1. Introduction and getting to know each other (25 min)
Material
Top tip peer book for every student.
Aim
- Students get to know each other.
- Students get used to sharing personal stories.
- Students get used to speaking out loud among classmates.
- Students reflect on their own good qualities and where they come from.
How
- Tell students in short about the World Starts with Me (WSWM), the course they are taking the next 11 lessons.
- Hand out a Top Tip Peer Book to every student, and tell them they will need it to write down their personal lessons learned: their Top Tips for themselves and for peers. They will use it later when they share their lessons learned with their peers and family. The book is an essential part of the course, so they should be really careful with I and bring it to every WSWM lesson. Tell them to write their name in the notebook.
- Tell students a little bit about your own background and motivation to teach this course. If you feel comfortable, you may tell them something about your own puberty, your first falling in love or experience as a teacher educating on sexuality.
- Ask students to introduce themselves. Ask students first to think a few minutes about the following questions and to write them down in their Top Tip Peer Book:
- What is your name?
- What is your age?
- With what animal could you compare yourself with – and explain why?
- Form a circle by standing up and start asking at random a student in the circle to share his/her answers. Continue with inviting the student left from him in the circle and so on, until every student has had a turn.
Wrap Up
Tell the students that this course is about students’ personalities, relations and about sensitive issues regarding sexuality. This is why it is very important for the students to get to know each other and respect each other in class.
2. Read & Do: Presentation: Ground rules & expectations (15 min)
Material
Presentation: Ground Rules
Aim
- Students learn to feel welcome, to agree on the ground rules for the course, to know what will be expected of them and what they can expect in return.
- Students share their expectations for the course.
- A safe atmosphere will be created for open communication and giving input.
How
- Students sit behind the computer in pairs or in small groups of 4 to 6.
- Tell them to read the presentation ‘Ground rules’, and discuss questions asked with their peers.
- When the presentation is finished, students should agree with each rule. This is important for creating ownership. All students should positively agree on every ground rule.
- Make a flip-chart and write every ground rule on it, hang it on a wall for all students to see at all times and you can refer to in any case of violation of the rules.
- If they like to suggest additional rules, it is again important that the entire class agrees. If so, add them to the list. During the course you also might add more rules if needed.
- Then ask students to nominate a
- timekeeper;
- prayer leader(s);
- You may also decide to have a (male/or female) trust agent, who is allowed by the students to talk with you as the teacher about their individual or group wishes.
- Present a rough outline of what the students will be doing and learning throughout the course.
- Ask each student to write down on a piece of paper what they would like to learn in this course, in three questions or issues at most. Ask a few students to share one of their questions or issues. Ask them to hand the papers in with you, so you can get a good ideaof what expectations students have. Keep them in mind when facilitating WSWM.
Wrap Up
Conclude by telling the students that we are together to learn from each other, that everyone is welcome, that every opinion is valuable, that we will respect each other’s ideas, that we will keep confidentiality and that we will have fun.
| Teacher Tips |
At the start of each lesson throughout the WSWM-course, ask students to have a look at the ground rules set in this lesson.
- Ask whether the timekeeper, prayer leader, or other possible group task performer still likes to continue to practice their task during the course. If not, nominate a new student to perform this task.
- Students should also define and repeat what happens when the ground rules are being broken (dance, sing, et cetera).
|
3. Read: Presentation: Emotional changes during puberty (20 min)
Material
Presentation: Emotional changes during puberty
Aim
- Students learn about emotional and relational changes that take place during puberty and they learn that these changes are a natural part of growing up.
- Students learn to understand that forming their own identity and getting autonomy comes with gradually taking their own responsibilities, making their own decisions and forming their own opinions.
How
- Students sit in pairs or in small groups of 4 to 6 behind one computer. Students read the presentation and address the discussion points included in the presentation with a class mate before continuing.
- The presentation covers the following topics:
- The emotional changes during puberty (e.g. experiencing mixed feelings, feeling sensitive, having mood swings, intense emotions, unfamiliar feelings like sexual feelings).
