Using Photos to Teach about Africa

Visuals are key for student learning—more important for learning about Africa than perhaps for any other region of the world. The reason is simple: students arrive in class with a visual “bank” of African images which distort and stereotype the continent. They need to not just hear about but also see new and different images in order to fully take on the new broader realities of the continent. In my first year teaching, I recall a high school senior asking me, “Ms. Brown, if Africa has cities, what do they look like?” His use of the “if” was, shall we say, revealing.

Photos can be found in many places, among them:

• Middle school-level books are a good source, such as country studies from publishers like Lerner, Children’s Press, Wayland, and Oxfam.
• National Geographic can be an excellent resource as long as you keep in mind the caution in 1d. below in mind.
• An excellent web source is http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/AfricaFocus/ The "sights and sounds from Africa" is a large searchable database by country and topic, with free downloading of materials for classroom use.
• Be choosy about photos from African embassies, as they often cater to tourists wanting to see animals and to enjoy what is different or “exotic”.

Lesson Plan for teaching with photos:
Select photos to use on a particular country or topic. (Be careful not to go for too broad a topic such as “Africa”.) The photos should have the following characteristics:

a. People (including 1 w/ children would be nice)
b. Activity/ies
c. Include a diverse selection—urban and rural, rich and poor, engaged in a variety of activities (school, shopping, sports, arts, traveling, etc)
d. Avoid stereotypical photos, such as of atypical peoples (e.g., the Maasai), or of wild animals, or atypical cultural practices For more information on stereotypes, see these two 1-page articles: http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/materials/handouts/criteria.html
http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/tips/books.html
e. It is easier if the photos you select come with brief (or longer!) descriptions

Divide your students into pairs. Give each pair two photos, each different from the other (e.g., one rural, the other urban; or one of a rich family and the other of a poor locale)

The assignment is a scaffolded one:
Part one: observe and say out loud to your partner as many things as possible in the photo. (The reason for noticing as many things as possible is to encourage students to go beyond first impressions.)

Part two: write down on the table provided by the teacher what you see. For this part, the teacher makes up a grid with typical social studies categories on it, including
f. Weather, incl. temperature (deducible from clothing)
g. All of the activities seen in the photo
h. Clothes
i. Natural surroundings (tree, clouds, water, etc)
j. Human-made surroundings (such as stores, schools, roads, buses, cars)

Part three: Take a small post-it and use it as a “”bubble” to put above the head of one or more of the people in the photo. On the post-it, write what that person might be saying or thinking. N.B.: This is the crucial step, because it is at this point that students put themselves in the scene. They imagine themselves as Ghanaians walking to school and what they might be saying to their best buddy, or as Kenyan women in the market. They are no longer outsiders looking in.

Part four: title the photo.

Part five: share your photo with the rest of the class and tell them what’s in the bubble

Part six: Ask the class to reflect on and share what they have learned. Do this either after each photo or after all the photos.
One possible starter question is: in what ways are the people in the photos like people you know?
A concluding question might be: what photos of the US would you like to send to a school in Ghana, if you could? (This question is to reinforce the concept of Ghana as a country like the US is a country and to get kids thinking about what are the main things that go in their world. As a teacher you could ask the kids to think of what the parallel images of the US would be to the photos they’ve just seen of, say, Ghana or of Kenya.)

Barbara B. Brown, Ph.D., Director, Outreach Program
Based in part on conversations with Roberta Logan, Boston Public Schools and Jane Hundley, Sudbury (MA) Public Schools. Thank you both.
1/2007