Wow! What a week! I just feel that there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done, between teaching and having to complete observations etc and all the assignments are due soon at varsity I just don’t know how I am going to fit it all in. Guess it is just a matter of plodding along and getting it done bit by bit.

While working through this study unit I have been very interested to learn more about the different aspects such as texture, form and timbre and exactly what they mean musically. I have always heard these phrases and taught them on a very basic level but it’s nice to actually learn about them in a more formal way. It will definitely help impact my music lessons more positively.

Reflection

1. As a Foundation Phase teacher, you have to choose between utilising indigenous African music, Western Art music or contemporary commercial music (including popular music and film music) in your classes. Which would you choose? Please motivate your answer.

I find this quite difficult to answer as I believe that all those have a place in the classroom and obviously have their positives and negatives. If I could only choose one I might have to choose Western Art music. The reason I say this is because I believe that it is a lot more inclusive than just using African indigenous music and it is also better known to more of the children in the class. I am also a lot more confident in using them. I like the idea of using commercial music but I think it can be rather tricky as they often use questionable lyrics.

2. Do you think that the examples and content offered in SU 2 are inclusive? Please motivate your answer.

Yes, I definitely think it was inclusive as it gave some examples of different types of music and it also gave a lot of ideas that can be used in both a well-resourced and poorly resourced school.

3. What suggestions do you have for making the content more inclusive? Please provide examples of how the content and activities presented in SU 2 could be changed or adapted to be more inclusive.

I would love to see and hear more examples of each of the different types of activities that can be used more in an under-resourced school. I would also love to see more examples of songs and musical activities that are different from just Afrikaans and South African languages, I think a more global appeal would help include even more children as these days we have children in our class from all over the world.