Cocoon Finger Puppets: Fostering Creativity and Innovative Teaching Through a Participatory Pedagogical Method

Fostering creativity has been the main emphasis in 21st-century educational discourses, leading to engaging innovative teaching approaches and methods. More often, materials used in such activities are unsustainable and offer limited creative manoeuvring possibilities. Considering the size and scale of educational activity worldwide, it would become a significant concern. Puppetry proved efficient in improving communication, narrating concepts, and helping learning outcomes in education. Finger Puppets are relatively modern and easy to make among various puppetry forms, which offers scope for participatory pedagogy. In earlier attempts, silkworm cocoons have been used in handicrafts, value-added products, and limited teaching explorations. The sericulture industry extracts only ~18-23 % of silk filament wrapped around each cocoon, leaving the inner shell (~80%) unutilized, which unwraps an enormous opportunity to explore this unique natural material for its qualities and abundance. The article explores the potential of 'Silkworm Cocoons' as the primary material for creating finger puppets to aid the teaching process at the preschool stage. The insights gained in the study and feedback from educators motivated us to design various character options using a locally available cocoon breed, Bombyx mori L., as a primary resource, envisioning a novel approach to pedagogy. That included identifying the gap, demonstrating the creative possibility of Cocoon Finger Puppets (CFP), and piloting a study to check feasibility at the foundational stage. The iterative design process exposed infinite possibilities that could aid effective pedagogy across educational stages, offering staggered complexity of making and performing. Hence, we propose CFP, a novel 'material-centric' ‘make-and-learn’ framework, as a ‘participatory pedagogical method.’ That is creative, appropriate, nature-friendly, and simple to implement in schools at various stages identified in NEP2020, supporting global Sustainable Development Goals.