LTP Science: First Aid

I got to teach a 40 minute LTP science class at SWIFTS Primary School (a small private school)!  The class was Standard 4, which is similar to 4-5 grade.  We team taught with the teacher, Mwalimu (teacher) Collins, and did an activity on First Aid, the topic that was in Mwalimu Collins’ lesson plan.   


First we had the students give us examples of ailments that would require first aid. Some of the answers were unexpected, but the list we came up with included muscle cramps, nosebleed, burn, hiccups, broken bone, snake/scorpion bite, and heart attack.  Then, keeping with the idea of participatory learning through pictures and writing, the students split into groups and each chose an ailment.  They then worked together to come up with a story and draw 4 scenes to illustrate how someone would get the ailment and how they would use first aid to fix it.  It took some of the groups a while to get started, but their pictures turned out awesome!  We hung them up on the blackboard so everyone could see the other groups’ pictures.  One group did fainting after getting too much sun.

Students here take 13 subjects: Math, History, Geography, Science, Civics, English, Kiswahili, French, Social Studies/Lifeskills/Vocational, ICT (information and communication and technology), and sports.  Once students go to secondary school, they have some mandatory subjects and others are optional.  Many students do either an arts track or a science track in secondary school.  See the Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Tanzania#Curriculum_and_language_of_instruction for more information about the Tanzania education system.

What I continue to be impressed by is how much respect teachers get here.  Students stand up when teachers enter the room and greet teachers.  They also call teachers mwalimu or maalim (teacher), even if they are retired.  In the US, I think teachers are often undervalued, especially those in elementary and middle school education.  In Tanzania, teachers at all levels are given high respect.  I’m not sure whether it is social status, salary (they get paid relatively well compared to the average salary), the value of education, or a combination of all of these factors that has rooted this respect for teachers in the culture.  

Most students learn for the sake of learning (rather than for an end goal of getting a job in a specific career) because having educated people for the sake of improving society is very ingrained in the mainstream culture (many proverbs deal with education: education is the key to life, etc).


Word of the day: kusoma - to learn