Fostering and promoting identity through role-play
Staff at Iqra Educare use child-initiated role-play to foster identity and belonging. In this video, educators Maria Sammons and Sophia Banu share how the students use role-play to develop, refine and repeat meaningful experiences and share this and other experiences with the wider community.
Learn about how Iqra Educare have used digital storytelling to build confidence.
Transcript
Maria Sammons
Belonging is important for any child or any family as a whole, but coming to a new country and trying to fit in without losing your identity or your culture can be quite tricky. And I think New Zealand presents an environment for those families coming in that they can be part of this society and the community in New Zealand whilst holding on to their own identity.
So we really focus on the whole family. By developing really strong reciprocal relationships, we can get that information that we need that we can put in place small but significant things that give them that sense of belonging. So listening to the child’s spontaneous play, watching what they’re doing. We can then expand on that, scaffold it, bring it to life. And we did that in this project, this particular project with role-play.
We do observe first of all the children in spontaneous play and see what topics are important to them or relevant to them at the time. And we were discussing the five pillars of Islam, and Hajj got brought up. Hajj is a religious pilgrimage. So we thought, “Oh that’s interesting.” They had built a wee, small model Kaaba, was like a representation of the Kaaba, which is a huge building. And they had it on the floor at mat time and they were walking around it as they do in Mecca and reciting some of the prayers.
Sophia Banu
And some of the children already know the chant from home, so yeah, they were reciting that.
Maria Sammons
So we let them take the lead on that. That was child-initiated, that was their programme, their activity. And then we asked them, “Would you like to, you know, have some more props? Make it a bit bigger?” So we decorated the outside play frame box and downloaded the chants onto a stereo system and voilà! The most intense role-play just took off, and we videoed it, didn’t we? And we let them drive it really.
Sophia Banu
That’s right, yes. We saw really amazing expressions, they are likened with Hajj. And they chanted as well. It goes like this [chants in Arabic].
Maria Sammons
Some of the children had all of the lyrics. Some of the children had some of the lyrics. By the time we had finished, we all had the lyrics! We all knew how to sing it or chant it. And then from then on, revisiting Hajj role-play was totally child-initiated. They wanted to do it again and again and again. So a one-off event turned into repeating it, adding it, embellishing it, making it bigger, better on the tamariki’s part. Then it was requests from family to record it, video it to share with family. And then it moved onto other stories. So now it’s everything they want to explore, we can do it through role-play.
Sophia Banu
We sought parents’ participation as well, because when they came to see the performances, they also moved around the Kaaba and they sang their chant as well because it’s a part of who they are.
Maria Sammons
So it was really building that sense of identity.
Sophia Banu
Identity.
Maria Sammons
And validating it, making it tangible and visible for them, and yeah. And – just add to that, you know, not all of our children are Muslim. So it was something new for some of the other children as well, which is so wonderful because they may have other religions, but it highlights the commonalities between religions, and those are to be celebrated. So we’re not separated by our differences but united in our commonalities.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Iqra Educare and educators Maria Sammans and Sophia Banu.
Supported by the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative Fund from government funding, managed by the New Zealand Council for Education Research.
Kaaba illustration, Abdul Rohim/123RF Ltd.
