HASINA B. EBRAHIM

HASINA B.
EBRAHIM
Discipline Leader and Associate Professor for
Early Childhood and Foundation Phase Education,
Faculty of Education, University of the Free State,
Bloemfontein, South Africa
The role of play in fostering a creative culture:
A SOUTH AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE
The role of play in fostering a creative culture:
A South African perspective
Hasina B. Ebrahim
Young children in the preschool years in a diverse country
like South Africa are exposed to a myriad of rich experiences
as childhood is constructed by and for them. As experts in
childhood who are making sense of the world around them the
opportunities for play helps them to reconstruct knowledge,
skills and values they are exposed to in multiple learning
environments such as the family, community and preschool.
This is important if we take into account that a significant
number of children in South Africa construct their childhood
in total immersion in the practical day to day activities with
adults in their context.
The children show ample evidence of playfully converting one
thing into another. During these processes they are motivated
to solve problems where objects and ideas combine to create
new possibilities (Bodrova, Leong & Hensen, 2000; Ebrahim,
2012b).
In my research experiences with young children the cognitive
processes stimulating creativity was noted as non-literal, fluid
and momentary association with ideas and objects, scanning
the context to extract information for ideas and action,
momentary or prolonged pondering on possibilities, testing out
possibilities in different ways, responding and discovering a-ha
moments (Ebrahim, 2007, 2011). The affective experiences
relate to emotions such as joy, humour, anger, resistance and
feeling safe to explore. The spontaneity with which the play
episodes are approached promotes high energy and makes
time stand still for children. Immersion in emotional and social
time rather than clock work time becomes privileged in a free
spirited play environment.
In their daily lives young children do things that make us think
of them as out of the ordinary. Their play through child-initiated
efforts enables them to become powerful and take control
of the situations they have prioritised for themselves. Power
becomes visible as young children utilise their cognitive
processes, affective experiences and socio-cultural back­ground
knowledge to express themselves in creative ways. Play affords
building blocks for creativity to develop in multi-­faceted ways.
As children grow they would have promising threads to draw
on depending on how their creative endeavours are supported
by adults.
The socio-cultural background of the child influences creative
development and expression. In South Africa the ethnic milieu
in which the child functions offers tools which find expression
through play. In my work with children in multicultural pre­school
centres that promoted a straight forward English approach
the children were able to contradict conformity through using
their mother tongue in play (Ebrahim, 2007). They were able
to create a newness through verbal gymnastics and langua­
ge play that suited their purposes (Ebrahim & Francis, 2008).
A variety of play types has the potential for creative develop­
ment.The most influential is imaginative play. This form of play
uses fantasy and symbolism to stimulate expressions of creati­
vity. When imaginative play is encouraged then children engage
in many episodes where symbolic behaviour is highlighted.
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In order to gain currency for the novelty of their ideas the
children I studied were able to use persuasive ideas, for
example, punishment from God to bring others into their world.
It could be argued that the recipients of these ideas are not
just conforming to the influencer but being presented with
alternate ideas and acts for perspective forming and taking.
space. Whilst transgressive behaviour is perceived in negative
terms by teachers and parents/primary caregivers, it does
create opportunities for a unique response, risk taking, finding
new ideas and ways of doings things.
Play engendered creativity can grow if adults as socialising
agents attend to the meaning young children make in play.
Hence, it is important to pay attention to how teachers and
parents/primary caregivers might restrict creative develop­
ment. With regard to play in preschools the possibilities for
creative development can be lost if play as a practice initiated
by children is separated from learning. This is especially the
case when the temporal and spatial environments are organised
in a way that sends a clear message that teacher-initiated
activities are associated with serious teaching and learning. Free
play indoors and outdoors is where children do their own thing.
