The Circle Of Life

Gosh what a dramatic title. I feel like I am about to present a David Attenborough style program. I'm not, but I thought the title summed up the feel of this blog.

A friend of mine has just signed up to do this course and he will be starting the year and a half just as we all finish. Here is his blog if you are interested http://mrahmet.blogspot.com/. He called me the other day in a mild panic about the course asking what he was supposed to be doing. Do you all remember that? That question in your head at the beginning of the course when after talking to your adviser you would go "Yes, but what do I actually need to do?"

How far we have all come. We have spent a year and half learning new skills and developing a personal work ethic and we should be proud of ourselves. I for one feel that this course has changed me and not only have I heard others say the same but I have visibly seen the change in them.

I went and met with my friend to talk him through some of the early steps like setting up a blog and linking it to Google Reader and talking him through it made realise that it was the perfect time to take stock of exactly what I think I have learnt.

I have learnt to use so many new tools, such as blogs, flickr, reader as well as realising the importance of tools I already used such as facebook. I have become aware of the importance of my community of practice and no longer think of networking as a dirty word but as a way of increasing my professional understanding. I have a deeper knowledge of learning styles which has helped me as a learner and a teacher. I have learnt through journal writing to reflect on every situation in a critical way. To use my mistakes and my triumphs as the building blocks of my professional practice. I have learnt about ethics and the importance of considering how your actions could cause harm to others. Most importantly through the combination of all of these things I have learnt how to take charge of my career and move in the direction that I want. By understanding myself and my profession more I have had the confidence to fight for the things I want.

There is still a lot to do before I am ready to hand my critical review and artefact in but the end is now in sight so I feel it is a good time to look back at the last year and a half of learning and also to wish luck to all those who are about to start the journey.

A Crisis Of Confidence

I went out to dinner the other night for my work Christmas party. The group consisted of mainly the younger teaching staff of the performing arts college at which I teach. For some reason we ended up discussing my research inquiry and the conversation got extremely heated. Everyone at the table was arguing the importance of giving the students a versatile training, except for me. I was suggesting that a more specialised training might be more appropriate for some students who don't have a natural ability in a certain discipline. I was really trying to get my point across and to say that my inquiry did support my suggestion. Unfortunately I was shouted down and made to feel quite small and stupid to even suggest something that went so wholeheartedly against the way they felt.

I left the party feeling really despondent and really questioning the validity of my opinion. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't just my opinion but the analysis of my results, but then that made me question whether I had interpreted the data fairly and properly. I had a complete crisis of confidence, something which doesn't happen to me that often.

One of the things which affected me most was the suggestion from one of the teachers that by denying the student a versatile training I would be depriving them for my own end. My intention was only ever to discover what was best for the student. What would enable every student to achieve the most they could possibly achieve in the work place. The suggestion that I was trying to do anything else really upset me.

It has now been a few days since the incident and I have had time to step back and look at it calmly. I wanted to try and find the positives in what had happened because I considered that even within a situation like this there is still the opportunity to learn from the opinions of other professionals.

One of the main positives is that people were so passionate about the subject I have based my inquiry on. This is not only good news for me because it clearly means it is important but it is also good for the students because it means that their teachers really care about the level of training they are receiving. We may not agree on everything but we do agree that the students deserve the best training available.

Another positive is that I realised something new. My colleagues made an extremely interesting point when defending versatile training. They said that it is not just the responsibility of a college like ours to look after the interests of the students but also the interests of the industry. In other words they think that  you should train your students towards the ideal because this will enable the continuing growth of the industry. The ideal in musical theatre is for people to act sing and dance to a high standard so that is what we need our students to aspire to.

I still don't know whether I agree with this, it seems to me that this could be a conflict of interests, but I also don't know whether I disagree with it. What the evening reminded me to do was to keep listening. My inquiry might be finished but my professional practice isn't. The skills we have learnt on this course can be used again and again and again as long as we remember to carry on questioning and carry on listening.

So my crisis of confidence is over for now, not because I am sure I am right, but because I have remembered that it is ok to be wrong because everything we are doing is a constantly changing, constantly adapting work in progress.

Data Analysis

I finished my final interview today and closed my survey. I am really pleased with all the information I have gathered, but with that now comes the responsibility of doing something with it. The problem I am having is that social science is messy. Nothing is actually 'answered' because you are dealing with so many interesting, varied and equally valid opinions. How then do approach bringing everything to some kind of cohesive conclusion?

At the final campus session :( last Thursday (I will genuinely be sad not to see some of you guys again) this is exactly what we talked about so I thought I'd mention some of the things that were said in the hope that it helps you and, by reiterating it, helps me too.

