AFL2603 Portfolio Final

Question 1 In the olden the was no formal education and the informal education took centre stage in terms of moulding and shaping the lives of children during those times. Indigenous knowledge systems were implemented as they were the core basis of educating children. Life was very different in the ‘olden days.’ Most children had a full complement of chores and other responsibilities and quite a lot was expected of the youngsters in a family. Hands-on activities and several ceremonies were there to teach and shape the youngster’s ways to behave and how to carry themselves generally. The hypothesis below seeks to unravel the ways in which children were educated prior to the advent of formal education. Education in precolonial Africa was therefore in the form of apprenticeship, a form of informal education, where children and or younger members of each household mostly learned from older members of their tribe, household or community. In most cases, each household member learned more than one skills in addition to learning the values, socialization, and norms of the community, tribe, household. Some of the common skills that people in precolonial Africa had to learn include dancing, farming, wine making, cooking (mostly the females), in some cases selected people learn how to practice herbal medicine, how to carve stools, how to carve masks and other furniture. Story telling also played a significant role in education during pre-colonial Africa. Parents, other older members of households and grandparents used oral story-telling to teach children about the history, norms and values of their household, tribe or community. Children usually gathered around the storyteller who then narrates stories, usually, using personifications to tell stories that encourage conformity, obedience and values such as endurance, integrity, and other ethical values that are important for cooperations in the community. Festivals and rituals in most cases were also used as means to teach younger members of a household, tribe or community about the history of their household, community and or tribe. Rituals were mainly used to teach young adults about the