewhat on the style of tango you teach. It
is critical whether the methodology and style are such that the guys
succeed...This is probably the most important point, a community
grows ONLY as fast as the guys "get it". (I don't want to neglect the
ladies, but this dance is a challenge at first for the guys, and if
the teachers fail with the guys, who ya gonna dance with?)

All tango teachers have their own opinions about what is "right".
Sometimes that gets in the way of learning new things. Teachers need
to go back to school constantly, and I'm not talking about learning
more fancy steps, or taking master-level workshops. Teaching well is
about learning how to teach, not how to dance.


The SECOND has to do with the social environment of the parties &
practices. Your community has to be welcoming, to be sure, but just
as important is whether the parties feel like PARTIES.

Would a newcomer peeking in feel like people are having fun? Is the
music high-energy, changing in emotional content from set to set? Are
the personalities primarily introverted? Is there a mix of ages and
types of people? Do the teachers bring 10-15 of their students and
introduce them around?

These issues are typical everywhere. Maybe some of the largest tango
communities have reached a critical mass where you have such big, fun
parties so that the scene grows almost by itself.

--

Tom Stermitz
http://www.tango.org/
stermitz @tango.org
303-388-2560