Down to Work

Today was a different day.  The past few days we have been visiting lots of different schools.  Today we went narrow and deep in one school.  We went back to the Help Child Academy that we visited on the first day.  We were given a very warm welcome there.

It was amazing to be with the teachers directly.  I felt that the opportunity to talk with them frankly and openly about their practice was a wonderful opportunity.  It also highlighted one of the greatest challenges for private schools.  While in the United States, private school teachers are usually very well-educated and trained as teachers, in Ghana, private school teachers are often eighteen or nineteen years old.  They have graduated from secondary (high) school, but are unlikely to have been trained at the university level.  Some of the teachers we met with have only been teaching for 3-7 months.  The most experienced teachers we met had been teaching for three years.  Many are saving money in order to attend the university.  These efforts are in search of better jobs.

We had the experience of talking with a small group of teachers about their needs in schools. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to hear what their desires and needs were for their practice.  Through this work it became apparent that one issue was the lack of reading resources.  Fortunately, we had obtained donations of  Reading A-Z subscriptions prior to coming to Ghana.  Unfortunately, internet connectivity would prove to be a huge issue.  The school's computer lab did not have a working server.  Thus began my adventure in seeking out internet connections.

Help Child's Technology teacher

Two teachers, a student (can you imagine leaving school with a student without parent permission!!!!) and I walked out of the school and left to go down the street to an internet cafe.  When we arrived the internet cafe did not have internet connectivity.  The teachers told me that we could go to another internet cafe, but it was a taxi ride away.  At this point, we all piled into a taxi cab and headed back to the more busy center of the city to find internet.  I will admit I felt a little nervous leaving the school in this way.   We did safely arrive at the internet cafe and were able to view the materials and even print some out.  We then returned to the school without issue.  My slight discomfort was completely unfounded.

I am going to pause and talk about safety in Ghana.  I feel very safe here.  Ghanaians are very friendly people and are extremely helpful.  That being said, there are very few Caucasian women walking through these neighborhoods and so there is a lot of interest and attention given to me.  Even if the looks are friendly, there are always eyes on me.  I feel very welcomed, but I also feel very conspicuous.  Even in the classroom it is difficult for me to become invisible enough to observe.  Children want to talk with me and stare and giggle at me when I am in the classroom.  So while I am exercising great caution, there are times when I feel a bit uneasy. The trip to the internet cafe highlighted this for me.

Another observation...to this Westerner, schools are really, really noisy.  When I think about how hard it is to learn and the cognitive load of this type of noise, it is difficult to imagine learning and teaching in this environment.  The noise is inevitable.  Classrooms are crowded, close together and fairly open for ventilation.  Our team worked hard to provide some classroom arrangements that might mitigate the noise, while encouraging student-to-student interaction and student-to-teacher interaction.

I could spend hours writing about all of the differences we have observed.  However, it is familiar to see children laughing, playing and enjoying their friends and being at school.  We are learning a lot about this context and revisiting our preconceived recommendations.  I am trying to keep my eyes and ears wide open and gain an understanding of what I am seeing--particularly when it includes views like the following photo:

Finally, we will see these teachers again on Saturday at a massive professional development conference we are running.  I am looking forward to seeing, Paa (featured on the right of the photo below).  He is a very instinctive teacher and his instincts are good.  However, he is not sure he wants to remain a teacher.  I hope we can convince him to become a trained educator.  These schools need teachers like him to act as mentors and lead teachers.

All in all this was a very inspiring and tolling day.  As one of my team members pointed out, this is what life in Africa can be.  Ghana has contradictions, it has both beauty and bleakness with hope and defeat.  I hope that we can navigate these strange dichotomies and actually make a difference here.  If nothing else, my eyes continue to be opened every moment!