Supervisor

Isn’t this a typical English word? By this I mean it’s actually Latin. “Super” means “over” and “visor” comes from “videre”. The one who sees! Overseer!

Every Friday I work together with Herbert Moyo. We teach a masters and honours course. I have written about this before. The bloggpost can be read here. The name of the course is:

Transformation-centred Christian Education.

Main course book is:

Paulo Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

By the way. Herbert made a point yesterday concerning the little preposition “of”. Obviously Freire would argue that it cannot be the pedagogy “for” the oppressed because it has to come from them. Not from anyone else. Thus “of”. Now, Herbert didn’t discuss this but why churches like the Lutheran Church in Southern Africa is exactly a Church “in” and not “of” Southern Africa. His point was, that it should be “the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Southern Africa”. What is the difference? If you use “of” you appreciate that this is an African Church. If you use “in” it means that it is the Lutheran Church, the same as in Northern Europe, with the only difference that it is located in the south of Africa.

Church of Sweden is obviously not the Church “in” Sweden but “of” Sweden. But here we have another problem. Why is it called the “Church” of Sweden and not the “Evangelical Lutheran Church” of Sweden? There are so many other Churches “of” Sweden. Of course there are historical reasons for this but isn’t it time to change this?

Back to the supervisor thing! Yesterday the master students presented their research proposals. They are only three. The rest are honour students. The topics are interesting. One is going to write about Zambia. President Chiluba declared Zambia a Christian nation on the 29 December 1991. The research question deals with if and how Zambians have changed their perception of being Christians after this declaration?

Another student is interested in comparing, what he calls, the internal struggles of today’s South Africa, like divorces, with the struggle of the apartheid-era. I understood that he wanted to investigate if the church, which journeyed with the people during those difficult times, also journeys with the people now.

The third student is writing about how a Christian Congregation in South Africa can gain self-sustainability instead of being dependant on the mother church in the West.

A number of methodological aspects were discussed. What method would actually best answer the research question? Issues of objectivity were also involved. Most of the students were active and contributed.
Next Friday the honour students will present their research proposals. But already on Monday they have to submit titles to Herbert. After that he will appoint supervisors. This means that I will now get more seriously involved. I can’t wait.

But I must still ask: is the terminology congenial with Freire? Supervisor? “Over-seer”? To me it sounds as a pedagogy “for” the students and not “of” the students. I think I need to raise this with Herbert and the class.

First real encounter with students – I like!

(En svensk översättning finns längst ner!)



The class began at 11 am. More than 10 students were gathered in room 107 when I entered with a projector. I was not going to be in charge of the lesson. Only “sit in”. To me this was a relief. How could I, after more or less a month in Pietermaritzburg manage to lead three hours of teaching at postgraduate level? I was quite happy that my colleague, Rev. Dr. Herbert Moyo, entered the room a few minutes after me. He began directly:

We cannot sit like this. We have to rearrange the tables and the chairs. Let’s put them like a cow horn.

So we did and suddenly the lesson started.

Can you please introduce yourselves? Your name, where you come from and why you take this module. You can also mention your denomination, if you want.

Already at that stage I had recognized three examples of the kind of pedagogy I like.

1)Let’s organize the room in a way, which promotes a student centered approach.

2)Allow everyone to get used to using their voices.

3)Give freedom to the students to choose if they want to expose their denomination or not.

I decided to make notes, just to find that I had a problem in spelling the names. Well, Kelebogile is a familiar seTswana name but other names were more difficult. A name like Nomaroma was new to me. Also Corin. But I hope I will learn as time goes.

Both country of origin and all the different denominations indicated that we are going to have interesting discussions in this group:

Zambia, Namibia, Swaziland, DRC, Kenya and of course a number of students from South Africa. And the teachers from Zimbabwe and Sweden.

The different denominations were:

Pentecostal, Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic, AFM, Congregationalist, Mennonite, Holiness Union Church (which was new to me).

I might have missed some. Some had also grown in one church and thereafter converted into another.

This of course took some time. Then Herbert moved to the next level. Three more questions:

1)What is Christian Education according to the perspective of your Church?

2)Why does your denomination have Christian Education?

3)What do you like or dislike about the way Christian Education is carried out in your Church?

And then he turned to me:

Anders, can you take over? I have to go and make some photocopies?

Brilliant! It definitely gave me a kick start as teacher and the task was not to huge for me. I must say that I enjoyed the exercise and it was so interesting to hear different students focus on different problems and also being quite honest about their own denomination.

