A Heritage Day Item Built From a YouTube Clip
A teacher in Katutura is preparing a 10-minute opening item for a National Heritage Day event at the school. She has assembled eight learners and plans a 'San healing dance' sequence built from a YouTube clip she found, with bedsheet wraps as costume and body percussion. One learner, Garoes, whose grandmother is a healer from the Tsumkwe area, says the songs in the clip belong to her family's healing practice, are sung only in particular circumstances, and should not be performed for a school audience or filmed. The teacher has two weeks, no budget for a consultant, and the printed programme already lists 'Traditional San Dance' between the choir and the keynote speaker. A local tour operator has offered to film the item for social media in exchange for N$1 500 for the school.
1. Analyse the situation. What is actually at stake here, and which parts of the teacher's plan are defensible and which are not?
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The conflict is not 'tradition versus modern schooling'; it is about who has authority over specific knowledge, and the teacher has assumed that anything on the internet is public property.
At stake:
- Restricted knowledge. In many Namibian and wider Southern African communities, healing songs, trance dances and certain instruments are not general entertainment; they may be restricted by initiation, gender, season or the healer's calling. Public performance and filming are separate permissions, and filming is usually the stricter one.
- Authority and consent. Garoes's grandmother is the knowledge holder, or one of them. Neither Garoes nor the teacher can consent on her behalf.
- Representation. A bedsheet 'costume' built from a clip is a caricature: it presents a sacred practice as decoration and tells 400 learners that this is what the culture is.
- Benefit and power. A tour operator pays the school N$1 500 and gains content; the community gains nothing and is not consulted. Garoes, a learner in the teacher's class, is in no position to refuse easily.
Defensible: programming Namibian heritage, involving Garoes as a source of guidance rather than as a costume, and wanting the item to be live. Not defensible: copying a clip wholesale, labelling it 'Traditional San Dance' as though there were one such dance, filming without consent, and proceeding after a learner has raised a specific objection. Ignoring Garoes would also teach the whole class that objection is pointless.
2. Propose a two-week plan that still fills the 10-minute slot legitimately, given no budget.
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Keep the slot, change the claim. Sequence:
Days 1–2 - ask, don't assume. Speak to Garoes privately and ask what she is comfortable sharing and what she is not. Ask whether her grandmother or another elder could be phoned (many families will give 15 minutes by phone at no cost). Contact the regional office of the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture and the school's circuit arts adviser: they often know local practitioners and can advise on protocol, sometimes at no fee.
Days 3–4 - redesign the item around what is permitted. Three legitimate routes:
- Permission-based: if the family agrees, perform a specific named song, correctly credited, un-filmed, with the elder invited or acknowledged.
- Inspired-by, honestly labelled: the class creates an original piece - movement, body percussion, a narrated poem about water and healing - and the programme says 'an original work by Grade 11, developed in conversation with…', not 'Traditional San Dance'.
- Showcase what the learners own: many learners in the class have family repertoires (Herero, Ovambo, Nama, Damara, Kavango, coloured, Tswana) they can ask about at home. The item becomes 'songs our families taught us', credited by family name.
Days 5–10 - rehearse the chosen route; keep body percussion and voice, drop the bedsheet imitation of dress unless a practitioner supplies and approves it.
Days 11–14 - correct the programme with the principal, and brief the audience in one sentence before the item explaining what it is. That sentence is the difference between respect and pastiche.
3. How would you handle the tour operator's offer and the N$1 500, and what would you say to Garoes?
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The offer. Money does not create consent. Answer the operator that filming is not agreed, in writing, and that the decision rests with the knowledge holders, not the school. If a filming route later becomes possible, it needs: the elder's explicit agreement to the specific footage and its use (social media is permanent and global), a written agreement naming who owns the footage, credit to the named practitioners, and a fee paid to the practitioners rather than only to the school. N$1 500 for permanent commercial content is poor value even on its own terms; decline politely and keep the relationship - invite the operator to attend as an audience member.
To Garoes, say four things plainly:
- Thank you - raising this took courage, and you were right to.
- I will not use the clip, and I will not let it be filmed.
- You are not responsible for fixing the item or for educating the class about your culture.
- If you want to share something, I will follow your lead and credit it properly; if you would rather not, you can take a different role and nothing changes about your mark.
Then check that the assessment does not penalise her for opting out - the SBA must credit the process, not force disclosure. Practically: record the decision in writing, inform the principal, and note that the programme will be reprinted. This models professional practice for the whole class.