- The relational changes during puberty (e.g. change in dynamics with parents due to search for identity and autonomy, friends and peers becoming more important).
| Teacher Tips |
|
In the presentation, Chimwemwe asks her sister Chikondi for support. In real life students may not ask their sibling for this kind of support, because they don’t have that kind of (close) relationship together. They may have another relation or friend they would feel comfortable talking to.
|
Wrap Up
Tell the students:
- Emotional and relational changes taking place during puberty are a natural part of growing up and are experienced by all students, the one earlier and the other later, while differing from person to person.
- When you feel uncertain or when you have questions about these changes, find someone you trust to talk to. This can be your sister or brother, like Chimwemwe asked her older sister, but also someone else you think is reliable and knowledgeable, like a teacher or a friend. You can also get information from another reliable source to have your questions answered. Just sharing your doubts and questions might be a relief. A problem shared, is a problem halved!
4. Do: Ego- booster (10 min)
Material
A sheet of paper (size A4) for every student.
Aim
- Students are reminded that everyone has good qualities.
- Students concentrate on their positive characteristics.
- Students feel empowered.
How
- Each student gets a piece of paper and writes his/her name at the top.
- Each student passes the paper to the neighbour left of him/her. This person writes something positive about his neighbour, at the bottom of the page, folds it from the bottom up, to just cover what they have written. The student then passes it on to the neighbour left of him/her, and so on. This way the paper becomes smaller and smaller. Keep the paper folded until the end!
- Finally, when all students have had their turn, the paper is returned to its owner.
- Ask the owner to unfold this long list of positive things class mates wrote about him/her. Ask them to unfold the paper and read it for a minute.
- Ask a few students to pick a compliment from their paper and share it with the group. Also ask them to share how receiving compliments makes them feel.
Wrap Up
Positive feedback makes you grow and helps loving yourself. If people appreciate you and you appreciate yourself, your self-esteem will grow. Self-love and acceptance will also offer a solid foundation for healthy relationships with others. Everybody has good qualities, and so do you!
5. Do: Personality game
Material
Do: Personality game
Aim
- Students are reminded that each person is unique with his or her own personality.
- Students reflect on themselves and their own personalities.
- Students learn to talk openly about themselves.
How
Students take a few minutes to do the personality game on the computer alone, with a trusted class mate or in a safe group with class mates. See Tools and Games
Wrap Up
You are a unique person with a unique personality. You might differ from your classmates, but that is okay! Celebrate diversity: boy, girl; black, mixed-race; short, tall; rich, poor, HIV positive, HIV negative. Be proud of who you are, regardless of how you look and where you come from.
6. Lesson Wrap Up
Remind students that it is important to be and become who they want to be. They might have emotional ups and downs now, but these are needed in growing up to emotionally stable adults who are aware of themselves and their own wishes and boundaries.
Tell them: Be proud of yourself and appreciate the people around you too.
Listen together to the song ‘I know I can, be who I wanna be’ and allow students to sing along.
7. Homework: Good qualities other people see in me!
Material
One worksheet ‘Good qualities others see in me!’ for each student.
Aim
Students hear from important others in their life what good qualities they have in order to build self-esteem.
How
- Give each student a worksheet 'Good qualities others see in me!'
- Each student will take his worksheet home and will ask the people mentioned on the worksheet to fill in good qualities of the student and elaborate on it.
- The worksheet can be part of the tip top peer book.
8. Option: Alternative for the personality game or as homework – Thumbs up for me!
Material
One sheet of paper for each student.
Pencils, pens, coloured markers.
Aim
- Students reflect on things they are good at or on things about themselves they are proud of.
- Students learn to talk openly about themselves.
How
- Give each student a piece of paper on which they draw their own hand by following the contours of one’s hand with a pen. See ‘examples’.
- Ask the students to write in each finger something they are good at or something about themselves they are proud of. Allow time for them to decorate their hand making it their own hand logo.
- At the end of the activity, stick all the hands on the wall and allow learners to share their hand logo with their classmates.
Wrap Up
Be proud of who you are, regardless of how you look and where you come from. You are a unique person with your own set of values and your own personality.
