Facilitating young children’s understanding of Ubuntu using creative drama

Abstract

In the Manifesto on Values (2001), Ubuntu is depicted as one of the ten democratic values and the Department of Education (DoE, 2001) portrays it as one of the most important values to promote citizenry. Ubuntu provides a sense of belonging to a wider community and encourages a child citizen to live as a responsible and constructive member. Utilising a qualitative research mode of inquiry, with an action research approach enabled me to collaboratively design of a socially constructed learning experience, with subject specialists. We explored the value of creative drama to teach Ubuntu as an abstract concept to Grade 3 learners. The focus of this study was on conceptualisation and not the implementation. These learners were exposed to creative drama, however for this study they did not actively engage in any creative drama activities. The main data generation techniques that had been used in this study were semi-structured interviews with a panel of subject experts, after which they had also completed a rubric to convey the strengths and weaknesses of the designed learning experience. This was done in a cyclic manner; as embedded in action research to strengthen the idea of action research already mentioned. From the study and the results of the study, it had become evident that creative drama could be used to strengthen school learners’ understanding of Ubuntu and to incorporate it in their everyday lives to become progressive child citizens and leaders within South Africa. By using the input and knowledge of expert participants, it had also become evident that learning could be made fun and would most likely then be more effective.