Module 1: Personal development – how self-esteem impacts on learning

Section 1: Ways to explore who pupils are

1. Organising pupils in groups and pairs

Young children often find it easier to identify difference rather than similarity. In this part, we show two ways to organise your pupils that will help them to explore differences and similarities.

They will:

• learn how to share information and contribute to discussions;
• learn about themselves and each other;
• have better self-esteem as they realise their ideas are as valued as much as those of others.

As a teacher, it is important for you to encourage this – if your pupils all understand their similarities and celebrate their differences, they will treat each other better. You should act as a role model, treating your pupils fairly and equally.

Before starting, it is a good idea to reflect on this and think about whether you treat your pupils respectfully. Do you ever have a ‘bad day’ when you shout at them for no good reason? Do you have favourites who you treat more kindly than others? If you can answer these questions honestly, you can take steps to make sure that all your pupils are treated fairly and respectfully.

To work in this way, you need to ask yourself questions to help you plan these activities, including: What questions will the pupils ask each other? What information will they need to find out? Will they work in groups? In pairs? How will you organise this? How will you give them instructions to do the activities? See what the teacher does in Case Study 1 before trying Activity 1 with your class.

2. Finding out what pupils think and feel

Understanding differences in people’s opinions and feelings is important in developing good relationships. This is essential when dealing with a class of young people, from many different contexts, (backgrounds and settings), with different opinions and feelings. Your pupils need to understand this to help them communicate effectively and sensitively with each other.

However, before we can learn to understand different opinions and feelings, we first need to recognise them.

You can compare people’s opinions by organising a survey. You need to plan how to:

• organise the survey;
• explain it to the pupils;
• check that they have understood.

Case Study 2 and Activity 2 show ways of doing this, and Resource 2: Asking questions about feelings offers some ideas to help your planning.

Case Study 2: Using groups to discuss opinions and feelings

One week Mr Obeng used the ‘Do you like...?’ survey with his primary 5 class (see Activity 2). He recorded their answers and stuck them on the wall. He often found pupils reading them and talking together.

The next week, Mr Obeng asked again about likes and dislikes, but this time, he drew two faces on the board:

For each question, they counted the number of ‘likes’ in the class and wrote the number under face a. They wrote the number of ‘dislikes’ under face b.

To introduce the idea of feelings, he wrote ‘HAPPY’ above face a, and ‘SAD’ above face b. In groups of four or five, the pupils named things that made them feel happy or sad. Working in small groups helped involve the quieter pupils.

He repeated the exercise, this time using:

In their groups, the pupils named things that made them feel angry or frightened. They shared the main ideas together as a class. They looked at whether some things occurred in more than one list and discussed why this might be. Mr Obeng was pleased with how thoughtful they were.

3. Respecting differences

Appreciating the similarities and differences among your pupils will help you become a more effective teacher. You will be able to plan better to match their needs. If your pupils also understand themselves and others, they will become more confident about participating in class.

As the pupils realise the ways in which they are different from other people, it is important that they should not start to feel isolated or left out. Part of your role is to help them understand that agreeing with people on one thing and disagreeing on others is acceptable and not a reason for conflict.

When a child is seen to be different because of how they look or behave, other children may bully or tease them. Bullying can make children very unhappy. It damages their schoolwork and stops them from making friends.

Children need to learn how to interact with each other. Your role as teacher is crucial for helping them understand the difference between right and wrong.

How can you encourage this? Read Resource 4: Observing your pupils for an initial suggestion. Below are some other ideas you can use. Try them out. Are they successful? Did you have any problems?

Resource 1: Similarities and differences

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

There are many ways in which people are the same, from physical features to personality. There are also many ways in which we are different. However, for young pupils, it is often more important for them to feel the same as others and be part of the group.

By understanding ways in which we are all the same, we make the first steps towards understanding ourselves. We also begin to see ways in which we are part of a group or a community. Helping pupils understand that they and their classmates are all equal and should treat each other fairly is an important part of a teacher’s role.

The most obvious way in which people are different is in their appearance. Some are tall, some are short. Some are fat, some are thin. If you are working with your pupils to explain similarities and differences between people, then looking at physical features is an easy place to start. For example, what are the physical similarities and differences between Michael Essien and Kofi Annan?

Original source: http://212.95.232.145/ fapl/ html_gb/ players/ player_1055.htm (Accessed 2008)

Original source:http://www.undp.org (Accessed 2008)

You must also be careful: like adults, children can be sensitive about their appearance, so you should try not to draw attention to something that a pupil might be embarrassed about. Instead, focus on similarities such as ‘We all wear clothes’. You will need to be especially careful if you have children with physical disabilities in your class.

In addition, children sometimes tease or bully other children, and drawing attention to differences in appearance might encourage them to behave like this outside of the class. So, as well as helping pupils identify their differences in appearance, you should also emphasise how many similarities there are. If pupils can see the connections between themselves and others, they are more likely to treat others with respect.

