So, we’ve started our placements! Nyakahanga Primary School
was our first project and, inevitably, acted as our guinea pig. We’ve taught
Standard 6 so far, which is one ‘year group’ including children from the ages
of 11 to 14.
We arrived pretty apprehensively on Monday morning, unaware
of how many pupils we’d be teaching and their ages, having learnt the previous
week that this primary school has 1024 pupils! Luckily the teaching system is
pretty relaxed (!) and half of the year was sent away, to return to our session
the following day.
49 children crammed into the classroom to listen to us on
Monday, while the number on Tuesday increased dramatically from 31 at the
beginning of the session to around 50, after a Mingle[i]
in the playground. The first group felt a lot smaller than 49, whereas the
second group felt a lot larger than 50… It was really interesting that there
could be such a difference in maturity and knowledge between the two Standard 6
forms. We left the first session full of positivity and improvements for
Tuesday’s lesson, whereas Tuesday’s lesson left us pretty exhausted! The
awesome thing was that despite us feeling exhausted, the pupils were really
enthusiastic and keen to come back for another lesson next week, despite it
being the Christmas holidays. Yes!
So what did we teach? With these being our first sessions
and the school being a primary school, we started with an introduction to VSO-ICS
and Sexual Reproductive Health, and focused on Puberty (Kubarehe – or ‘Kubawahey!)
and Hygiene (Usafi – ‘oohsaffeeeeeee’). We’re now in possession of some
hilarious/scary drawings of the changes that take place in girls and boys
during puberty – the expressions and acne on the faces are particularly funny.
The biggest challenge for us UK volunteers as non-Swahili
speakers is not knowing what’s being said in the lessons. As a group (two UK
volunteers, our 2 Tanzanian counterparts and a Peer Educator) we devise pretty
comprehensive lesson plans, but our brilliant and enthusiastic TNZ colleagues
often steer away from points, which can lead to information being given too
soon and our lessons overrunning. These are minor problems, but we discovered
today that it can lead to incorrect information being given too. Today a child
said, ‘if you’re healthy, you start puberty at 9. If you’re unhealthy and have
a bad body, you might not start until 11’. Of course, this is absolutely wrong,
but her answer was praised as correct in Swahili, which worried and surprised
us. We were quick to explain to the class that everyone goes through puberty
differently and didn’t judge her at all, but it concerned us that other incorrect
things might have been said in Swahili that without us being aware.
The solutions are, of course:
1)
We learn Swahili;
2)
We thoroughly discuss and stick to lesson plans
so all parties know what’s being said and when;
3)
We learn Swahili.
We won’t have become fluent in Swahili by our sessions next
week, but we will definitely have made extra effort to revise and review and
LEARN lesson plans as a team before we start teaching. This sounds like we
don’t know what we’re doing when we walk in the classroom; we do, it’s just
that our incompetence in Swahili means that we’re unaware of deviations from
the plan when they do happen.
I have to stress that we are so, so happy with our
counterparts and Peer Educator. Without them, we wouldn’t even have placements
to go to and they’re incredibly good at teaching: the children are captivated
by them and hang on to every word. Our Peer Educator, Godlove, bought a book on
Human Biology before we started placement, so he is extremely knowledgeable on
the subjects we were teaching. Bonnavita, one of the TNZ volunteers in our team
has authority and gains instant respect from the children. During our first
session a slightly disruptive crowd gathered outside the classroom window.
Bonnavita simply closed her eyes, held out her hand and said a few words in
Swahili and they scattered. Amazing! Jackie, my counterpart, bought sweets and
is just super chilled.
On Wednesday we gained the primary school in Omurushaka as a
placement; I can’t wait to start our sessions there and continue the work we’re
doing!
[i]
‘Mingle, mingle, mingle!’. Mingle’s an excellent energiser we learnt at
training, which can also be a brilliant way to split people into groups.
‘Mingle, mingle, mingle!’ is sung while everyone dances around and mingles. The
leader shouts, ‘threes!’, or ‘sevens!’, etc, and everyone has to form groups of
threes or sevens etc. The process can be repeated as many times as you like,
which is often. Fun! It proved surprisingly difficult for both groups to pick
up. Everyone just danced holding hands, so we just ended up splitting groups
manually and unintentionally inviting an extra 19 on-lookers from the
playground into our lesson. This, of course, is great, apart from the fact that
a lot of the children were meant to be in other lessons!
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