Educators’ Preparedness and Teaching Strategies

The low priority accorded to music education is not restricted to time allocation, but also includes how music educators are trained and certified across the country. Music educators in Uganda fall into three categories: (1) certified music educators with general music instruction methods, but inadequate content. These include teachers with knowledge about teaching, learning, and learners, rather than knowledge specific and attuned to the teaching of music as a subject and the subject matter content, (2) music teachers with non-formal and informal music training and experience who decide to acquire knowledge and experience on their own through experience outside any organized institution, and (3) non-certified music educators with a degree in music and a firm grip on to the content knowledge but who are short on the requirements for advanced degrees, such as educational theory and teaching practice.

Each of these three groups approaches the teaching of music creativity in different ways. As a result of inadequate training of music educators on the ground and a lack of policies that support music composition within an oral tradition, the greatest resource aiding learner’s creativity is listening and observation. Having music training experiences rooted in the Western approaches where the content and methods of teaching are focused on Western classical music as the highest form of musical experience an improper match for a classroom full of local indigenous learners. Unlike in other academic areas where observation and analysis form major concerns of the learning experience, in music composition the elements of imagination, creativity, and selfexpression require a competent music instructor to extract musical ideas from learners.

With teachers under-prepared to execute their role as guides and music composition framed as a time consuming and complex activity, many teachers decide to use their allotted instructional time to play music games. A secondary school music teacher in Kampala District admitted that he does not offer a music composition experience to his students since there is little time for music, arguing that music history seems more fitting and quite sufficient for a music lesson. Another teacher, at the Makerere College School, blamed the absence of music composition in his classroom on his temperament, saying that “if learners failed to compose after several trials, I surrender because I do not possess the motivation to continue" Such positions leave students underserved. As Lave and Wenger (1991) have noted, it is the characters and the behaviors of educators that has the greatest impact on teaching and learning because educators have the power and status to structure the experienced curriculum.

The Music Teacher’s Role.Music teachers can be important facilitators of music composition activities. Yet, the most common teaching methods used by Ugandan teachers—assuming an authoritarian role and lecturing—contravene the very behaviors needed for composition to be rewarding and successful. Although the choice of teaching strategies is left to the discretion of the classroom teacher, only a handful of music educators across the country apply methods conducive to learners’ active participation in practical learning experiences. The majority of teachers prefer to talk, taking time explain to learners concepts for which learners have no knowledge base or relevant experience. Muzumara (2011) asserts that the choice of method is determined by factors that include, among other things, available amount of time and teaching resources. Ugandan teachers are not fully prepared to understand their students or to use instructional strategies that can best enhance the learning process. Significant change is needed.

Ugandan teachers often confess that they are uncomfortable teaching music composition and physical education together. They acknowledge that in inadequate training, limited prior experience, and lack of content knowledge as important challenges in their practice. According to Killian and Dye (2009), teachers believe that their teaching improves when they use a student- led approach. As teachers move toward more student-centered approaches in which they facilitate and encourage learners to express their creativity, more meaningful creative processes and learning are taking place.

Indeed, the learner-centered approach is one that education returns to time and time again. Finlay-Johnson in 1911 and Slade in 1958 both stress that learners should be given the opportunities to absorb big stories and joyously explore and examine the world and its multitude of mysteries. More recently, Sekalega (2018) has noted that the learner-centered approach can be used to develop students’ natural behaviors of play, improvising, and experimenting as means of accessing their innate musicality. The student-l ed approach is increasingly common in schools where music educators are standard classroom teachers. It is successful in these settings because it relies on developing learners’ emotional and creative skills through experimenting with a variety of options. As music educators facilitate student-led creativity sessions, they grow more confident in their teaching as they observe students exhibiting new skills and abilities. These approaches help students and teachers alike increase their interest in music education, which in turn leads to improved skills of musical perception, expression, and enjoyment.

Community Musicians as Demonstrators and Teachers.Drawing on the expertise and experience of community musicians as demonstrators and “teachers” has been of great importance in imparting music creativity skills to learners. Shizha (2005) has noted that local people are a vital source of indigenous knowledge that can contribute to the learning in schools. Community musicians in Uganda who are semi-retired, talented, and musically competent, are willing to contribute toward the development, growth, preservation, and conservation of music traditions. They are regularly invited into schools to demonstrate and share skills with learners through well-structured, researched, and highly organized processes of music composition.

Collaborations with community musicians allow both the school and the community to engage in constant dialogue that promotes indigenous ways of explaining local solutions for local challenges. Therefore, community participation in school life transforms and challenges dominant power relations and offers the possibility of producing constructive knowledge appropriate to African modes of thinking. As African music education relies on visual and memory preservation as part of the oral process, the absence of reading and writing does not negate the value of the teaching and learning facilitated by local community musicians. Rather, musical activities relating to music composition are refined through various oral-aural processes that occur informally and naturally in direct, participatory experiences involving thematic examination, sound mediums, and the coherent whole.