Marja Väisälä

Marja Ilmatar Väisälä (9 May 1916, Helsinki, Finland – 21 December 2011, Turku) was a Finnish teacher of mathematics and natural sciences, who in 1950 founded a private school in Swakopmund in what is now Namibia, where she taught the children of Finnish missionaries.

Work in Swakopmund Preparing for her work Väisälä arrived in Africa in 1949. She spent her first year there in South Africa, studying the most important languages in Southern Africa, English and Afrikaans, and the local culture. South West Africa was for all practical purposes the fifth province of South Africa at the time.

The school facilities Väisälä started the school in rented premises in 1950, but it soon turned out that the premises were not large enough. The owners, too, informed her that they were going to sell the premises in the near future. In 1952 Väisälä heard that the town planned to have a new neighbourhood to the north of the town centre. On the last day of May that year, she signed a bill of purchase for two adjacent lots in the future Vineta neighbourhood. The Finns then built a house, which would function as both a school and a dormitory. A housewarming party was held in connection with the church service for the first advent in 1953. In 1858, an annex was built on the same lot, containing a garage and a room.

The curriculum Väisälä decided to stick to the curriculum of the schools in Finland. However, the school year was that of South Africa, i.e. it was the same as a calendar year. This would have meant difficulties for those families which were returning to Finland, but many children were sent to school in Swakopmund at the age of 6, and they were ahead of children in Finland by some six months.

Väisälä taught her students three languages, English, German and Swedish. History was taught according to Finnish textbooks, but in geography and biology she concentrated on local circumstances, plants and animals. Singing and music were taught, too, but physical education, arts and crafts and art did not receive as much attention as other subjects.

Teaching methods Väisälä used a method she had devised herself, and called it “the method of expanding circles”. This method evolved out of necessity, when she had children of various grades in the same room. "The topic of the lesson would be the same for all children, but the younger students would be taught elementary knowledge and basics, whereas with the older students she would get deeper into details," wrote Kalle Seppänen in his 1994 master's thesis in theology. Seppänen wrote the following concerning Väisälä's methods:

Väisälä felt that the teaching of the first grade was the most difficult task, especially if the children did not know how to read when they came to school. Also, the grades from the 3rd grade up were problematic, because she was not able to devote as much time for these students as she would have wanted to. During later years she was able to get other teachers to help her with her tasks.

According to Seppänen, Väisälä was ahead of her time what came to her teaching methods. Often, she would actually teach the children but help them find out about things for themselves. This was the case inside the school building and during the many excursions and tours that she organized to various places.

In 1963, the head of the Finnish mission in South West Africa asked Väisälä if it would be possible to transfer her to the Oshigambo High School in Ovamboland, as the founder of that school, Toivo Tirronen was about to leave for Finland for a furlough. Väisälä wrote later that already during the preceding year she had thought that her various difficulties and the illnesses of the children were becoming too much for her, and she had pondered whether she was already too old to teach young children. Thus she decided to say yes to the head of the mission.

Work in Ovamboland During 1963–1972, Väisälä worked at the Oshigambo High School in Ovamboland as its teacher of mathematics and natural sciences. She described the first years of this school in her book Ambolukion lehtorina ("teaching in the Ovambo high school"; 1967). She returned to Finland in 1972 to take care of her elderly mother.