Divide into pairs. Choose a partner whose teaching subject is different from yours, and preferably someone who has not learnt much about your subject.

Imagine that you were preparing to teach your subject, or a topic within your subject, to your partner. What would you need to know about your partner before preparing your plan? Make a list of questions.

Talk to your partner and find out what you have decided you need to know.

Reverse roles in each pair or choose different pairs.

Read summary sheet A3, What you need to know about learners.

Divide into pairs again, with a different partner. Choose a partner who is as different from you as possible e.g. different language, island, school, religion, sex.

Talk to each other. Make a list of all the ways in which you are different from each other.

Read summary sheet A4, Differences between learners.

Imagine two people are invited to go to a Youth Congress in Honiara to represent their youth group. The conference is organised by a Youth leader from Australia.

The first girl, Rachel

· lives in Honiara;

· father is a rich businessman;

· has been to Australia;

· originates from Sikaiana but has never been there;

· educated at KGVI but did not get into Form 4;

· now working as a secretary.

The second girl, Dorothy

· lives in a small village in Choiseul;

· has never been to Honiara;

· parents are subsistence farmers who did not go to school;

· now at Goldie College in Form 5.

1. Will these two girls have the same experience as they enter the conference?

2. Will they relate to the organiser in the same way?

3. Suggest some of the differences.

4. Which of the ‘clouds’ mentioned in Summary Sheet A4 will affect their experiences?

Think of the following groups of people in Solomon Islands:

• Reef Islanders
• Isabel people
• Malaitans
• Bellonese
• Chinese
• Europeans

Quickly write down any words which come into your mind to describe each of these groups of people. Try to be honest about it.

Your tutor will write lists of your words on the board under each group.

Look at these. Are there any groups where many of the words are bad words?

Are there any where most of the words are good?

Do all people from those groups have the characteristics mentioned?

We often pre-judge people, i.e. we judge them according to the group we know they come from, before we get to know them as individuals. If we do this it may stop us from ever knowing them properly as individuals, because we already think we know them. This is called prejudice.

In Pijin what do we usually mean by calling someone india?

You probably said someone who is very careful with money, not generous, perhaps rich. But not all Indians are careful with their money, many are very generous and the majority in India are very poor. The use of this word in Pijin is a good example of prejudice.

Another name for this is stereotyping. We look at people and see the characteristics of the group they belong to, not the true person. We see a woman, not Susan Tuke; a Malaitan, not John Mae; an SDA, not Frank Vave.

In Solomon Islands we often call people names like Kasi, Tia, Gema, Waku, Soa or A’u to show where they come from. These are nicknames and are often acceptable to the people concerned. However nicknames can also show prejudice and even become words of abuse. In America white people who want to swear at black people call them niggers, usually suggesting they are lazy and unintelligent, although ‘niga’ is an acceptable word in Pijin. Australians call English people poms, often suggesting they complain a lot. Solomon Islanders use india for a person who is mean. These words are examples of prejudice.

Can you think of any words used like this in Solomon Islands? Do any of the nicknames in the first sentence show prejudice?

In the stories in activity A4.5 we saw other examples of prejudice or pre-judging people. What were they based on? In one case the prejudice was in favour of a group not against them, but it can still be called prejudice.

Prejudice may be based on

· islands of origin

· language

· race

· religion

· gender (especially against women)

· education

· wealth

· handicaps i.e. people who have some physical or mental problems.

In RTCs we teach people from many different backgrounds and we are trying to help build a united country, so it is important that we do not pre-judge people. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to benefit from their time at the RTC, and this will not be possible if we pre-judge people.

A good example of this is at Stuyvenberg RTC in Makira. Here they have some students who were born deaf and so could not hear sounds and learn to speak. They use sign language. Some people pre-judged them and thought they would not be able to compete with other students. They thought that, because they cannot speak, they must be stupid. But some of them have proved to be better at learning the skills than many of the hearing students. By learning to read and write, they can often beat hearing students in tests.

1. Discrimination means giving more opportunities (positive discrimination) or fewer opportunities (negative discrimination) according to the group a person comes from, not according to their own abilities.

List any forms of discrimination you think exist in Solomon Islands.

2. Look at the diagram on the next page. The outside part represents the society where our RTC is situated: Solomon Islands. The inside part represents our RTC. The arrows show some of the bad influences which may come into our RTC from the surrounding society.

Use the question marks to show any other influences you think are important.

How can we prevent these influences having a bad effect on our RTC?