While it is easier to see the similarities and differences between people’s appearances – the way we look – it is probably more important for pupils to understand the similarities and differences between people’s personalities – the ways we think, feel and behave.

Our opinions and feelings influence the way we behave with other people. They can be summarised as follows:

• ‘Opinions’ cover what people think about things – whether they like or dislike something, or whether they agree or disagree with something. Differences in opinion can sometimes cause arguments and fights, whether with children or adults. Opinions can be based on clear factual knowledge or hearsay which is not always accurate.
• ‘Feelings’ cover people’s emotions – whether something makes them feel happy, sad, angry or frightened etc. Feelings can sometimes be hard to explain, and if someone has different feelings about something to you, it can be difficult for you to understand it.

As children grow up, it is important for them to be able to understand their feelings and emotions, interact with other people, and recognise the needs of others. It is important for children to learn that not everybody thinks and feels the same way that they do. Each person’s ideas, feelings and opinions will have been influenced by their home environment, experiences and careers. This diversity (variety) should not be seen as a problem – except where it goes against legally accepted behaviour. The activities in this module will help pupils begin to appreciate such diversity as a basis for friendship and working together.

As a teacher, you need to understand the feelings of your pupils and make sure that you consider their feelings and differences as you plan their learning. You must be considerate of the fact that some children will enjoy certain activities – e.g. talking in front of the class – and others will not.

However, you must also be fair and equal with your pupils. If you treat each of your pupils differently in class, the children will see this and begin doing the same, both inside and outside of school.

Which feelings are expressed in the photos below? How do you know?

Original source: Rod Waddington via https://www.flickr.com

Original source: 'hdptcar' via https://www.flickr.com

Original source: Matt Lucht via https://www.flickr.com

Resource 2: Asking questions about feelings

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

You need to be sensitive when asking questions about feelings. Children might not always want to talk about their feelings in public. You need to ask the kinds of questions that allow children to give answers they feel comfortable with.

One way to do this is to ask questions to the whole class instead of to individuals. Ask questions such as: ‘Who likes …’ and ‘Who doesn’t like …’ with pupils putting up their hands. If they see that they are part of a group, the children will feel less embarrassed about revealing their feelings.

You can do the same by brainstorming different questions (see Key Resource: Using mind maps and brainstorming to explore ideas). For example, ask: ‘What makes you scared?’ and then write all the pupils’ ideas down on the board very quickly. This way, you won’t make the individuals feel too exposed.

If you want them to talk more intimately about their feelings, organise them into pairs or groups to do similar exercises. They will probably find it easier to speak in a small group.

You can also use stories to explore sensitive ideas – this helps pupils to talk more freely as they do not feel they are talking about their own experiences.

You can make up your own stories to share with your pupils. Or you could use the story of Ghanaian street children below to stimulate discussion. Either copy the sheet – one for each group – or read from your copy to the whole class.

After they have heard the story taken from Street Children News, ask them how they feel about the children’s lives. Are they similar or different to their own lives? How would they feel about living like that? What would they like and dislike about this kind of life?

‘Street’ children have been given this anonymous label because the ‘street’ is where they live their lives out: hustling, sleeping, working, eating. The street is their home and this is where their daily struggle is endured.

Original source: http://www.streetchildafrica.org.uk (Accessed 2008)

Street boys at night on the streets

Currently in Africa there are a few national governments addressing the very real needs of these marginalised citizens; but there simply is not enough money to go around. It is up to grass-roots organisations and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) to reach out to these children and offer them a helping hand.

Original source: http://www.streetchildafrica.org.uk (Accessed 2008)

Street boys in the market, their home – at night

It gets cold at night in the winter and so street children sniff glue as a guard against the cold and to escape from their struggle to survive for a few short hours.

In 2003, Wendy Jones asked street children in Accra some simple questions and recorded what they said. Their lives may seem very different from our lives but by reading their replies we can see that they are people just like us, often with the same dreams and aspirations.

Adapted from:http://streetchildafrica.org.uk (Accessed 2008)

Resource 3: How to conduct a class survey

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

Conducting a survey is a very useful way for your pupils to practise many different skills. These include:

• asking questions;
• recording different types of information;
• comparing answers;
• practising speaking and writing;
• finding out more about each other.

However, you need to think and plan very carefully to organise a survey in your class, and also how you will explain it to your pupils.

A survey is a way of gathering information from many different people on a particular topic. It can explore a range of opinions in a group, and help to find out more about individuals.

To gather the information, a survey usually uses a chart to record the responses. The chart below is one example where the answers could be recorded easily and quickly by using a Y for a yes and and N for a no in each box:

A survey is an interesting way for pupils to practise finding out information for themselves.

Because a survey has many different stages, it can take a whole lesson to complete – or longer, if pupils have to ask people outside school. Providing time for the data collection to happen is especially important so that everyone is involved and able to see the process in action.

