At one point, he asked two of the students to run fast around the building, and
had the group observe them and take their pulse. Then he asked
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After the group had given their ideas (which were mostly
correct), he asked:
He spoke in the people’s language, using the village names for different parts of
the body: ‘guts’ for intestines and ‘belly’ for abdomen.
In this way, the students themselves were able to piece together many of the
different systems of the body and their functions. It was like solving a mystery or
putting together a puzzle. The students loved it. And everyone understood. The
class was noisy and went overtime, but no one objected—this time not even the
nurse!
Of course, some of the body systems were forgotten, and others were barely
mentioned.
“There is a lot more to the body than we have talked about today,” explained the
group leader at the close of the class. “But we will talk about other parts of the
body and how they work when we need to, to understand about particular health
problems as they come up.” (See p. 5-11.)
By the time the visiting nurse left, she had changed her mind—and said so. She
had seen that, in spite of certain inaccuracies and shortcomings of the teaching, the
students had learned more and taken a more active part in the classes taught by
their fellow villagers!
•
Not all the credit is due, of course, to the fact that the instructors were villagers
themselves. Much of the difference was in the teaching methods they used. But
the technique of building on the students’ own knowledge and experience is
often easier for a local person who shares a common background.
In Project Piaxtla in Mexico, we (the authors) and other outsiders used to do most
of the teaching for the health worker training courses. Then, several years ago,
the local health team (made up entirely of experienced village health workers) took
charge of the training. The first year that the course was taught by the village team
only. 3 students were present who had taken previous courses taught by outsiders.
When asked which course they thought better and more appropriate, all 3 agreed,
“This one, taught by the village health workers.” Their reasons: