Elaine Browne.pdf - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

They dump it. If you got a free period, oh, let’s fit you in there”. In order not to disrupt the
planning and antagonise the principal, the teachers conform. One teacher confessed as follows:
“OK, ek maar doen dit net om nie probleme te veroorsaak nie. Maar dan sit jy met die groot
bekommernis. Maar Here, hoe gaan ek die ding aanpak 26 ... where it comes to Arts and
Culture”? Another respondent explained, “Well, it was totally new to me. All the years I had
English, Social Science for many years, and then the last ... two years ago, they gave me the
Technology, so this year they put me into Arts and Culture”.
It also appeared that the Arts and Culture learning area is generally regarded as a ‘small’
learning area in relation to other learning areas. In their attempt to establish fair and equitable
workloads, the School Management Teams (SMTs) tend to overload the Arts and Culture
teachers, due to their ignorance about the extensive nature of this learning area. One teacher
complained that, “I have so many learning areas but we must have the same amount of work”.
Sub‐theme 3.5: Class size
The interviews revealed that the respondents found it difficult to do justice to arts education as
a result of the large class groups. Classes consist of more than forty learners which complicated
successful performance of practical arts activities. The teachers struggled to do group work, as
they are expected to do, due to lack of sufficient space in the overcrowded venues. As a result,
they could not assess the learners in a valid manner.
26
OK, so I do it just to prevent problems. But then you sit with a huge concern. Dear God, how am I going
to tackle this thing?
67