Our Uniqueness

It seems pointless to have to stand still, be inspected by the Headmaster, currently, Mr Brider, and then watch a flag being pulled up (or lowered) a flag pole before carrying on with the day…..

Flags have great significance throughout the world for various reasons. It is very important to know how to honour our National Flag: currently Mr Chimwayange (receptionist/clerk) raises our Zimbabwe Flag every day on Flag Lawn – and almost as important is our School Flag. We are very fortunate to have our own a Ruzawi Flag which is raised on a Monday and lowered on a Friday (used to be on Sundays when Ruzawi was full boarding). The three people chosen to march to the flag pole is called The Colour Party. Another name for a Flag is ‘Colours’. It is a great honour to carry the specially folded Flag, attach it to the halyard and pull it up to fly from the top of the pole.

At this wonderful school of ours, the ceremony of Flag Up and Flag Down started at the very beginning of Ruzawi in 1928, and a couple of photos from the early days of our school, show a whole lot of boys digging a huge hole and another of them pushing up a flag pole to stand in it.

From the very beginning, every Sunday, the school raised and lowered the Ruzawi Flag – standing exactly as we do now, dressed smartly in Nos 1, with shiny shoes and proud to be at Ruzawi …. All round the perimeter of Flag Lawn, first standing ‘at ease’ – absolutely still, no fidgeting or talking – waiting for the important moment when the Headmaster – then Canon Grinham, now Mr Brider – would inspect each pupil; then standing ‘to attention’ – again absolutely still, arms by our sides, feet together, while the Colour Party marches to the flag pole and raises the Ruzawi Flag, while the school watches it fluttering in the breeze.

This flag represents our school and us, and deserves our greatest respect.

Grade 7 pupils, who endeavour to tackle the challenge, must meet the following requirements and submit their portfolios to the headmaster for his consideration.

Service
The service project of the Learning Knight Award calls for a minimum of 25 hours. At least five hours must be completed in each sector and over and above the usual community service done at school.

Skill
The mastering of a skill involves the learning and development of a new skill that is different to that which the child usually excels in. The skill can be self-taught, developed through coursework or as a result of instruction. The skill must be developed to an acceptable standard.

Challenge
Tackling a challenge involves achieving a physical objective. Examples include: completing a marathon, climbing a mountain, hiking, cycling, dramatic improvement in a sport. The challenge must be over and above what would normally be achieved and should be different to what each child excels in.

Organizational Skills
Organising an event or a function is aimed at developing responsibility in a young learning knight. All of the planning and organisation, communication and execution needs to be done by the child.

The concept of Ruzawi Families was introduced in 2014 after Mr Mangenah (Grade Seven Math teacher) attended a ‘Connecting Classrooms’ program at Wynberg Girls’ school in the Cape. It has since evolved and taken on a uniquely Ruzawi flavour.

The Family meetings happen twice a term and incorporate different ideas and activities. The objective is presented to the Grade Seven pupils for them to prepare and plan.

There are 18 families in total, 9 from each house. This helps to nurture loyalty and house spirit during sporting events and activities.
Each family has their own name and flag chosen by the founding members. The flag is displayed at the start of the meetings under their selected ‘family tree’ and allows the children to find their group. Many of the families have their own handshakes.

We felt this program would be beneficial on several fronts:
Leadership
It allows every Grade Seven to take responsibility for a family unit and direct their members in a variety of activities as well as plan how they need to divide and share tasks, while taking input from the children in the group.

Camaraderie
The meetings encourage the children across the grades to interact and form alliances and friendships with other age groups that they may not normally encounter.

Appreciation of others
It allows all the children to contribute their thoughts and ideas on a myriad of topics; this teaches them to value others and respect their ideas and opinions.

Social Interaction
Every family is comprised of one or two children from each grade. The children are encouraged to care for, respect and cherish their family members throughout the school day.

A member of staff is assigned to each family but purely in an advisory role, should the grade 7’s need their help. The grade 7’s are encouraged to take charge and towards the end of the year the Grade 6’s work with the grade 7’s in preparation for the following year.

