A number of teachers from the Lyndhurst area gathered at Lyndhurst Primary School to receive a special workshop on the educational benefits of puppeteering.
The workshop on 16 March formed part of the US Embassy’s mission to South Africa with American arts integration and English language specialist, Karen Konnerth, who taught the teachers how to make their own puppets while showing them various ways of integrating the art form into learning.
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Konnerth’s background in the arts is primarily based on puppetry and doing performances at schools, she then moved into the education space and has developed workshops for adding puppetry into teaching. She said puppetry allows children to work with their hands during the learning process and connecting to the specific material they are learning about.
“A child’s imagination is extremely vivid and they really want to use it. Very often in school, they repeat what the teacher wants them to know and its very task oriented. But this allows them to use their imagination in the learning process.”
On the use of creativity in the class, Konnerth said that children gain a memorable experience when learning because they are immersing themselves in the content in front of them, which can be very effective.
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The US Embassy brought teachers from schools such Halfway House Primary School and Bovet Primary School, among others, who were given the tasks of making their own puppets, learning how to develop stories and how to place these skills in the classroom.
Details: www.karenkonnerth.com