When analysing interviews, which constitute the main part of my inquiry, Paula talked about two things. Firstly, it is important to mention common responses or information that typifies what has been said. If lots of people have mentioned it and agreed on it then it must be important. Secondly, it is important to mention things that are significant. It may only have been said by one person but if you think it is crucial information then include it. I think probably a word of warning here would be to make sure you are not including something that goes against the general trend just because it proves your point. Don't cherry pick your information.

I think it would also be interesting to compare and contrast your findings, not only with each other but also with your literature. Does what you have found out support what you've read or contradict it. For me personally my gathered data does a bit of both but then that is also important to highlight.

I feel one of the most important things that Paula said is that in your analysis make sure you are giving an interpretation of the data not your opinion. Obviously you will have thoughts about what you have researched but support these thoughts with quotes and statistics that give it weight and context.

Another important thing is that we have been collecting evidence around certain ideas, not proof. Particularly when talking about information gathered in surveys it is important to say that data is indicative rather than proof of certain things. For a survey to be statistically accurate you are supposed to have at least a thousand respondents. I don't know if anyone has managed that but I personally only managed to get ninety-one back. I am very pleased with this number and I think it is enough people to give an indication of trends and ideas but not enough to prove anything for certain.

Finally, I would say that everyone should look to their journals for things they have learnt and things that have changed. Journal entries do count as evidence of changed behaviour in yourself and others.

I hope some of this has helped. It strangely enough has clarified things for me. Keep up the good work everyone. It's not long now.

Professional Peer Interview 3

This is the third of my professional peer interviews. The filming is unfortunately bad but some of the information is interesting because Kate is a teacher as well as a performer.

Professional Performers Survey

Recently I have been working on my survey for my inquiry. I created it and then sent it to a select number of people. I then spoke to them about their answers making sure they all understood the questions to mean the same thing. In some cases they didn't, so we worked on the phrasing of the questions together to make it clearer. We also talked about the relevance of the questions and I realised that some could be removed and others should be added to give me the information I want. I found this a really useful process and now think I have a survey that will give me some really interesting information.

This is where you come in! The survey is for musical theatre performers or for people who trained in musical theatre. I would be really grateful if any of you who are in that group could fill in the survey and also, if you have time, forward it on to any other people who apply. Feel free to put the link on your Facebook etc. If you don't fit the criteria yourself but know people who do then please pass it on as well. I want to try and get as many responses as possible. Thank you so much. 

Here is the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/markiles

Versatility or Specialisation?

As a musical theatre performer it is often assumed that one needs to be a 'triple threat'. It is the performance buzz word of the last ten years and the idea that a performer working in a integrated medium should have integrated skills seems an obvious one. However, the more I look around at working professionals and what is required of people in the industry the less I am convinced that being a 'triple threat' is always relevant.

I know many successful musical theatre performers who can't dance, can't act, or can't sing. In fact I know some who can't do any of the above but that's another story. My point is that if it is possible to work without being a triple threat then why is it so desirable?

The answer that I seem to keep coming back to is that the more skills you have the more chance you have of getting a job doing something. This seems to be the logic that the majority of training institutions are using when creating their courses. If they give their students a wide enough variety of skills those students will have the ability to fit more brackets and therefore get more work.

I'm starting to believe that this approach could be fundamentally wrong. If this is the way we train our students what we end up with is a lot of generalists. In other words, performers who are quite good at everything but who excel at nothing. In such a competitive industry it is the things we excel at that get us the jobs. Who cares if you are a good singer and actor if you have been cut after the first round of auditions because you didn't stand out next to a group of phenomenal dancers?

There will always be some people who are 'triple threats' and who have talent and skill in all three disciplines in equal measure. It is therefore appropriate that there are some training institutions that cater to this type of performer. I do think, however, that we shouldn't be blinded into thinking that the triple threat mould is attainable or even desirable for every performer.

There are some people who cannot dance. They will never be able to dance and nor should they have to. There is enough musical theatre work out there for them without them having that skill. So why then should we waste their valuable time trying to turn them into a dancer during their all too short training? The answer I am starting to believe is that we shouldn't. Their time would be much better spent perfecting their natural talents of singing and acting.

My conclusion is that although being a triple threat performer seems most desirable it is by no means essential and training institutions should not feel bound to create versatile performers when specialised ones are just as likely to work.

Professional Peer Interview 2

Here is the second video in my series of professional peer interviews. I think this one is particularly interesting because the opinion of the participant is very different from the opinion of the last interviewee. Here the participant comments that their career has not suffered at all by not being a "triple threat". In fact they think being specialised may well have enhanced their success.

As a word of warning to others I had to re-film this interview because the file of the first interview was corrupted. In future I will always be using two recording devices for every interview I do. I suggest you all do the same to avoid an evening of stress.