Lessons in Tanzania vs. Germany - 13.02

After we had breakfast, our plan for today was to attend another lesson. As Felizitas, Manuel and I are in the history course, we were of course particularly interested in attending a history lesson. However, this proved to be difficult as none of our exchange students' classes had history, but fortunately an older class had history, so we were able to attend a history lesson after all.

Of course, it was all about National Socialism in Germany and the rise of the NSDAP in the 1920s. It was very interesting to see how such a lesson was structured, the teacher explained something and then asked a question, the answer was then usually read out of the book by the pupils, we were also asked to explain our point of view. After the teacher had explained with predominantly correctness how the rise of the NSDAP came about, however, unlike with us, a discussion or similar was not held, but the lesson simply ended, which led to a few question marks for us, as the pupils would not come to any new conclusions of their own.

But we didn't have much time to think about it, as we immediately had to move on to the next item on the program, a visit to a primary school. It wasn't just any primary school, but a partner school of St Peter Claver High School, so if you had completed primary school, which in Tanzania goes up to grade 7, you could continue your Jesuit education directly at St Peter Claver High School. Once we had arrived, we were welcomed by the principal and were once again allowed to sign a guest book in oversized leather armchairs.

We were then shown around various classes by a nun and visited different year groups. However, we encountered one procedure in all classes. As soon as we started to enter a classroom, the children stood up and began to shout: "Attention please! Education for life! Good morning visitors!" Now imagine a preschool class with about 30 to 40 three to four-year-old children, all shouting or screaming this chant at the top of their lungs. "Education for life" is not just something you shout, it is the school's motto. Fortunately, we only visited about ten classes, otherwise our ears probably wouldn't have stopped roaring. As a reward to the children, we naturally handed out a few sweets and pencils.

After the visit we went into town for lunch and then returned to the high school. We spent the afternoon watching our exchange students compete and then had a few exciting volleyball matches.