''The Power of Puppets in Education''

 


                             

It could be said that puppets are in every culture and in every community around the world. Sometimes they have a religious or ritualistic context. Other times puppets are used for storytelling and entertainment. In regions such as India, Africa and Southeast Asia, puppets and puppeteers generally engage in ceremonies or rites. In Europe it has a more theatrical, or musical context. In the Americas, especially in Mexico, puppetry has existed since pre-Columbian times, and was used to narrate and preserve the memory of daily life. In these early stages puppets were clay dolls articulated directly with the puppeteers hands. In addition to serving as vehicles of oral history, puppets were used to represent religious texts, usually accompanied by a song or dance.


At the time of Independence in Mexico, puppetry flourished in the realm of performing arts and enjoyed great popularity. Puppets even began to be used to educate the population about basic public health and to teach Spanish in indigenous communities to natives who only spoke their own languages. The puppet phenomenon was so great that the fervor for puppets reached the rest of Latin America and the USA. In the 1970’s there was a great institution, the famous Guignol puppet theatre. At the time I was living in Mexico City working as a teacher of primary education in Montessori schools, and as a result I was exposed to all kinds of theater exhibitions that utilized different types of puppets. In 1981 a contingent of some of the greatest Mexican puppeteers went to Washington D.C. to represent their art internationally and bring it further on to the world stage. The puppetry movement developed and new initiatives were launched - for example in the city of Huamantla, the government of the state of Tlaxcala created the National Puppet Museum.


As an educator I have used puppets for my young students to learn the Spanish language, both here and in Mexico. Puppet shows make them laugh, get excited and have a refreshed enthusiasm to learn Spanish. Spanish Today harnesses many educational tools and puppets are not left behind!





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