Tuesday, 18th May 2010
Today was the health club meeting. The previous week I had asked the grandmothers on the health club committee what it is they want out of the health club and what they would want to learn about in the workshops. I was trying to gauge an understanding of what the grandmothers thought about health and what they perceived as their health needs as being.
This talk was unexpected, as I was originally planned to have this talk on May 4th. Interestingly I had read in the Tim’s research class that a lot of the things people do in service-learning gets “put on the shelf” to be used later on, when the timing is better because uexpected things comes up. I thought that my facilitation questions would eventually be used, I just didn’t think it would be that soon.
When I arrived on Tuesday morning (5/11), I was told that I was given a time to talk at the health club committee. Vivienne translated for me, and I had her first ask what they would want to get out of the health club, and to explain to them how I wanted to choose a topic for me to teach about that would be applicable to them. I have the example of high blood pressure, since the results of the indemnity forms filled out the previous week had indicated many of the women suffer from this. The women began discussing, and I was really surprised when Vivienne told me they needed “spectacles.” Glasses? Woah, not expecting that. They started talking about how expensive they were, and fortunately one of the grandmothers knew of a place that was cheaper. I tried to shift the direction of the conversation—as the first things they were talking about were access to health services. I asked them to think of things that the health club could help them with, as we can’t provide those kind of services really. Fortunately, they started talking about their bones and aches. This matched another finding from the indemnity forms that many of the grandmothers were suffering from arthritis.
I explained that in the next week, I would teach them some stretches, give them health logs to fill out through the week if they would be interested, and surveys about how they felt before and after. Vivienne said they were “looking forward to it.”
“Twenty minutes.” Althea told me on Thursday (5/13) I had twenty minutes because keeping it short would be best to maintain the grandmothers’ interests. I wasn’t sure how to go about doing that…from what I proposed at the health club meeting, I would definitely need twenty minutes. I made an agenda, health log spreadsheet and a very tentative survey, but I was hoping to be able to discuss it with them instead. I did some a little bit of reading on how to exercise for arthritis, and I was hoping that Althea would be able to help me.
The night before the meeting, I started doing the reading for Janice’s Adult Education and Service-Learning class. I have to lead a discussion on the reading, and guess what the reading was about? How to educate South African women who are living in poverty. Wow.
Today (5/18), I came in and talked to Althea about the work I had done the previous night and my thoughts about what the workshop would be today. I showed her the log, and kind of already knowing the answer to my question based on what I had been learning in S-L (especially with the reading I had done the night before) and how things are at GAPA, I asked her if she thought the grandmothers would actually be encouraged to it. “No.” That’s fine; I really want to know what would(n’t) be helpful for the grandmothers.
Althea then begins to give me suggestions on how I can go about teaching the grandmothers. Have them provide examples of activities they do put strains on their bones, and then have them demonstrate it for the group. Use that as the example to teach all the basic joint-protection principles. Let them see how they can apply it to the activities they already do.
Brilliant. I absolutely love working with Althea. She knows how to do adult education, especially for the grandmothers. AND she is an occupational therapist. I was really excited for her to make these suggestions as some of the reading I had done the night before explains the marginalization of South African women in formal education, and they learn best through experiential learning, and through the experiences of their everyday realities.
I was extremely nervous. I didn’t know I would be so nervous—I have done a lot of public speaking events and have talked before larger crowds; I even list it as a skill on my CV. But I was extremely nervous. I think it was because outside of knowing that I am a “foreigner” and not understanding Xhosa, I did not know how to teach to a group whose education levels might be very different from each other’s. This might not even be true, but I wasn’t sure. Also, taking a Preparation to Community-Based Research class where we learn so much about including the community, being aware and culturally sensitive, etc. I become so aware of my “outside role” and trying to confront that by listening and being considerate, that I was just so unsure of how to go about teaching ways to decrease pains in joints to these group of women.
Thank goodness Althea was there in the meeting. She was great at elaborating on points that I said, being very animated and understanding, getting the grandmothers to participate, etc. I looked at the reactions of the grandmothers, and I could tell that they really understood what Althea was trying to teach them. Especially that she had used the example of washing clothes and getting one of the grandmothers to act out exactly how she would do it, it just made sense to the grandmothers. I mainly observed how Althea talked with them, and how the grandmothers responded.
I “taught” but in more ways, I was being taught by Althea how to teach the grandmothers. I told Althea at the end how helpful I thought she was to the grandmothers, and to me. She shared with me how hard it is to teach at first. They have information, but we have information too. She said the best way to teach them is for them to find the answers within themselves because they have information, and for us to find the right time to intervene and provide them with the information we have.
Brilliant. I love how everything I’m learning applies to other situations I find myself in at GAPA.
No comments:
Post a Comment