A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Fine Arts, 2015 / This research explores the dialogical in arts pedagogy. This form of pedagogy is understood to allow for both the learner and educator to participate by exchanging experiences without the one being more superior to the other (Freire 1968, p. 169). In this thesis I use the Zulu term Inkulumo-Mpendulwano, which, rudimentarily, means dialogue. Broken down, Inkulumo means to talk or to have a conversation and Mpendulwano means to respond. However, I also use the term Ukufundisa, which means “to teach” but also “to instruct” and “to school” which is an authoritarian way of teaching. What is emphasised in this research is not only the potentiality of InkulumoMpendulwano interactions which can be adapted in the classroom as well as curated spaces, but by introducing different terminologies I attempt to reimagine the language and practices associated with arts education. This further engages with the possibility of changes in terminology and vocabularies, how the written and spoken is understood differently and how visual and spatial modes become central to changing the learner/teacher dynamic. This dissertation exemplifies two cases of the dialogical arts pedagogy. The first is a case study of Keleketla! Library and the second is a participatory action research approach where I work as an artist-educator for the practical component of this research entitled Artucation Programme. The outcome of this research is a written dissertation and a creative project that investigates InkulumoMpendulwano interactions in arts education. / XL2018

The role of the Arts Education in South African Education has long been a contentious and disputable topic. Despite this, a large amount of literature has been compiled advocating for the inclusion of the arts in schooling systems worldwide. Most of this literature speaks of the benefits of the arts, covering how they directly and indirectly affect 1) The learning environment 2) The learner and 3) The performance of the learner in other subjects. The basis of this study is to intently look at the third factor, the influence of the arts on a learner’s performance in other subjects, like Mathematics and Science. Though education reform programs are neither new nor few in number, those that have been implemented through the arts, and in low socio-economic areas, portray art education as a salient ingredient to holistic education reform. The study draws from such reform programs, from around the world, and categorically shows how they have successfully integrated arts education into their curricula. Through the investigation of the success and implementation of these programs, this paper shows that creativity - through the teaching of the arts - is a vital key to the education reform that South Africa is in need of, particularly in mathematics and science.

Thesis in compliance with the requirements for the Doctor’s Degree in Technology: Language Practice, Durban University of Technology, 2012. / South Africa’s dynamic post-Apartheid education climate is beset by a plethora of new policies designed to transform education. Our county’s educators are expected to be the alchemists of change to create the new and transformed society envisaged in these policies, albeit with insufficient logistical planning and support. Moreover, so many of our schools are operationally dysfunctional, with literacy and numeracy levels at an all time low. Under these daunting circumstances our Provincial Education Department Teacher Development Institution, Ikhwezi In-Service Training Institute, develops training materials and delivers courses aimed at implementing policy while at the same time modelling progressive, internationally recognized and democratic adult-based methodology. In this self-study project of my departmental work with a group of trained educators, I use action research to trace the potential of integrated arts to transform teaching and learning in under-resourced rural and township classrooms. An aspect of this self-study looks at the therapeutic potential of the arts in my own life and career as an arts educator. When my Masters research revealed the dramatic effect a project-like arts approach to teaching could engender, I was motivated by compassion to develop the work further to reach a broader base of learners. I also wished to educate the authorities into mainstreaming the default marginalising of the arts in schools by developing photographic, written and video evidence promoting the arts in schools, mainly to emphasize their holistic educational role, but also as an essential healing, a potential remedy for the ills of the past that continue to impact on the present. / D