Elaine Browne.pdf - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

INTERVIEW AT PRIMARY SCHOOL WITH FOUR ARTS AND CULTURE TEACHERS
One taking the music of the whole school, two for dance and drama and one for visual art.
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(I must just mention here that after I switched off the tape recorder they actually really started telling what they
do not enjoy. Person E said that she is in teaching for 25 years and since the learner is now more “important
than the teacher”, the learners want to tell you what to do and they do get “cocky” about it. They just want to
take over and eventually she battles with the discipline in Arts and Culture classes. Person F said that her
biggest problem is the language, there are Africans, Indians, Afrikaans Coloureds, Muslims, Pakistanis, Arabian
and Kenyan children in there classes.)
E: I don’t have much experience in teaching Arts and Culture. This is the first year that I actually have been
given Arts and Culture. And a ... so basically it is just 5 months that I am teaching and I am only teaching one
component of the Arts and Culture as such. I do the dance and drama. Children thoroughly enjoy the dance and
drama. Anything with m ... with, movement, and dance and whether he can be free and away from the normal
classroom sit up, setup. They love it. They love it to bits. So they do enjoy it. We do have a problem with space.
The classes are still a bit too big even though I feel our classes this year, is not too bad. We have 35 in a class, 36
in a class. So a ... with them in there is not too bad. The multi‐purpose room is big enough but we do have a
problem where another teacher also has Arts and Culture at the same time and it might also be the one who is
doing the music, a ... the dance and drama component and also needs to use the same DVD player and so on.
Then we sit with 2 classes there trying to, just for them to watch the movements and so on and then do the
dance and drama basically. The drama we do much of it in the class. For the past 2 terms, the first term we did
a... a... puppet show where they had to make their own puppet. So they had to do the actions of the puppets
and this term we had miming. So they had to plan their miming and of course we gave them an assessment on
the miming itself. A... that is more or less what I can say about my section.
Elaine: Do you have a special venue for this?
E: Yes, that is the multi‐purpose room for dance and the drama.
Elaine: How do feel, are capable to do the dance with them?
E: Yes. I actually enjoy dancing.
F: Cause it is not really dancing, it is actually, its more ..., they refer to it as movement. Cause we’ve got Muslim
kids and they are not aloud to do dancing and that is where we actually make a big mistake, ah it says dance but
it is not really. There, may be there will be a small section where they will do proper dancing or where we show
them movements like you would do m... volkspele and a and that type of thing like waltzing and tango. Jy weet
die regte langarm but that is just one small section or traditional dancing, but mostly it is movements and