I apologise for my last out of context reply. I replied to all that included Tango-L, in plain text. I was not aware that the post by Joanne had not appeared on Tango-L since it had been sent to me and to Tango-L by rich text and was thus rejected. I have included her message that she had meant to Tango-L below.
To Jack, The competitions are not as far as I can tell run by any real association of teachers, teaching a syllabus. What I fear, is that if you try and standardize the syllabus (who will decide?) and get accredited teachers, you will change Tango forever, in the bad way that ballroom has gone. Nor, I do not approve of the competitions in BsAs. At the very least, I believe stage tango as not mainstream in the social life of BsAs. It is a recent construct to satisfy the foreign set. Historians can correct me on that. Cheers, Vince in Melbourne -------------------------------------------------- Having some sort of national association does nothing more than create some kind of standard that others can choose to follow or not. In dressage riding, there was a similar situation years ago. You see, anyone at all could hang out their shingle and offer riding lessons. There was no standard. And many of us know that we paid very good money for a very long time in good faith to people who had no business teaching dressage riding. Then the USDF composed standardized credentials that an instructor could aquire by taking practical tests and if they passed the tests, then they could use that credential in their portfolio. At first, many instructors (good and bad as well) pooh-poohed the idea, saying that some certificate would not make them a better instructor. But the system has stood the test of time. IMHO, it is time for the tango community to look into such a system. Joanne Pogros Cleveland, Ohio _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
