Research and reflection on our African traditions show that our ancestors were keen on the impact that age groups had on the formation of children and the youth.
In those days, boys of about the same age, usually from the age of 4 or 5, formed groups of four, five or six, came together from the same neighbourhood but not necessarily of the same clan or family. Girls did the same. What brought together these young people is play, so these groups are often called playgroups or age groups. Play was the most important engagement of those groups.
Besides playing, they also competed in various activities such as storytelling, dancing, and mimicking adults in all kinds of adult occupations. What every conscious scientist of human formation and spirituality will tell you is that in these playgroups or age groups formidable interactions went on in these young people almost always unknown to them. They formed, reformed and transformed one another in all matters, spiritual, mental, physical.
The one important point that this article wants to put on the table is that parents, grandparents and elders of those days realised the great impact that these playgroups or age groups had on each other. This realisation inspired our ancestors to pay close attention to the composition of the group to which their daughter or son belonged. They did not interfere with them, but they paid attention and made sure their son or daughter was in the right playgroup.
In Tanzania, we have an excellent example of these age groups among the Maasai people. Each age group has its own name, and each one in that group is highly respected. The names of groups change as these young people get older, get married, become parents, and later grandparents. Each person in the group is held accountable for their actions by the group, and so each one learns to think, talk and behave according to the accepted traditions, mostly in ethics, family and community cohesion. Those groups were classrooms of proper human formation and transformation.
Now in our time, how much attention are we parents, grandparents, teachers and community leaders paying to the age groups around us? Do you, as a parent, know to which group your son belongs Do you know which social media your daughter is addicted to? We parents and teachers must wake up and pay attention. These age groups and playgroups are either uplifting our children or sinking them into the unknown.