When deciding to do a survey with your class, you need to think carefully about what the survey will be about – what information will you find out? Clearly, the survey should be linked in some way to the topic in class. For example, if teaching about similarities and differences, a survey about the different foods people like might be an idea. The pupils will be more involved if they suggest ideas themselves.

It is important at this stage to think about the skills that your pupils need to develop and practise. Design a survey that matches your learning objectives.

In any survey, it is good for the pupils to think of and write their own questions – each pupil or group of pupils should come up with their own ideas. But you need to think about how you will organise the pupils to do this. Pair or group work is good if it is the first time that they have done this, as then they can check each other’s work.

To help pupils do a survey you may need to decide (by yourself or with the pupils):

• how they are to work e.g. individually, in pairs, or in groups;
• how many questions they should write (3–5 is usually enough);
• what types of questions they should ask (provide some examples yourself and ask them for some more examples to check that they understand);
• how much time they will have to write the questions (10–15 minutes should be enough for 3–5 questions)

It is important to do all the above with the whole class together before they start working. As they work, go round and monitor their work to check that they really have understood the task.

The type of question they will write depends on the kind of information that they want to find out. For example, if the idea of the survey is to gather information about the numbers of pupils who think/like/do something, then they might write ‘Yes/No’ questions: e.g. ‘Do you like football?’

However, if the idea of the survey is to gather information about the range of interests in the class, then they might write ‘open-ended’ questions: e.g. ‘What sports do you like?’ They will have to think of ways to record the answers.

Every pupil should practise asking and answering questions on a one-to-one basis. Think carefully about how you would organise this. Here are a few suggestions:

• Pupils do not need to speak to everybody in the class. This would take too much time and also be very repetitive. A sample of five pupils may be enough, and maybe no more than ten pupils – depending on the size of your class.
• If they wrote their questions in pairs or groups, they shouldn’t ask each other the questions. Instead, suggest they ask others in the class or school.

Organising pupils into groups to do the survey can be useful if you have a large class. You also need to ensure that all pupils are involved in writing and asking the questions. (See Key Resource: Using group work in your classroom.)

The pupils need to be clear about the responses they are recording and keep these as short as possible.

For example, if they are asking open-ended questions, they can write down one-word answers: Q: What sports do you like? A: football/running/jumping.

If they are asking Yes/No questions, they can write Y or N as an answer.

If they are gathering information on numbers, they could just keep a tally, with one mark representing one person: e.g.

Again, plan this carefully, and explain it to the pupils before they gather their data. To check they understand, you could ask them to explain it to you, too.

After the pupils have asked questions and recorded the information, it is good for them to talk in pairs or groups about their data and compare answers. This data can be used to discuss people’s likes and dislikes and they could draw graphs of the results to make it easy to see the differences and discuss what they mean.

Displaying their findings or asking them to write about their findings will help you understand their thinking and give them the opportunity to think more deeply about the data.

Resource 4: Observing your pupils

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

Observing or watching your pupils at work in the classroom or playing in the playground is a very good way to build up a picture of them as people. It tells you who they mix with and whether any pupils are isolated. Such information can help you plan activities that better match their needs.

Are they more talkative in groups?” If so, use group work to help them to explore their ideas and therefore learn more. You can observe at two levels by looking at:

• the social groups in your class and how they do or do not interact. What kinds of conflicts are there, if any? How can you use this knowledge to plan group work?
• individuals and their social skills, interests etc. (Finding out and acknowledging what pupils are interested in outside and inside school can be a very powerful way of motivating them to learn.)

Some aspects you could look out for as you watch your pupils are in the table below. But remember to keep an open mind and readjust your picture as you get to know your pupils better.

Below is an example of how to record pupil observation. A version of this was used in the Literacy Development Across the Curriculum programme in Nigeria.

Tick the appropriate column in terms of the pupil you are observing.

0 = not at all; 1=poor; 2 = fair; 3= good

Acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources:

Section 2: Planning physical growth and development sessions

1. Focus on planning

It is important to prepare yourself for lessons by checking your own subject knowledge. Read Resource 1: Introduction to physical development to refresh your understanding.

You need to think carefully about how you will introduce this topic. Just reading out information and hoping that the pupils understand is not the best way for most pupils to learn. You need to plan your lesson carefully, thinking about what will happen at each stage of the lesson and finding out what they already know and think. See Key Resource: Planning and preparing your lessons  for further information.

Each lesson should have a particular learning outcome (intention). In this case, you want the pupils to be able to identify the four basic things that contribute to improved physical development.

For each stage of the lesson, you need to answer three questions:

• How does this activity contribute to the learning outcome?
• What will the pupils be doing to help them learn?
• What will I be doing to support them?

Look at the games and activities you could use. Which ones will support your learning outcomes?

2. Using games in your teaching

In the first part of this section, you considered ways to plan teaching your pupils about physical development. We are now going to look at one element of this: the physical exercise pupils may get while at school or at home.

First, read Resource 3: Using games and physical exercise for ideas.

