Encouraging Creativity and Emotional Development of Young Learners in Mali: Creative Approaches to Primary School Education

Abstract

Mali’s primary education system is impeding large numbers of children from attaining high-quality literacy. The individual challenges face the qualitative study which aims at exploring innovative practice to develop creativity and emotional development of young learner at Malian primary school. Based on their work in constructivist, emotional intelligence and multiple intelligences theorizing, this study investigates culturally responsive pedagogies such as lifelong storytelling oral traditions, infusion of visual arts through meaning making learning spaces, problem-based co-identification learning activities with parents/family/community partners who are especially important to children, and translanguaging which all allow teachers’ identities to function not only without the burden of being authoritarian instructors but also as facilitators instead. Based on interviews with 15–30 participants including teachers, students, and parents findings show that endogenous innovations based in oral traditions and community practices greatly boost creative thinking, emotional resilience, and social skills. The study advises decentralizing policy making, partnering with communities, and sustainable professional development to scale such approaches. They help to form evidence-based frameworks for developing more holistic, mission-driven learners with emotionally competent behaviours appropriate navigation skills required in twenty-first-century learning environments that have been negatively impacted by crises.