# Another teacher’s experience

Salamatu was planning to teach a topic on mapping and using signs and symbols to her JSS 1 class. She told the students that, on their way to school the next day, they must try to observe six distinctive things on their route. She held a whole-class question and answer session on what she meant by distinctive things. For example, she talked about the difference between public buildings (such as a school) and private buildings (such as a factory). This led to a discussion of the distinction between public and private funding in the community.

The next day, the students listed the six things they saw, drew a picture of each thing and cut the pictures out. Salamatu wrote out four labels that said “From the north,” “From the east,” “From the west,” “From the south,” and then placed each label in a corner of the classroom. She divided the class into groups according to the direction they take to school by asking the students to move to that corner of the classroom. She then asked each group to sort out all the objects they saw into the order they saw them, starting with the object furthest from school. There was much discussion about the drawings and what they were, as well as deciding which pictures the students were going to use if they had more than one picture for the same object.

Salamatu then pinned a large sheet of paper on the wall with the school marked in the middle and a north point on the sheet too. She explained that the different lines that she had drawn on the map represented the routes and directions the students come from. She asked two students from each group to come out and stick the pictures from their group in the correct order of their route to school. Salamatu asked the students to look at all the objects listed on their “Routes to school by JSS 1” map and see if they could classify the objects into types (e.g. road signs, natural features such as trees, public buildings).

She made a list of all their suggestions and they discussed how these different types could be shown by symbols. The students agreed that the symbols should be simple and clear and represent the object as much as possible. They agreed a set of symbols to use, and Salamatu drew these on the board to use in the next lesson.

Salamatu planned to introduce a published map of the school area to the students in the next lesson. She would explore the similarities and differences between the students’ own symbols and the standard symbols used on maps, before getting them to redraw their maps using the standard symbols to help them become more familiar with them.

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