Exploring the original creative arts production of grade 2 and 3 learners in contemporary cultural practices

Abstract

Engaging young children to partake in creative arts activities is often viewed as inferior to most academic subjects by some teachers and parents. In the school environment, most attention is given to academic subjects as there are misconceptions that creativity is not as important as the academics. However, research has proved that creativity is basic to improving the world in many ways. The current study involved primary school learners from two different cultural backgrounds in producing, performing and discussing their original creative arts production and explored how autonomously creative they were through the production process, performance and discussion of the production. The study also explored what benefits the learners gained through partaking in the creative arts production. Results were collected by means of observational notes during the build-up of the production and performance, learners focus group discussion and analyses of the learners production and creativity by independent specialists. Through this study, the learners were engaged in creative thinking which fostered problem solving skills, promoted higher order thinking, cooperation, flexibility, as well as emotional and social skills. The learners performance also displayed the learners innate autonomous creativity.