The World Peace Game (WPG) is an incredible teaching tool for teachers of children and was developed by John Hunter, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. He is the Executive Director of the World Peace Game Foundation and travels around the world to provide Master Classes for educators interested in facilitating the WPG. John originally developed the game in 1978 while he was teaching in a public school in Virginia. It started off as one single board and has gradually developed over the years into what it is now….a multi-level tower of Perspex, covered with thousands of game pieces. The game is based on Core Principles that are designed to provide children with the opportunity to solve complex, interrelated problems using collaboration and critical thinking skills.

The WPG is filled with a myriad of problems ranging from oil embargos, territorial disputes, natural disasters, rebel insurgences, environmental issues, cyber hacking to asteroid mining. In the game, there are 23 interrelated crises that have been so carefully planned that every decision made affects everyone in the game. It has been developed with the intention of utilizing problem solving skills. Each time the WPG is played the children arrive at different and unpredictable solutions.

We are two teachers from Ruzawi School, Auralyn Bissett and Nerys Gray, who attended a Master Class in Melk, Austria in April 2017. 35 eager children ranging in age from 11 to 14, took part in the Master Class. It was amazing experience, resulting in us being the first two educators in Southern Africa being qualified to facilitate the game. After 6 months of preparation, our first game was played at Ruzawi in November 2017 with our Grade 7 children.

The game itself involved 4 countries, each headed by a Prime Minister who had previously been approached by us to take on the role. This was based on an anonymous application they had submitted and the child had the option to refuse this offer. Each Prime Minister was supported by a cabinet of their choosing which consisted of a Secretary of State, a Minister of Defence and a Chief Financial Officer. There were also 4 agencies; The World Bank with a President, CEO, CFO and Chief Auditor, The United Nations comprising of a Secretary General, Deputy Secretary General, Assistant and an Under Secretary General and The Legal Council consisting of Chief Council, Head Council, Vice Council and Chief of the World Court. Finally there was a group of Arms Dealers who also had a President, CEO and CFO. As well as these positions, there were two individual roles; the Interdependent Weather God(ess) who represented the random force of nature and controlled random destiny decisions and the Saboteur who was secretly chosen to be a rogue element whose task was to sow seeds of doubt and dissent.

During the playing of the WPG, we observed the different phases of conceptual characteristics that the children move through. These ranged from ‘confusion’ and ‘despair’ to ‘futile efforts’ when working as individuals, later becoming ‘experimental collaboration’ when the children recognised the need to work together. The game began to ‘click’ when the children started wanting to work together to find world peace. The ‘flow state’ was achieved when there was a realisation that difficult tasks were doable before final ‘mastery’ of the game.

As the leadership selections were made anonymously, some surprising offers were made to children who did not naturally stand out as leaders. This included “trouble makers”, “class clowns” and “learning disabled”. John Hunter often made reference to how quick we are to “label” children which narrows our perception of their abilities. The growth, maturity and development that we observed in the children was profound. It really brought home to us, John Hunters ‘empty-space’ teaching theory. John views the game as a ‘Trojan horse’ and often refered to it as being ‘nothing’ as it is not the WPG itself, but rather the learning experiences the children have that is of value. This way of teaching and learning can be applied to any curriculum where children are encouraged to problem solve amongst themselves and the teacher acts as a facilitator. Having observed this in our game, we understand the importance of not filling the ‘empty space’, but rather allowing the ‘silence’ to linger to allow children the time to think of options and solutions to whatever the ‘crisis’ may be.

At face value, the game seems too complicated for 12 year olds to solve and we were questioning ourselves in the first couple of days when attempts to solve crises were superficial. We were so excited and humbled when the children had mastered the thought processes and collaboration skills by Day 5 and they created ‘world peace’. We were concerned that our Zimbabwean children lacked ‘world knowledge’ and this would impede their progress. However, they amazed us by mastering complicated budgets, showing excellent negotiating skills, creative problem solving, exceptional team work and wisdom and compassion, far beyond their years.

Numerous educators and interested parties observed the final day of play and some were deeply affected by the energy and emotions surrounding the final moments of the game.

As John Hunter states at the beginning of the Game, the adults of today have created many global problems that will be up to the children of the future to solve. Therefore, it is our duty to equip them with the right skills to problem solve effectively and peacefully. We are extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of this wonderful teaching tool and would love to see this extended in some way to other educators in our country, especially at this time in Zimbabwe’s history.