Motivated for Success: An Interview with Ms. Tiffany

Tiffany Rae has been teaching dance at the Bronx Academy of Letters since 2021. The administration has repeatedly praised how her presence at the school has completely transformed student engagement - with many young people’s attendance improving just because they don’t want to miss dance class! We interviewed Tiffany to find out what makes her class so irresistible to her students.

Your students are so motivated for class. What are some places you gather your inspiration from?

“All my inspiration and ideas for the class come from my students. It’s a great thing really because then it’s not just a dance class but a special room where you can be anything you want.

I love to learn from them and their journeys.

Their neighborhood and environment are really what I try to get inspiration from. But I also love to teach them new experiences and ideas as well. I’ll try to keep in mind all the experiences they went through without overwhelming them with too many unfamiliar experiences.

How do you build relationships with your students?

“Respect is so important to my young people.

I like to give them respect to be young adults. Instead of treating it like a teacher-to-student kind of thing. I like to treat it like an Artist to young artist kind of thing.

I love when they can gather their own opinions about anything and not be afraid to express that to me.

Student "Tiff You did the wrong step"

I’m like " My badddddd yah I just be going"

I relate to my students as well as far as the environment that they are around. So I'm able to really connect with them on a personal level.”

For example, I know that they love Hip hop music so I decided to do some TikTok songs and create some fun hip-hop routines. They absolutely loved it.

So now that they loved it I wanted them to experience something new. I decided to show them some vogue ballroom videos in their community with students their ages.

They were so excited to see young people their age training and doing other dance genres. That inspired them to want and explore more.”

You have students at so many different levels of dance ability. How do you differentiate instruction to make students feel successful?

“Having so many students on different levels has been a good challenge for me and I love it. I like to create one big routine that everyone loves and can do. Then I break everyone into their own groups where they are making their own routines with my direction and guidance. This way you are creating your own movement and style and not feeling like you are on any different level. I will be right there helping each group push new challenging movements based on what you create.

I like to consider myself superwoman in the way I run across the dance room to each group.

At the end everyone always seems to learn everyone's group dance anyways. This is great because they are learning and getting better from each other not just me.”