Play also fosters creativity in an ubuntu sense and promotes
the idea of umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (a person is only a
person through other people). These African concepts of
human solidarity afford opportunities for children to act as a
collective to promote or disrupt ideas and/or use objects in
meaningful and novel ways. In my work in rural KwaZulu-Natal
young children in open-air preschools were afforded opportu­
nities for play with older children (buddies) (James & Ebrahim,
2012). This kind of support allowed for apprenticeship behaviour
and social learning from a grouping other than their peers and
adults. Children have opportunities to develop observation
skills and skills in participation. When young children play in
a group they have opportunities to develop scripts to suit
specific aims, become awareness of different perspectives,
allocate or be allocated resources and deal with multiple
demands.
A challenge in South Africa is the schoolification of preschools
through a push-down curriculum from schooling. This is the
result of a large number of un and under-qualified teachers, a
fragmentary curriculum environment and parent pressure for
evidence of school learning to give their children a head-start.
In this context the compliant child rather than the creative
child is valued. It is not uncommon for teachers to limit creative
expression only to free play sessions in order to reserve time
for the teaching of basic skills. This kind of rigidity promotes
passive and conventional behaviour that make low demands
on children’s cognitive processes, affective experiences and
actualising of prior socio-cultural knowledge.
Play does not only encourage creative expression when children
initiate their own agendas but also within adult-initiated
agendas. Young children are able to distance themselves from
mainstream activity through different acts. Creative acts allow
them to subvert the official space for learning into a personal
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The way in which parents and primary caregivers use their
religious, social and cultural background to rear children affects
the possibilities for creative development and expression.
The characteristics of a creative child as being independent
thinking, stubborn and persevering runs counter to the image
of the respectable and obedient child. For example, in my
examination of the approach to early childhood education,
teachers in centre-based provision in the Free State noted
how Sesotho speaking parents were concerned about an active
learning approach which encouraged their children to ask
questions (Ebrahim, 2012a). Teachers noted how parents
complained about their children being disrespectful and
challenging adult authority. This response can be understood
when one considers that in the history of South Africa
pre­
school education was never freely available to black
communities in which these parents were growing up. Hence
this type of education is foreign and threatening. Additionally,
in traditional African families it is not uncommon for early
education to take place by telling and instructing. Play is largely
what children do when adults attend to their own priorities.
If play of young children is truly to become the vehicle to
nurture creativity in a diverse society like South Africa the
way forward would be for adults to become highly aware of
the critical role they play. Emergent possibilities for creativity
of young children will only flourish if adults around them are
sensitive to their needs and interests. This requires a new
mindset on how young children are viewed. If they are seen
as people getting to know their world in the here and now of
childhood and in terms of their future roles then adults could
make efforts to learn from them and support them in their
meaning making. This is difficult to achieve in communities
where group interests might surpass individual interests and
where innovation is only reserved for certain aspects of life
e.g. in business but not in relationships. Nonetheless, advocacy
for enabling relationships which create safety for exploration
in a relaxed atmosphere will go some way towards helping
young children to experiment and share possibilities.
REFERENCES
Bodrova, E., Leong, D.J. & Hensen, R. (2000), ‘Imaginative, child-directed play:
leading the way in development and learning’, Dimensions of Early Childhood, vol.
4, no. 4, pp. 25-30.
Ebrahim, H. (2007), ‘Constructions of childhood for and by children in two early
childhood centres in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: An ethnographic
study’, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Unpublished dissertation.
Ebrahim, H. (2011), ‘Children as agents in early childhood education’, Education as
Change, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 109-19.
Ebrahim, H. (2012a), ‘Tensions in incorporating global childhood into early child­
hood programmes: The case of South Africa’, Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 80-6.
Ebrahim, H. & Francis, D. (2008), ‘You said, ‘Black girl’: doing difference in early
childhood’, Africa Education Review, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 274-87.
Ebrahim, H.B. (2012b), A qualitative research report on: Developing talents
through creative play in the Foundation Phase in four schools in Atteridgeville,
University of Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
James, M. & Ebrahim, H. (2012), ‘Pedagogic activities for early education in a child
to child programme in South Africa’, in Cross-cultural perspectives on early childhood, T. Papatheodorou & J. Moyles (eds), London: Routledge, pp. 89-97.
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