The Big Jump or HOLY COW!

Every so often you see a student for whom everything suddenly clicks and like a rocket they take off to unbelievable heights.  I had the fortune of recently seeing this in not one, but two students at the same time. Often when a tapper reaches the top of the class I recommend they straddle classes by continuing to take the current class and also taking a class that's the next level up.

The straddlers typical have a hard time in the harder class but are usually ready for the challenge.  What I almost never see is a straddler who takes the harder class and just eats it up straight away.  I recently had two tappers do just that.  For one of the tappers I could see this coming - she's been tapping well and has been very focused in class.  The other one has always been a good student but her amazing jump came out of nowhere for me.

And Man is it EXCITING!  It's so fun to see kids suddenly make a huge jump forward like this.  As tap teachers we struggle week in and week out to make sure our students know what they need to know and that they sound good.  Progress is usually relatively slow and steady - most kids only tap once a week (twice if you're lucky).  So when a couple of students can suddenly do things they couldn't before and do them so well to boot it's a very happy teaching day!


Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 9, 2014 at 9:50 AM

    I just had a similar incident. I moved two students up to the next level because I felt they were ready for the push. The other girls in that next level were talking trash behind our backs that they didn't feel these girls could keep up with them, etc. The new girls on the block have risen to the occasion and I'm so proud of them. They are even better at some of the more advanced moves than the original class. I love it! This has been beneficial for the original group in that the competitive factor kicks in, and they don't want to be beat out by the new girls. I'm finding them all to be working as a team now.

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