When planning to use games in your teaching, you need to think about:

• the content of the game, so that it helps the pupils reach the learning objectives you have set for the lesson;
• the organisation of the game:
  • How do you play the game?
  • How will you give instructions to the pupils?
  • How will you check they understand how to play?
  • Will they play in pairs, groups or as a class?
  • Where will they play – inside or outside?
  • How long will they play for?

3. Teaching about healthy living

In the first part of this section, we identified key factors needed for healthy physical development. Now we investigate how your school can promote these ideas with the pupils and local community.

Having discussed using exercise and games in your lessons, you now need to promote the importance of a) good food, b) protection from illnesses, and c) clean surroundings, but this will have to be done sensitively.

This can be done by making the school a health-promoting environment.

This will involve discussion with the school staff, about:

• setting the school up as a good example for pupils and the community. To resource this, you may need to plan to involve the community and other people to work together, such as local health clinics and NGOs;
• encouraging healthy living practices in your school by having health promotion activities as part of the regular routine;
• having inputs from experts such as HIV/AIDS coordinators and health clinics. Who will be involved, and when?

Resource 1: Introduction to physical development

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

We are all growing all the time. We are growing physically, but are also extending our ideas and understanding, and often these are happening alongside each other.

During the years that children are at school, they go through many physical changes. You can see this by comparing pupils in different classes. The older children are taller and stronger, and they can usually also express themselves better. As part of the natural process, children also develop sexually once they reach their teenage years.

Children cannot develop and grow on their own. Just like a plant needs water, sun and good health to develop, people need certain things to help them. They include:

• good food;
• exercise;
• protection from illnesses;
• clean surroundings.

Each of these things contributes to the physical development of the child.

• If a child does not eat well, they will not grow as quickly as others. Food contributes to other things too: the amount of energy that children have, how much they are protected from illness etc.
• If children do not exercise, they will not develop their arm and leg muscles and so will not be as strong. Physical exercise also helps develop their bodily coordination when doing exercises like running, jumping and rope skipping. Coordination helps with other skills, like reading and writing. Physical exercise is also good for well-being and physical growth.
• If children are not protected from illnesses, they will become sick more often, which will affect the way in which they grow. If children are ill, they cannot exercise, and so will not develop their muscles. If they are ill, they also find it hard to study, and so will fall behind in their learning.
• If children do not have clean surroundings, they are more likely to catch diseases. Diseases will affect them in the same way as illnesses.

It is important for you to introduce these simple ideas to your pupils at an early stage so that they can get into healthy habits as part of their everyday lives, but you will need to be sensitive to the context of the community in which you work.

Resource 2: Planning ways to introduce the four principles of physical development

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

Look back at Section 1 of this module. Pupils were comparing ways in which they were the same and different. How could you use this classroom activity to introduce the four principles of physical development?

For example, you could ask them to compare their ages and sizes, and the different foods that they eat.

To cover the four principles of physical development in a lesson plan, think about these questions:

• What is the key thing you want them to learn?
• How will you introduce the topic?
• How will you organise the first activity? What will your instructions be? Will the pupils work in groups or pairs?
• How will you demonstrate the four principles?
• What resources could you use to help explain them? For example, could you use pictures? Could you bring in different kinds of food? Where would you get them?
• How will you check the pupils’ understanding?
• What issues do you need to be sensitive to?

Write down your answers to these questions on a piece of paper. Then use these to plan each stage of your lesson. Remember to always be sensitive to the context in which you are working in so as not to embarrass pupils.

Resource 3: Using games and physical exercise

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

Physical exercise serves many functions. As we know, it helps children build up their strength and fitness. But it can also help pupils to develop social, creative and leadership skills. It can help pupils make friends and learn new things, and it contributes to their emotional well-being.

Think about the range of different physical games and exercises there are:

• sports e.g. football, wrestling;
• play e.g. skipping, dancing, running games;
• word and number games e.g. singing, rhymes.

Children will automatically invent and play games with each other and you can exploit this as part of your teaching.

The use of physical games and exercises as part of your teaching can encourage pupils to enjoy learning, and so develop a greater interest in coming to school.

By using physical games as part of your teaching, you will also encourage pupils to learn new skills and behaviour patterns.

These can include:

• collaborative learning;
• thinking skills;
• sharing resources and taking turns;
• motivation and involvement in learning.

All of these are attributes you should encourage in the classroom, as they will contribute to more effective learning.

Below you will find some examples of Kenyan games that use physical exercise.