How do you, as a minister of a congregation lead someone into the doctrine of the specific denomination without indoctrinating that person?
Why are we sometimes focusing too much on teaching congregants about our own denomination and forgetting the bigger picture?
If you as a leader focus too much on certain issues some congregants are not getting attention.

After this round of testimonials we were left with one hour only, which Herbert used for taking the students through the course outline and after that most of the students were dismissed. Only three stayed on. These were the master students. (The rest are doing their honours). The master students need to submit more extensive assignments but the course will still be a combined honours and master course.

The main book is Pedagogy of the Oppressed, written by Paulo Freire. It is obvious that Herbert has not only read it but also understood it and integrated it into his teaching style. He walks the talk. I am happy to be his colleague.

Första riktiga mötet med studenterna. Jag gillade det!

Lektionen började kl 11. Drygt 10 studenter hade samlats i sal 107, när jag kom in med en dataprojektor. Jag skulle inte leda lektionen. Bara ”sitta med”. För mig var det en lättnad. Hur skulle jag, efter ungefär en månad i Pietermaritzburg, kunna undervisa tre timmar på denna nivå? Jag var därför nöjd när min kollega, Dr. Herbert Moyo, kom in i rummet någon minut efter mig. Han började direkt:

Så här kan vi inte sitta. Vi måste möblera om. Vi sätter stolarna och borden som ett kohorn.

Vi gjorde så och så var lektionen igång.

Kan ni presentera er själva? Namn, var du kommer ifrån och varför du valt denna kurs. Om du vill kan du också säga vilket samfund du tillhör.

Redan där kände jag igen tre exempel på en pedagogik jag gillar.

1.Låt oss möblera rummet på ett sätt som främjar ett elev-centrerat förhållningssätt.

2.Möjliggör för alla att vänja sig vid att använda sin egen röst.

3.Ge frihet åt varje student att själv avgöra om hon/han vill röja sin samfundstillhörighet.

Jag bestämde mig för att föra anteckningar men hade problem med att stava namnen. Visst, Kelebogile är ett välkänt namn på seTswana men andra namn var svårare. Ett namn som Nomaroma var nytt för mig. Liksom Corin. Men jag hoppas jag lär mig med tiden.

Både ursprungsland och de olika samfunden skvallrar om att vi kommer att få intressant diskussioner i denna grupp:

Zambia, Namibia, Swaziland, DRC (Kongo Kinshasa), Kenya och såklart ett antal studenter från Sydafrika. Och lärarna från Zimbabwe och Sverige.

De olika samfunden var:

Pingstkyrkan, metodistkyrkan, lutherska kyrkan, katolska, AFM (Apostolic Faith Mission – också pingströrelsen), kongregationalistkyrkan, mennoniterna, Holiness Union Church (som jag inte hade hört talas om förut)

Jag kanske har missat någon. Några hade också vuxit upp i ett samfund och sedan konverterat.

Detta tog lite tid. Sedan fortsatte Herbert till nästa nivå. Tre nya frågor:

1.Vad är kristen undervisning enligt din kyrkas perspektiv?

2.Varför har ditt samfund kristen undervisning?

3.Vad gillar respektive ogillar du i det sätt på vilket ditt samfund använder kristen undervisning?

Sedan vände han sig mot mig:

Anders, kan Du ta över? Jag behöver gå och göra några fotokopior?

Lysande! Det gav mig definitivt en rivstart som lärare och uppgiften var inte heller för stor för mig. Jag måste erkänna att jag gillade övningen och det var mycket intressant att höra hur olika studenter fokuserade på olika problem och hur de även var ganska ärliga angående sitt eget samfund.

Hur leder man som präst in någon i ett specifikt samfunds lära (doktrin) utan att indoktrinera den personen?
Varför fokuserar vi ibland för mycket på att undervisa församlingsmedlemmar om vårt eget samfund, så att vi glömmer helheten?
Om en ledare fokuserar för mycket på visa frågeställningar är det lätt gjort att visa församlingsmedlemmar inte får den uppmärksamhet de behöver.

Efter denna runda med vittnesbörd hade vi bara en timme kvar, som Herbert använde för att gå igenom kursplanen och efter det lämnade nästan alla studenter salen. Bara tre stannade. Det var master-studenterna. (Resten gör en magister). Master-studenterna ska ju lämna in en mer omfattande uppsats men kursen är ändå kombinerad för både magister- och master-studenter.

Huvudbok är Pedagogik för förtryckta, skriven av Paulo Freire. Det är uppenbart att Herbert inte bara har last den utan också förstått den och integrerat den i sitt undervisningssätt. Han lever som han lär. Jag är glad att få vara hans kollega.