I am writing this letter to voice my serious concern about the 
directions that Tech Squares has taken recently.

In my view, some things are very wrong, and beoming wronger.

But I want to note at the outset, that the "fault" (since people
always love to assign blame) can not fairly be assigned to
the current officers alone.  Most officers in the club are
reluctant servants with little interest in setting policy.
While the current group may be culpable in some ways,
the problems have been building up for some years, 
and even "elder" club members like myself are at least
as guilty for not taking action over the course of time.

I want to make a special note about the club caller, Don Beck.
In the vacuum of clear direction, Don has assumed de facto leadership
of the club, frequently disregarding protests from the officers.
In my view, there has been a failing of the officers in the past to
clearly define Don's employee relationship and responsibilities.

Many of the club's problems can largely be traced to attitudes 
and willfull policies instituted by our primary employee.  
In some quarters, there is a recurring suggestion that we should
solve the problems by firing Don and replacing him.
At this stage, such an action, unqualified, would be largely
unfair and unproductive.  Instead, the club should make its
policy and direction decisions, and then evaluate whether Don
Beck is well-suited to implement them.  If we decide that changes
are needed, then we should instruct Don to make those changes,
and then judge whether he is successful with them.

Finally, on a more personal note: I have a great deal of
affection for the people who are in the club today.
I can't think of anyone here who I would wish ill towards.
On the contrary, I think that the entire problem situation is
much larger than any of the players of the moment.
I hope that everyone will realize this, rather than imagining
that I am attacking individuals.  We need positive action.


ATTITUDES

The day-to-day practices of the club define its atmosphere,
culture, and its sense of community.  I observe that these things
have changed considerably during the last 5 or 6 years, and it is
my opinion that these changes have NOT been for the better.

The kind of experience that Tech Squares gave in years past was
characterized by its fast-paced teaching, its expectation of 
technical excellence in the dancers, and a sense of what some
people here at MIT refer to as "nerd pride".

Over the past few years, mostly gradually, the club's atmosphere 
has changed in a way that seems biased against the kind of people 
who would enjoy that sort of experience.

Rather than attract MIT students and other "MIT types", we seem to
now be catering primarily to outsiders.  This raises serious doubts 
as to whether this club is really an appropriate activity for MIT to
be sponsoring for its undergraduates.

This is also reflected in the attitudes of the present club leaders.
I have repeatedly heard statements to the effect that the club is 
"not for those nerd types", but rather for the "fun people".  
On occasion, MIT undergraduates in the club have been specifically
named as examples of an undesirable element: people to be tolerated,
but whose orientations are to be dismissed.  Most recently, the current
president of the club criticized my volunteer tutoring of our new 
students as "too technical" in style.

I would remind the officers that the ONLY reason for the existance
of Tech Squares, is as a pastime for undergradutate students at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  In particular, MIT 
does NOT sponsor this club and provide it with the expensive and 
scarce resources (such as the rooms) as a service to the community 
of interested people in the Cambridge or greater Boston area.
Tech Squares is not a product of the Cambridge Center for Adult
Education, a college extension course, nor is it a venture of Don Beck.
Rather, this club exists soley for the gratification of MIT
undergraduate nerds, and the very presence of everyone else 
is suffered as a compromise that helps make the activity available.

For the club to have practices which may be less attractive to MIT
students, but more attractive to "most people", is inappropriate.
By contrast, practices that might lead to discouragement of most
people and a smaller club, but which are more suitable to nerds,
should be considered desirable and successful.
Tech Squares is NOT an appropriate club for most people to belong to,
and it is wrong for it to try to adopt such a mission or outlook.

Should the club decide that it is to be "community-oriented"
rather than "MIT nerd-oriented", the most proper course of action
would be for it to advise the Undergraduate Association (our sponsors)
of this choice and move off-campus.  Such a move is not a new idea.

I have mentioned the explicated opinions of some of the club leaders.
In order to make things more tangible, I will outline some of the
practices which I believe are compromising the club's proper culture.

TEACHING & CLUB LEVEL

The primary activity of the club is teaching people to square dance.
As mandated by regulations in the sponsoring organization at MIT,
we offer an entrance class each semester.

This class used to run for 10 weeks, and was very much the "firehose"
kind of course that MIT students expect and enjoy.

Don Beck changed the course to 14 weeks, slowing down the teaching pace.
While this was perportedly to provide better teaching than the previous
caller gave, the results do not bear this out.  In the new time-expanded
course, the pace of the teaching is also slower than it has ever been,
and from the bottom-up, students complain that the teaching takes too long.
Students uniformly complain that they feel like they're standing around,
listening to boring over-drawn-out explanations of the material, 
and not getting to practice and dance enough.  At the next level, they
complain that the tips are too long.  At top level, the schedule does
not even permit the spring semester students to finish in time to
attend the traditional annual highlight event: New England Convention.
This deprives them of one of their motivational goals, and also one of
the most-identified post-class interest-retaining experiences.

The longer course also does not produce dancers of higher quality than
the shorter course did.  A number of us "old timers" have seen the
technical ability of the dancers decline from old levels in direct
correspondace with Don's teaching techniques.  Naturally, Don himself
fervently denies this.

An interesting footnote is that Don once admitted to me that, in 20-some
years, he never actually witnessed a Tuesday meeting of Tech Squares,
and never saw the club dance.  (He bases his evaluation of the club's
former dancing level on the people who, back then, attended his Advanced
class.  A counter-argument, however, is that I and others were also
present in those classes of his, and can recollect how things were.
It's worth noting that Thursdays also attracted a considerable share
of dancers who were never in Tech Squares.  Finally, I myself have
been teaching the Advanced classes in recent years, so I see the
dancers both on Tuesday and Thursday, then and now; I think I
am in a position to form more cross-consistent evaluations.)