SHISWECHELI

Play instruments: A piece of broken pottery, a ten-cent coin or a shapely stone. A pattern drawn on the ground. Age group: 5 to 6 years and above Players: One to four How to play: The first player throws a piece of pottery, or coin, or stone, into the first segment of the pattern. She jumps on one leg over this compartment into the second compartment as she plays. She then jumps into the other compartments until the last one. At the 4th and 5th compartments, she stands astride with one foot in the 4th compartment and the other in the 5th. The same is repeated at compartments 8 and 9 before she proceeds. At compartment 10, she turns back the same way she came until she reaches the compartments before the piece of pottery. She bends, picks it up, and jumps over this compartment to the outside with the piece. She then throws the piece into the second compartment and continues the game, jumping over the compartment with the piece to the last compartment, and turns back the same way she came, to the outside. This is repeated with the piece being thrown into each successive compartment until the last one has been covered. At this juncture she steps into compartment 10, with both feet still facing the front, and throws the piece over her head without looking back. If the piece falls well into one of the compartments, it becomes her territory. If at any point the player aims at a compartment and misses, she loses, and another player takes over the game.

Resource 4: How Mr Oyugi taught his lesson

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

Here are the stages Mr Oyugi used in his lesson:

1. Using the ‘likes and dislikes’ activity covered in Section 1 of this module, everybody wrote down five games they liked most.
2. Mr Oyugi asked the pupils to talk, in pairs, about their favourite games and choose one between them. This took ten minutes.
3. To do the survey, he stood at the front of the class asking each pair which game they had chosen.
4. He wrote the game on the board and put one tick next to it. If it was a game someone else had already mentioned, he just added a tick. The list on the board started to look like this:

   • Football ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

   • Skipping ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

   • Clapping ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

   • Catch ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

   • Marbles ✓ ✓ ✓

5. The survey took 15 minutes to complete. Next, he asked which game was most popular and which least popular.
6. He asked the class to get into seven groups of five. He asked each group to choose one game and write a description for the class of how to play it.
7. He asked them to read their instructions to the class.

There were too many games to describe in one lesson so he decided to do one new game during the last lesson of each day.

To help with this, he gave each group the name of a day of the week. Now each group knew when they should give their description. At the beginning of each day, he asked whose turn it was today.

These lessons used the following format:

1. First, the group gave their description of the game and demonstrated it in front of the whole class. This took about ten minutes.
2. Then all the other groups practised playing the game as well. If necessary, Mr Oyugi took them outside. This took 15 minutes.
3. Next, he asked them to think about new ways of playing the game so that it helped them remember what they had learned in class that day.
4. Each group came up with different ideas for adapting the game. This discussion usually lasted about 15 minutes.
5. Finally, they discussed some of the changes and tried them out together until the end of the lesson.

This way, Mr Oyugi started using his pupils’ games to help with teaching different subjects. The best ideas he used again. Also, the pupils started playing the new learning games in their free time.

Resource 5: Mr Oyugi’s other ideas for health promotion

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

As well as Sports Day, Mr Oyugi came up with some other ideas for health promotion at school, such as:

• Pupils and teachers could clean the playground and classrooms after assembly every morning.
• Using rubbish bins would stop people dropping rubbish just anywhere. (It would also stop dogs and rats coming into the school and reduce the possibility of the children and teachers catching diseases or falling ill.)
• Using the school as a local inoculation centre when the health workers were visiting would ensure that children and teachers would all receive regular inoculations. It would also mean that the children would receive some additional health guidance from doctors and nurses.
• Establishing connections between the school and local and visiting health workers would help the school with health resources.
• Developing a school garden would provide food (such as vegetables to make soup) and exercise, as well as learning about the environment.
• A first aid/rest area or room could be created.
• The school could invite visitors to come and talk about particular problems, e.g. HIV/AIDS, malaria.
• They could run after-school exercise or games clubs.

Resource 6: Picture of an unhealthy school environment

 Teacher resource for planning or adapting to use with pupils

Original Source: Life Skills for Young Ugandans, Secondary teacher training manual. (UNICEF)

Acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources:

Section 3: Exploring pupils’ ideas about healthy living

1. Building on prior knowledge

Your pupils need to know what foods are best for them, but just telling them is not enough. Here, we look at more interactive ways to help them learn and understand.

Importantly, they may already have some ideas about the topic. To find out what these are, you could start your lesson by:

• introducing the topic and asking them ‘What can you tell me about … ’ and noting down their ideas;
• organising them into pairs or small groups to talk about the topic and giving them some open-ended questions to guide their discussion;
• asking them to give their responses, and listing the key ideas you want to take further.

Having found out your pupils’ prior knowledge, your planning – and therefore your teaching – will better match their needs. See Key Resource: Using questioning to promote thinking  to help you think of questions to guide their discussions.

2. Organising group discussions

You have introduced your pupils to some ideas about food and nutrition and given them the opportunity to contribute their own ideas during the activities.

However, in talking about healthy living, you also need to encourage them to develop healthy habits, using what they already know. By using discussion you can encourage them to think about their own daily habits and identify ways to improve them.

Possible discussion topics are:

• exercise;
• eating as balanced a diet as possible;
• keeping food safe;
• keeping clean.

Organising a discussion needs careful planning. Where will the groups work? Who will be in which group? You might want groups where there is a good mix of personalities to help discussions and someone to act as leader.

To encourage pupils to participate, set the groups three or four questions. One or two can be easy to answer – e.g. Name three healthy habits – and the others should encourage pupils to explain their ideas – e.g. Which habit do you think is the most important? Why do you say this?

