Elaine Browne.pdf - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

INTERVIEW WITH FOUR ARTS AND CULTURE TEACHERS FROM THREE DIFFERENT
PRIMARY SCHOOLS
HOW DO YOU EXPERIENCE TEACHING ARTS AND CULTURE IN THE INTERMEDIATE PHASE?
A: Let me try. I think, in the Intermediate phase most of the Arts and Culture syllables or whatever, learning
areas is based on music. We must do music, we must to know that we clap (he clap, clap clap), we do what, we
do warm‐ups and all that. It structures as to do warm‐ups. Have no time for that and the space. We use same
classroom as for the other learning areas. We don’t have a special, special arts class that is designed for doing
things of art and all that stuff. I think I should start there.
Prof Delport: So, so you’re saying that there is a strong, too much focus on music. Is that because it is in the
curriculum as such?
A: Too much focus on music. Yes, yes in the curriculum because the book states every time you must start with
clapping of hands and warming‐up exercises and all that stuff according to our syllabus/structures.
Prof Delport: And then you also feel that the classroom itself is not suitable as such for Arts and Culture.
B: To add more to what is said, from music, when teaching that music, I do have a problem for teaching it
because, I am not trained in music. I have to learn those notes. I don’t know them. I just told my principal that I
would skip this one, just for another day. So I am struggling even to teach the notes I have to do, what. Ja, those
notes for the music that I have to...
A: There are some sevi raps, sevi braps whatever, that chords whatever, ja, crotchets, we do not know them,
really, really I have never seen crotchets in my life. (Laughing)
Prof Delport: Something else? Of the music, itself.
C: It is a problem to us all. I have a problem in teaching a thing I have never seen. I never saw it. Too, so that
when I teach it, I have a problem in teaching something I do not remember. So it is a problem.
Prof Delport: And you?
D: I also got a problem. I don’t know those notes. Those notes ...
Prof Delport: Can I ask you something in music, something else. That is the music theory part. But there are also
other aspects to music, like singing and playing. How do you feel about that? Can you do that? Do you do it?
C: Yes we do it because the learners, they know. Class will sing it but when it comes to moves, they will do it.
A: Ja, ja I can act like that, our music is not structured. We can come off with any kind of music that weren’t in
song, we do what learners will enjoy. Come, come dancing, they will do it. They know the steps.
Prof Delport: When you say our music, are you talking about indigenous music?
A: Yes, yes. Yes, yes.