At Larrikin Puppets, the common thread that weaves throughout the fabric of our work is the broad educational field of HASS: Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
While sometimes it may seem like we’re just performing a fun puppet show (and we are!), we are also introducing HASS themes to children – and some of our themed shows do this more overtly.
Larrikin Puppets also runs three very special HASS 4 Kids Programs presented by Zietta Elissa and available to book:
What is HASS?
As artists, we include A for ‘Arts’ in our definition of HASS, as is common in many other countries in the world. In academia, Arts often sits within the broader field of Humanities because it often deals with the philosophical question of what makes us human.
According to the Australian Government, the Humanities and Social Sciences component of the Australian Curriculum teaches students the important skills of problem solving, critical thinking, and understanding our environment and history.
This field involves examining human behaviour and society as well as culture and social constructs – and it’s never too young to start learning! That is why our HASS 4 Kids work focuses specifically on Early Childhood Education and Early Primary Education (Foundation to Year 2).
What’s the difference between Humanities and Social Sciences?
The humanities are typically considered more critical and analytical, dealing with the philosophical question of what makes us human. The social sciences, on the other hand, uses a more scientific approach, essentially applying similar methodology as the natural sciences to the study of humans in society.
We like to think of it like this …
In Humanities we ask: What makes us human? To find out we study philosophy, languages, communication, intercultural communication, language arts (literature, writing, oratory, rhetoric, poetry, etc), performing arts (theatre, music, dance, etc), and visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography, filmmaking, etc).
In Social Sciences we ask: How do humans engage with the world around them? To find out we study geography, history, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, politics, law, education, ethics, communication, and linguistics.
At Larrikin Puppets we value the importance of informing, educating and raising awareness of HASS (Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences) in our everyday lives from early learning through to university and beyond.
We believe these fields are crucial in helping us better understand connections and complexities in ourselves, in others, and in the world around us.