It is important that they respect other ideas and listen carefully to each other.

3. Using local resource people

There are many things for children to know about if they are to remain healthy. Some of these they can learn in school, but many things they can learn at home or in the community.

To encourage them to learn more from the community, you can devise ways to help them find out who they can learn from. This will motivate them to want to learn. One way to encourage this is to give the children homework where they ask their parents or grandparents about something. How would you help the children do this? For example, what information will they gather? What questions will they ask? How will they record the information?

Another way is to invite people from the local community, who know about local healthy practices, into the classroom. This is what one teacher does in Case Study 3. See also Key Resource: Using the local community/environment as a resource.

Resource 1: Healthy living practices

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

The following information is useful for different topics associated with healthy living. Use this as a resource for designing activities and guiding discussions.

Types of food

It is important to eat and, if possible, to eat a balanced diet. Foods can be grouped in many different ways and here is one that is commonly used in Africa. It lists four basic food groups, and each one helps us in a different way:

1. Grains – this includes food like bread, rice, maize and fufu. Eating these gives us the energy to do physical work. Grains, which are carbohydrates give us energy.
2. Fruits and vegetables – these are important because they give us the vitamins and minerals we need to be healthy. Eating them helps us stop getting ill.
3. Meat, chicken, fish, eggs, beans and nuts – all these have protein in them. Protein helps build muscles. You need protein to grow big and strong.
4. Dairy foods – this includes milk, cheese, and yogurt. These types of food have a lot of calcium. Calcium is important because it helps build strong bones and teeth.

Eating a mixture of these foods gives us good nutrition. Eating only one of these things every day can cause health problems. However, some food is better than no food.

Many children like to eat sweets and sugar. This is fine in small amounts, as it gives us energy. But too much sugar is bad for the teeth because it can cause tooth decay. Too much sugar can also make us fat.

Original source: Jon Mountjoy via https://www.flickr.com/ photos/ mountjoy/ 5182202725/

Original source: 'Woodlouse' via https://www.flickr.com/ photos/ woodlouse/ 3964189738/

Keeping food safe

To keep food safe, there are a number of things you need to think about.

Firstly, foods can go bad or rot. These include most vegetables, fish and meat, but some take longer to go bad than others. They go rotten when they have been left alone too long. When they rot, they start to smell awful, and if you eat them they can make you sick.

To stop fresh food from rotting, it is good to keep it as cool and dry as possible. Another way to stop fresh food rotting is to preserve it. This involves drying the meat, fish or vegetable either in the hot sun or over a fire.

Secondly, some food, especially food in cans, can go bad if it is kept too long and not stored properly.

Thirdly, some food, especially meat, can make us sick if it is cooked once and then heated up again but not reheated thoroughly. It is best to only cook what you are going to eat on that day. If you do heat up cooked food, make sure it is thoroughly heated through.

Finally, animals including many insects also like food, but if they touch our food they leave germs that can give us diseases and illnesses. Try and keep your food covered up. If you have a box or container to keep it in, this is best.

Why we clean our surroundings

We clean our surroundings to protect us from dirt and diseases. People can get ill from coming into contact with many different things. These include:

• animals and insects;
• rotting food;
• rubbish;
• animal and human faeces;
• chemicals;
• dirty clothes.

For this reason, it is good to clear these things away from where we live, eat or sleep. You can do this easily by cleaning your surroundings every day and collecting the rubbish and dirt in one place away from where you stay.

Good hygiene practices

There are many kinds of good hygiene practices you can do every day. The reasons for these are to keep us clean and to protect us from picking up illnesses.

Some good practices include:

• washing ourselves every day if possible;
• cleaning our teeth every day if possible ;
• washing our hands before eating or cooking;
• washing our hands after going to the toilet;
• keeping our house, clothes and surroundings as clean as possible;
• not going to the toilet near the house or kitchen;
• not leaving food lying around in the open.

The best kinds of exercise

Any regular exercise is a good thing, but it is always good to try and make it a habit.

The sorts of exercise that you can do regularly include:

• walking or running to school;
• playing games, e.g. football;
• swimming;
• working in the field;
• housework.

It is important to try and do some exercise every day, because it helps build up your muscles, your heart, and your overall fitness. If you don’t exercise regularly, you will find it more difficult when you try to. You will feel weak and short of breath.

Resource 2: Ideas for classroom displays

 Teacher resource for planning or adapting to use with pupils

Cardboard box display Pin display work on the sides of the box. Sew or tape cardboard sheets together to make a box. A box can show eight sides.
Display beams and hooks Make a beam supported by two nails or loops of wire that can be hung on the wall, or suspended from a fixed beam. Hooks or wire allow easy and swift display.

Display charts Display charts can be made from durable cement bags, cloth, cardboard boxes, sleeping mats and blankets. To make the chart hang flat, attach a strip of wood to the top and either another strip of wood or weights to the bottom. Strips at top and bottom will strengthen the chart and make it last longer. Attach items to be displayed to the chart with office pins, cactus needles or sharpened matchsticks.

