Abstract:

The focus of this article is to analyse what associations are related with school's creative lessons (music, art, craft, physical education) and how should teachers interpret those associations. In addition there is a comparison across all creative lessons about the feeling which is felt by pupils before entering the lesson (response alternatives: “I’m looking forward to this lesson, I’m happy to go there”; “It’s like any other lesson, nothing special”; “I’m anxious, I feel frustrated about going there”). The sample (N = 227) consisted of seventh form pupils of seven upper secondary schools of Tallinn (the largest city of Estonia with 420,000 inhabitants) aged 13–14 (47% of them were boys, N = 107, and 53% girls, N = 120). Pupils’ associations formed six thematic categories describing the most prevalent themes: (1) Teacher, (2) Activities, (3) Emotions, (4) Objects, (5) Classroom environment, and (6) Schoolwork load. Results show that music lesson stands out from other creative lessons both with negative associations and more negative entering feeling. That outcome is discussed from the music teacher's point of view – how it could be interpreted and what it reflects from current educational situation.

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