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 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .
Case Study 3: Using a local person to learn about local food
Mr Jumba asks Mrs Mugerwa to visit his class to talk about local food. Mrs Mugerwa is the wife of the local chief and every year she visits schools to help the children learn about how food is cooked and stored.
She takes cassava flour, maize meal, plantain, dried fish and meat to the school and she tells the pupils about cooking with them and drying them in the sun.
They identify all the foods that are available locally. See Resource 3 for some pictures of Ugandan foods. The pupils are excited about the visit and listen carefully. They enjoy tasting the small sample of fried plantains she cooks for them. Mrs Mugerwa talks about the grain harvest and how long the local store will last and the pupils find out how other local food is grown and stored. Mr Jumba saw how the new learning experience motivated his pupils as many of them come in the next day telling him how their parents cook and store some foods.
Key Activity: Using local resource people
This activity is about planning and carrying out a lesson where you invite a local expert into your class. To plan this effectively, you need to answer a series of questions and undertake various tasks as follows:
Which local resource people could visit your class? What health topic could they cover? For example:
- a farmer to talk about local food;
- a traditional healer to talk about beneficial plants and herbs;
- a housewife to talk about storing and cooking food;
- a nurse who can explain everyday hygienic practices.
You will need to:
- plan an activity to check the pupils’ prior knowledge of the topic;
- inform the visitor what to talk about and for how long;
- plan a pupils’ activity before the visit – e.g. thinking of questions to ask the visitor;
- plan a pupils’ activity after the visit to explore ideas further.
In the last activity, you could assess how much the pupils have learned by asking them to write stories or do role plays about their ideas to share with the class.
Now carry out your lesson as planned above and think about its effectiveness.
You could then develop your pupils’ findings into a class presentation for the school assembly.
2. Organising group discussions
