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Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Happy teachers make for happy students!



A dream has come true for a team of Keiskamma artists who wished to develop the skill of teaching art to children. For the past year, Cebo Mvubu and Nomfusi Nkani have had the plan of teaching art to primary school children during school holidays. Their passion generated enthusiasm in 5 other artists who joined them to attend training by our Keiskamma Creative Development expert Themba Mchunu. For the past two weeks, Themba passed on very special skills to this team: how to capture the children's attention, to develop an interest in them for drawing and painting, how to give the children  freedom of expression, to plan a lesson and also how to report on challenges and explore how they might be overcome.




Standing in the class while the trainees are going through the de-briefing of the previous lesson, it is amusing and uplifting to hear the children packing up on the other side of the door. One has to stop them from pushing each other to enter the class. The art class is obviously  THE PLACE TO BE. "That's it," says Themba to the team, "you hear them, they can't wait for your new lesson, because when they wake up in the morning, they remember that the day before you told them they are going to do something new today!".