Adapted from: Byers, Childs & Laine, The Science Teacher’s Handbook published by VSO/Heinemann

Resource 3: Local foods

 Teacher resource for planning or adapting to use with pupils

The four photographs show some of the common fruits and vegetables that are available in many parts of Nigeria and also how some of these are prepared ready for eating.

These pictures can be used as a stimulus for discussion when exploring what pupils like to eat in Activity 1 and again in the Key Activity about healthy living if you have no access to magazines.

Your pupils could discuss why these foods are particularly good for them, which they like and how they cook them or eat them.

Various foods Original source: http://www.destination-connect.com (Accessed 2008)	Women harvesting Original source: http://africa.oneworld.net (Accessed 2008)
Food market in Kenya Original source: http://www.climatechoices.org.uk	Some prepared foods Original source: http://stephenleahy.wordpress.com (Accessed 2008)

Acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources:

Section 4: Activities to support emotional well-being

1. Teaching children to share

Games are practical activities that pupils can participate in, for fun and for learning. They can also teach pupils how to interact with each other to share ideas and objects. Sharing is important at school because:

• many schools have few resources, and pupils need to use resources in groups;
• pupils have different skills, and sharing encourages them to help each other;
• encouraging sharing and group work means that everyone is learning even if you can’t speak to all of your pupils individually;
• sharing is part of life and we all need to cooperate every day;
• by sharing, people learn how to give support to others and ask for it in return;
• sharing is one way people make friends with each other and it encourages good social interaction.

Here, we are going to look at ideas for sharing activities and how you can encourage sharing as part of your everyday teaching.

2. Building self-esteem

As a teacher, one of your most important roles is to encourage and support your pupils as learners and people.

An educational psychologist called Abraham Maslow has identified some emotional needs that are important in order to learn well. These include feelings of:

• safety and security;
• love and belonging;
• self-esteem.

Every pupil has the desire for high achievement, which can be measured by self-esteem. Pupils show this in the classroom by being keen to answer questions. If they feel stupid, it damages their self-esteem and discourages them.

However, if you show them their answers might be right or are interesting, it boosts pupils’ self-esteem and encourages participation and high achievement.

You can encourage this in the classroom by being a positive and affirmative teacher. This means:

• being positive and respectful so pupils feel confident enough to contribute;
• making sure that nobody is made to feel stupid or embarrassed when contributing their ideas;
• making sure that everybody understands the lesson’s most important focus.

To do this, you need to develop teaching strategies that do not reject any answer that is given, but you use the pupils’ responses to guide them to think more deeply. By doing this, you will be building pupils’ self-esteem.

3. Creating a caring environment

We have talked about how to help pupils identify and explain their feelings. As emotions are strong reflections of who we are as individuals, they can also make us react in ways that we can’t always control.

Our feelings and behaviour are linked to two things:

• the particular situations we are in;
• our emotional reactions to situations, and our understanding of what is the socially acceptable way to show our feelings.

For example, one of your pupils might be over-excited. Your immediate reaction may be to feel annoyed. But to show this might spoil the good classroom atmosphere. So, to diffuse the situation, you ask her to sit down quietly, or give her a task like giving out books to distract her.

Younger pupils take time to fully understand their emotions and the social rules that say how we should behave. When young, we often experience emotional situations for the first time and don’t know how to react. As we grow older, we learn to understand our emotions better, and to control how we react in different situations.

Here, we are going to look at ways you can encourage this in your classroom.

Resource 1:Reflecting on your behaviour

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

Using the questions below, think about your own behaviour as a teacher. Be honest in your answers. Are there examples from your classroom activities that support your ideas?

• Are you a positive or a negative teacher in the way you treat your pupils? How could you be more positive?
• Do you try to encourage them or discourage them? How? How can you encourage them more?
• Do you make them happy when they are learning? How?
• Do you ever make them sad, angry or scared? How?
• What aspect of your teaching behaviour do you want to change? How can you do this?
• What aspect of your pupils’ social behaviour would you like to change? How could you help them achieve this?

Resource 2: Mrs Chosane’s reflections on her approach

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

Mrs Chosane was on an in-service course on developing positive self-esteem in her classroom with teachers from the local district. As part of the course, they had been asked to keep a diary for two days in the next week and record as often as was possible all the times they praised their pupils and times when they told them off or ignored their behaviour.

They used a chart like that in the table below and put a tick in for each time they did one of these things. Sometimes it was not possible to fill it in during the lesson as it was so busy, but Mrs Chosanekept the chart in the book of her lesson plans so she could do it when she had a moment, or as soon as the lesson finished.

When they went to the next course session, they were asked to examine the data and identify which they did most. Did they do more telling off in classes? If so, could they think why?

