When I think of any first day of school that I’ve ever
experienced, I think about showing up to school with all of my new school
supplies, meeting my teacher, and getting to see who is in my class. Surprise,
there’s a first for everything and our first day of school in Ghana was nothing
like this.
On our first day of school about a third of the enrolled
kids showed up, some were registered that day, and some are still being
registered. The majority of the kids showed up with no school supplies with
only a handful bringing a pencil or two. Not even all of the teachers reported
to school last week. While it’s easy to get frustrated about things like this,
it’s very much a part of their culture and not out of the ordinary for them at
all. That being said, we still used our time to observe the minimal teaching
that was occurring and began to make notes of things that would improve their
teaching or enhance their classroom.
Anna and I have both already been asked numerous times to
teach for these teachers. We both are
itching to be up in front of a classroom, but we have not done so yet. The
reason being is because our goal in being here is to improve the school so it
can experience long-term success. For one or both of us to teach for the year
we are here is great for us and great for our class of students, but once we
leave nothing has changed. Therefore our goal is to primarily work with our
teachers, many of who have had no formal teacher training, and get them
teaching in meaningful, effective ways.
Therefore after a week of observing and no opportunity to
formally teach, we were ready on Sunday evening to deliver our first
workshop. Almost all of our teachers
showed up and we had the opportunity to present teaching strategies to them.
Our focus was on general teaching strategies and reading instruction. We talked
about the importance of allowing students to collaborate and learn from one
another. We talked about ensuring students have visual representations of
information to offer them another way to process it. We talked about making
learning fun and meaningful so it was more than lectures and notes.
This made what I would consider our “real, first day of
school” on Monday a success. We had the majority of our students in attendance.
All of our teachers were here. And about half of the students had supplies.
Even more so, Anna and I were excited to see our teachers
working to implement the strategies we introduced in their classrooms. On Monday, one of our teachers had students
in teams and they were playing a game to see who could make the most small
words out of one big word. On Tuesday, one our teachers had three different
representations to a math problem on the board and was allowing students to
explain how to solve the problem. Today, one of our teachers asked a question
and gave students time to talk to their table mate about the question before
sharing with the class. These might seem like small, menial changes, but we are
confident that with continued workshops and help, our teachers are committed to
teaching in the way that will help their students learn best.
Anna and I are going to continue spending our time observing
in the school. We also have started teaching a lesson here or there in the various classrooms so the teachers can watch and ask us questions about how we would teach it. As supplies are a constant uphill battle that the school fights, Anna and I are continuing to work on raising funds to help be able to secure textbooks and supplies for our students. If you are willing and able to donate to this cause please visit kingdomcaresinternational.cloverdonations.com/educationdevelopment/
or email us at kccschool15@gmail.com.
Anna and I have already begun to plan our next workshop and
are excited to see the growth and change in the teachers over the next several
months.
~Mary~
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