We arrived on a Sunday and hit the ground running with a meeting the next morning. Before heading to Ghana we had discussed tentative dates for holding a seminar for the teachers to review all the syllabi materials. Although I was prepared for this schedule to change, I wasn’t expecting the schedule to be pushed up 2 weeks! If everything had been pushed out by 2 weeks, I wouldn’t have been surprised….
Needless to say, this change meant some long nights. And I couldn’t have done it without Laura. She was truly a God-send. No, really. We had only emailed back and forth for a couple months before meeting in the Atlanta airport on the way to Ghana. A recent graduate in Elementary education, Laura wrote lessons, formatted sections of syllabi, edited countless paragraphs, and helped present to teachers at both schools. Of course Jessica contributed as much as she could from Arizona, but she could only do so much from that distance.
So the first week Laura and I were never far from Tommy’s dinning table where we stationed ourselves for hours each day. Don’t worry… I’m not such a slave driver that I chained her to the table and didn’t let her spend time with the kids. We worked while the kids were at school and took a lengthy break when they got out each day.
The second week we presented. On Monday and Tuesday we presented to the teachers at Hope Christian then we traveled to the Eastern Region to present at the sister school in Nkwatia. I was very encouraged by how well both seminars went. After about an hour of necessary but unfortunately boring reviewing the introduction to the syllabi, we shifted to presenting lessons and giving feedback.
On both days Laura and I presented lessons to the teachers and asked for constructive criticism. We wanted to open ourselves up to critique from the onset to demonstrate equality: this is not Americans telling Ghanaians how to teach, this is a workshop of professionals sharing ideas with one another. So next we asked everyone to plan a lesson and then present it. The first day of the seminar focused on English lessons and the
second day focused on Math lessons. The reactions to the seminar in both locations were very positive. Although the Nkwatia teachers seemed to struggle with more concepts than the Hope Christian teachers, I was still really pleased with how everything went.
I am most excited for how much the teachers got into the seminar. They were laughing and joking with each other as they acted out being teachers/students during their mock lessons. This was a very successful first step to developing a culture of professional dialogue, where teachers come together and share ideas with one another as professionals. They gave very insightful answers to the three questions which focused our seminar and when offering critiques. Not only were their responses insightful, but they were very willing to speak often. I was very encouraged by the fact that this was not a lecture, but rather a conversation that they were very willing to be part of.
While in the Eastern Region, Tommy, Laura, and I were able to see some sights. We traveled about 45 minutes away from the school to see the nearby river. There we saw a ferry and learned about some interesting fishing techniques. Okay, so we didn’t set out to learn about fishing, but I’m a curious girl… when I see something, I want to know how it works so I ask questions until I understand. The fisherman using this method very patiently explained and seemed genuinely amused as my interest. Since I know you all are just waiting on pins and needles, I’ll explain how it works: The fishermen take the bamboo and cut holes in the top for the fish to enter. Then they put the length in the water where the fish are swarming and the fish swim through the hole. But the fish cannot swim through the bamboo because there is a barrier every foot or so. Nor the fish cannot turn around because the diameter of the bamboo is too small. And apparently fish cannot swim backwards so they cannot escape the bamboo. The process of making these bamboo lengths was a lot of work!
The last day of our trip to the Eastern Region, we attended a program for the Nursery School Graduation. The local chief attended as did several local government officials but I didn’t get any very good pictures to share with you all. Part of the program was dedicated to fundraising for constructing the permanent nursery classrooms. A Ghanaian television personality came to MC that portion. He was very affective, although how could he have failed with those strategies: He lined up the cute little nursery students and auctioned them off. Not to go home with any one, mind you, just in exchange for returning to their seats.
That’s it for now. More to come soon!
(Song: Simon & Garfunkel)
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