The kind of "level" problems that we see on Tuesdays are varied.
I am often in squares that cannot reliably perform the most basic 
calls, such as Right and Left Thru, or Square Thru.  At the next 
level are most dancers, who can only perform the calls from a 
limited number of positions.  (I'll refrain from a detailed inventory,
but for example, Scoot Back, Circulate, and Dixie Style to A Wave,
are among some of the calls often in this category.)

That Don does not persue the teaching in an aggressive fashion,
and favors sloppy "feely" definitions ("...and then this girl kinda
comes over here, and then they kind hook on ...and kinda swing him
in until you have a wave"  -versus- "the girls right pull by, and
then you left touch 1/4") should come as no surprise.

He has a fundamental contempt for the intelligence and learning ability
of the dancers, shared by almost all callers, and learned from hard
knocks in the "real world".  In that world, the median age of the
student dancers is 60 years old.  Compared to that, he probably thinks
that he is being aggressive.  He fails to comprehend the degree to which
MIT is decidedly not the "real world" and he has inappropriately low
expectations.

In the club-level tips, Don usually calls material that ranges from
tearfully boring to adequate but repetitive.  On rare occasion he throws
in something interesting, but then the floor often crashes.  The level
he teaches is the level he calls to the club.  He thinks it's a high level.
Compared to what many of the 60-year olds can handle, it is.
But it's all based on low expectations, and doesn't hold the interest
of the technically-minded dancers who want a lot of variety.

Don wonders why his course does not retain too many people from year to
year, and why things have not built back up.  (For reference - the club
is currently dancing about as many squares on Tuesday as 7 years ago,
when that small size caused people to panic and fire the caller!)
Don undoubtedly fails to notice that many people consider Tech Squares
dancing to be boring, or to be catering to "slower" dancers, and leave.
When you shoot for the least-common denominator, this is what you get.

Don's contract initially gave him a financial incentive to grow the club.
This accounts for some of his reluctance to "go fast" on the teaching,
or call interesting material -- it would lead to increased attrition.
However, our attrition rate is about the same as it has always been.
It's just that now we tend to lose the brighter students, rather
than the people who can't keep up with the material.

Before Don became the club caller, he consistently provided a better
program with more precise teaching and interesting choreography.
He even often prepared written material and calling notes for this.
If you have attended any outside dances featuring Don Beck, you will
probably see that he can do a better job than he does for us.  
Another comparison would be his performances when he's had visiting
callers (from outside the area) here on Tuesdays.  How hard he works
to impress them, and how little he cares to impress us, when they're
not around watching!  When we hired him to be the club caller, 
that's the energetic, interested, and motivated caller was who we
thought we were getting.  We have been pretty disappointed, thus far.

* I think Tech Squares should:

  1. Require Don to teach faster by having shorter tips in which
     he uses shorter, more precise explanations of the calls,
     rather than the drawn-out, excess verbiage typically used now.
     Since Don is supposedly a superior teacher to the guy we had
     before, he should be required to employ those skills to 
     accomplish this.  It actually ought to be better, not worse!

     Perhaps more frequent class tips are even possible without
     sacraficing club tips.  In the old days we actually often 
     had a fourth club tip at 10:50pm.  (I remember this from
     booking tips: "OK, we'll dance the 4th one, if there is one!")

  2. Re-schedule the courses so that the spring students can go
     to New England Convention, like in the past.

  3. Require Don to use more interesting choreography in the club tips.
     Tech Squares dancers should be among the best square dancers
     in the world.  (Even when that means not the most numerous!)
     Don should teach people to handle interesting material,
     and then call it to them.  That's what a good caller does.

  4. Consider the success of Tech Squares as an MIT undergraduate
     activity as a major factor in contract negotiations with Don.
     (For example, over a period of time, an increase in the number
     of retained MIT undergraduates might even be a financial incentive.
     This makes more sense than rewarding unqualified growth.)

Another culture difference that has occurred these last years regards
the informal tutoring of students (or even confused club members).
In the old days, club members helped in the teaching process by
giving walk-throughs not only before the evening began, but also
after every tip.  This was not specially arranged or with special
people: it was just regular club members taking initiative.
Typically you would notice that someone in your square (maybe your
partner, maybe not) was having a little trouble with some move.
We would take the person aside or in the hallway and go through
the move with them a few times.  If the club caller was avaiable
to help, we would get him to supervise.  But usually the caller
was busy, and we would just do it ourselves.

This extra teaching was doubtless a major success factor for the club.
(It also shows the class members that they are important personally!)

(You might argue that with the less-qualified teaching techniques of the
previous caller, these walk-throughs were needed!  That might be true,
but for 20-odd years it produced results better than we are getting now.
Logically, if we augment the "now-superior" teaching with walk-throughs,
we should do better than ever before!)

I have been given to understand that Don has specified that he is to
have "complete control over the class".  I also understand he has
objected to walk-throughs on principle, but finally conceeded that
they will be allowed if they conform to his specifications.

* That attitude represents major wrong-headedness in multiple dimensions,
  and is entirely unacceptable.  Don must be disabused of these kind of
  notions in the strongest possible way.




I am appealing to the club officers to do the right thing, 
and get this club back on its proper track.