Through group discussion, the tutor, Mrs Mbatha, asked them to think what they could do to increase the positive atmosphere in their classes. Each group had to list six things they could do to develop the positive classroom atmosphere.

Mrs Chosanesaw from her data that she was more negative with her pupils in science lessons than in other lessons, and wondered why. Maybe it was because she felt less confident of her own knowledge and had not liked science herself. She often felt less organised and more nervous in case the pupils asked her questions.

She made a list of things she could do to help her class and her own interaction with her pupils:

• 1 Have well-prepared lessons.
• 2 Check my own subject knowledge.
• 3 Think about what questions to ask the pupils and what answers to expect.
• 4 Think of ways to accept their answers, for example:
  • (a) ‘That’s an interesting idea, but can you think a little more about…’ and then ask the first question again in a different way.
  • (b) ‘I hadn’t thought of that idea – how could we link it to my first question?’
  • With each of these, the pupil is encouraged to think more and participate more and is not told that they are stupid or wrong.
• 5 Give my pupils the chance to raise their own questions about a topic if they don’t understand. Allow other pupils to give answers to these rather than just me.

Gradually, over the next few weeks, she became more confident and found that because she was better prepared, she didn’t get as anxious and therefore she shouted less. Her pupils began to enjoy their science lessons more and more.

Section 5: Ways to promote spiritual well-being

1. Helping pupils feel safe

Your behaviour in school can have a big impact, both positive and negative, on pupils’ behaviour and motivation to learn. So, too, can the ways pupils interact with each other. We have already discussed some ways you can encourage your pupils to consider each other’s feelings. Here, we talk more about helping them feel safe and more secure, because when they do, they will learn better.

Everyone strives to be safe and secure. In many places, people build houses with strong walls, windows and doors so that they feel safe inside their property. Other people put guards on their houses and cars. And others even walk around with weapons for security purposes.

But these things only protect us physically. As we have seen, people feel emotionally safe when they are surrounded by people they trust. The best way to do this is to develop a supportive network of friends and partners.

At school, when pupils feel unsafe, insecure or worried, they cannot learn effectively.

2. Ensuring spiritual well-being

What we like and dislike can affect how we learn. Activities that we like and interest us provide motivation, whereas activities we dislike can prevent learning.

Pupils’ feelings and personalities have a big effect on how they respond to different activities. Some children are very shy and will not speak in front of others, whereas some love performing. Some pupils like working alone, others are better in a group. Some like to learn by reading, others by talking.

You need to find out what types of activities your pupils like and dislike to help you plan your lessons better. This will fulfil their spiritual well-being, which in turn will help them to learn better.

3. Celebrating success

Read Resource 1: Celebrations.

When you provide positive support to your pupils, you help them celebrate their achievements. This can include:

• recognition of their success and achievements;
• recognition of their skills and talents.

Pupils respond well to positive support. When you celebrate their achievements you provide them with:

• encouragement;
• motivation to achieve more;
• improved self-esteem and confidence.

A celebration does not have to be a big event. Just saying ‘Well done!’ to a pupil is a small celebration and provides the positive support described above.

You can also celebrate as a class or school.

This part looks at ways to help celebrate skills and talents. These might not be academic skills and talents but things that the pupils are very good at or enjoy doing outside of school.

In celebrating these, you are showing that the school:

• recognises the range of abilities that your pupils have;
• supports the pupils in other aspects of their lives.

This will encourage your pupils to feel that school is a place where they are admired and respected in many different ways.

Resource 1: Celebrations

 Background information / subject knowledge for teacher

Spiritual well-being means being happy with your everyday life. This covers a wide range of things, including:

• having good health;
• being emotionally supported;
• having good relations with those around you;
• being able to enjoy your daily activities, including study, work and play.

One way to help develop this is to identify and celebrate those events in life that make us happy, for example, special occasions like religious festivals, birthdays and special holidays.

Part of the idea behind these celebrations is to spend time with family and friends. During these celebrations, we enjoy their company and feel secure and happy. Celebrations often have particular foods, music, games and gifts that link to the celebration.

It is possible to celebrate life in a similar way at school. The school is like a community, and has many things that everybody enjoys doing together. Special days at school could tie in with, for example:

• Religious festivals like Eid and Christmas;
• National Independence Day;
• World Environment Day;
• World Literacy Day;
• Children’s Day;
• Open Day;
• Speech and Prize Giving Day;
• Workers’ Day;
• World Communication Day;
• World AIDS Day.

What sorts of activities could you plan to help celebrate?

Resource 2: Ghanaian celebrations

 Teacher resource for planning or adapting to use with pupils

Original source: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk (Accessed 2008)		http://news.bbc.co.uk (Accessed 2008)
	Celebrating a wedding in Ghana Original source: Barima via https://www.flickr.com/ photos/ barima_on/ 16971809039/
Celebrating Christmas in Ghana http://www.diasporaafricanforum.org/ (Accessed 2008)		Celebrating Eid in Ghana http://farm1.static.flickr.com/ (Accessed 2008)

Acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources: