Study unit 2:

This week I’m feeling grateful. This past moth has bee a though on. In my last blog I mentioned about the covid cases in our school. I received some bad news this week, the sick teacher has not recovered fully yet. It seems like things is not going so well with her, so it is still my responsibility to run her class. Some days the work seems to be too much but after completing all of the work it’s the best accomplished feeling. We also started doing assessment with the learners which can be very time consuming. I mostly work on my studies at night and on the weekends. I’m grateful today that I have a heathy body and mind to think and complete my studies. But I’m not going to lie when I say I’m looking forward to the October holidays.

Study unit 2 was so far the most interesting part to learn about in this module. I think the reason why this is the most interesting so far is because we are starting to get more into the work about music and how to use it in the classroom, form the get go I was most excited to learn about music and how to incorporate it in the classroom, and this is exactly what this unit thought me. There are so many ways to use music in the classroom and that interests me a lot.  I was very surprised to have learned about all of the elements that comes with music which can be used in the classroom and in the lessons. The most fun part was working on my own fun and creative activity with the inspiration of all the different elements. My most interesting part of this unit was body percussion. It is such a simple element but all of the things we can make and create with our bodies and the music that can come with is, just amazed me in a way. I also watched a few videos on body percussion and it amazed me even more. One of the other topics that had my attention the most was the music education approaches which is the most prominent approaches to music education which also place emphasis on music a movement. These approaches are those od Carl Orff, Zoltan Kodaly and Emile Jaques-Dalcroze.

Would I rather use African music, Western Art music or contemporary commercial music in my classroom? I think this will mostly depend on the type of classroom and the learners making up the classroom, but if I had to choose, I would pick commercial music. The way I see it is if I were a child which music would I prefer. Of course, I would like to listen to music that I like and which is familiar to me, music I can sing along to and dance. Being a South African it is important for teachers to understand that their classrooms will most likely consists out of numbers of cultures and beliefs, not all of the children will be the same and for that reason using modern popular music and music that comes with films will be the best way for the learners to all feel included and most importantly know the music. I know it is never fun to listen to music is class but only you don’t know the song and the words to the song. We want our learners to feel involved, and that is why the best way to do that is to use things all of them will have in common like the children's shows they all watch and all know so well. Do you think that the examples and content offered in SU 2 are inclusive? Yes, I think the examples in study unit 2 is inclusive to everyone, because these activities can basically be used in any other example like African a Wester art music. These examples are divers and any teacher can make use of these activities. The one example I can think of using is when the teacher asks the learners to clap their hands at a certain word in a song, all of the learners will follow and clap their hands, these are activities that includes everyone and makes every learner to feel practically involve in the activities. What suggestions do you have for making the content more inclusive? Firstly, I think it is the responsibility of the class teacher to observe her classroom, she\he should be on the look out for learners that might feel excluded when an activity or game is taking place. When a learner feels excluded, the teacher should not stop the activity, this will only draw attention to the learner which will make him\her feel more uncomfortable, rather go to the learner while the activity is actively going on and motivate the learner to take part in the activity. Help them in certain parts of the activity or game so that they can get the feel of the activity taking place. Once you see the learner is feeling more relaxed and focused on the activity the teacher can move back and the learner interact with the other learners. Another way a teacher might help a learner is when learners are going to do an activity with musical instruments, some of the learners might never even seen real instruments before. Before starting to work with the instruments tell the learners a little bit more about that instrument, what the instrument is made of and where it might come from. Give each child a chance to come over and observe and touch the instrument, this will help the learners to feel more familiar with the instruments.