Private Studies at Secondary School

Hello! My name is Carina Holen, and I´m a third-year student at Molde University College, studying to become a social educator. Our group was in Arusha, Tanzania for three months, working at a Primary and Secondary School. Half of the group, me included, were first placed at the Secondary School. The school has about 400 pupils, and 300 of them are living in dormitories on schoolground.

With classes starting from 08:00 in the morning, and activities in the afternoon, we found it difficult to build relationships with the pupils when they were in class. They were focused and attentive towards the teacher, so it was hard for us to join the classroom without any specific knowledge regarding the subject they were teaching. Feeling like a distraction, we decided to make a better plan to reach the project goals.

That´s when we started joining the pupils Private Studies (PS). These are classes without teachers, where the children are supposed to work with school related assignments or discussions. So, every Tuesday we would split our group in half and join different PS-classes. One of the teachers would join us, to act like an interpreter.

Our first week of classes focused on building a relationship with the pupils. We wanted to show them that when we join these classes, it is perfectly allowed and encouraged to speak your mind freely and to joke around. We started by taking a round of names and writing it on the blackboard. The thought behind it was to help us students remember their names, as well as showing recognition towards the pupils. Afterward, we asked them what their favorite animal was and – no surprise – lion was at top of the list. The Swahili word for lion is Simba: It is also a very popular football-team! When everyone had said their favorite animal, we went in groups and were supposed to imitate the animal and interact with each other. The pupils were a bit skeptic at first, but after I – very poorly imitating an elephant – walked around making weird noises, they let themselves loose and we had so much fun! 

The second week of classes was a bit more serious than pretending to be an animal. We introduced  Maslow´s hierarchy of needs and handed out papers to everyone with an empty triangle on it. They were put in groups, and the assignment was to discuss what categories they think are most important to live a good life. Afterwards we discussed it together, and we showed them what Maslow thought was most important.

Our next step was to take the knowledge about Maslow´s hierarchy of needs and further connect it to the UN Human Rights and the Convention of the Rights of Children. The class started with us asking the pupils if they´ve heard of UN, and what they know about them. We drew a mind map on the black board, and asked if they knew of any human rights. After writing their suggestions on the black board, we introduced different dilemmas where the children would stand in opposite sides of the room to indicate a yes/no answer. Amongst the questions were: "Are boys more valued than girls?", "Can Norway learn something from Tanzania?", and "Is it OK to use corporal punishment on a student who´s late to class?" After each dilemma we asked different students why they thought as they did and had a discussion. There was no focus on whether their answers were correct or not, but just an open discussion about their thoughts.

We think the PS-plan has been great opportunity for us as social educator-students to further expand our knowledge and practice the physical aspect of hosting a class. We also felt like the students built a good relationship to us, as well as our PS-classes have helped them be more aware of their rights, their needs, and what can be done to obtain this.