The art of bad teaching
A VERY long time ago when I was in Form 4 our history teacher didn’t cover the whole syllabus. In fact he didn’t teach us the conventional way of going from topic to topic until we covered the prescribed syllabus. All he did was spot seven questions and for two years our class concentrated on answering the seven questions he had spotted. Anything outside the seven questions became irrelevant and not worth reading or investing our time in and sure enough when the final examination came four out of the seven questions our teacher had spotted were in the exam paper. Needless to say that our class had a 100% pass rate in history and we were all happy.
However, years after passing my history examination, I don’t remember anything learnt from that class except that one can be lucky and spot what’s coming in an examination. My history teacher is just an example of the teaching method that has become common in most schools and among many teachers. There is a name for this kind of teaching though it escapes my mind now. It is sad that teachers are just spotting questions and not teaching concepts and processes. This is all because teachers are judged by the number of students that pass the final O or A-level examinations — teaching for immediate results, in other words, just preparing children for a two-hour test and not for life.
Now you must be wondering what classroom teaching has got to do with the arts. In fact it has everything to do with the arts. Talk in the sector has been about arts education and how to fit the arts into the formal school curriculum instead of having it as it has been in the past, as an appendage of academic subjects. The reason art education has failed to take root in most schools is because the focus is on passing examinations. Everything is about getting an A or B at the end of the day such that when it comes to art education the first thing students will ask you is about the reward. “What do we get at the end of the session or at the end of studying the arts?” They ask. Like everyone else they want tangible results. And so because the arts are not yet examinable teachers and students have been reluctant to embrace them fully. John Gara, a music teacher at one local school, put it more succinctly. “After going for years teaching music and the arts it was painful to look at the Grade Seven content exam paper and find nothing, not even one question on what I had been teaching my children for years.” He lamented. He said it as if he was a bad teacher, like he had failed to spot the coming questions and in the process had failed his children. But the truth of the matter is that he taught the children music, and the children, especially the talented ones, will one day thank him for his lessons.
Teaching for immediate and tangible results has pushed many teachers involved in arts to focus on competitions. Students are gathered to work on particular presentations only when there is a competition coming. This is usually done a week or two before the competition. But art is a skill that needs to be constantly horned in. Obviously one or two weeks will not improve a child’s skill. I know most primary schools are into dance because at the end of the year there is the Jikinya National Dance Competition. So the motivation for gathering students together for rehearsals becomes winning this annual competition. If a school fails to progress that is obviously the end of the rehearsals, and in most cases the end of that drama or dance club. Secondary schools wait for the different drama competitions that are organised throughout the year.
Very few schools are doing arts education or arts activities to groom and sharpen students’ skills. Most of them are in it to win competitions. And in most cases when they lose they stop and wait to hear of another competition. This is what I call bad teaching. I believe teachers and students should be creating pieces, be they drama, music, poetry, and writing throughout the year regardless of whether there is a competition or not. Competitions should not be the sole reason why we engage our students in arts and culture activities. When there are no competitions then the students, and even the teachers, are not motivated enough to do anything.
Anyway the good news is that from 2017 the arts will be part and parcel of the syllabus. This means getting more attention and schools being more serious about arts education.