11-14
11. USING IMAGINATION TO DEVELOP NEW TEACHING AIDS
Example: Setting broken bones
LESS APPROPRIATE
The poster on the right is from page 98
of Where There is No Doctor. It gives an
idea of how to set a broken arm, but does
not provide students with a chance to
practice it—to learn by doing.
MORE APPROPRIATE
An experienced village health
worker, Pablo Chavez, and his
students invented the following
teaching aid:
(5) The ‘arm’ was tied
to a person’s neck
in such a way that it
looked natural.
(1) They found an old glove, and three
sticks about the size of arm bones.
The ‘arm’ was then
‘broken’, like this
(2) They broke two of the sticks.
(3) Then they fastened them back together
with tightly stretched pieces of an old inner
tube (rubber).
so that the ends
of the sticks
overlapped, like
this
inside view
(6) Students then practiced setting the
broken ‘bones’. Just as with a real break, two
persons had to stretch the arm while a third
person positioned the bones.
(4) They put the sticks inside
a stocking, and packed it with
wild kapok to make an ‘arm’.
Pull
apart,
then set
‘bones’