High Standards

Well, we have officially been in Asikuma for three months. Our initial plan for being here was to write a curriculum for the Kingdom Cares Community School. However the more people we talked to and the more we learned we quickly discovered that there are in fact guidelines the school has to follow. As we have mentioned several times we knew that while being here we were going to have to change and adapt our plan several times, so we did just that.

We are currently in the process of writing a set of standards for the teachers to use to guide their teaching. Since many of the teachers here lack formal training they teach solely from the textbooks (the opposite of how we were taught to teach J). Therefore, Anna and I have been trying to support them so they feel more comfortable teaching the material without reading it directly to their class from the text. Therefore, we decided to write them a set of standards for each subject. The standards all begin with “students will be able to…” and identify the main ideas or skills students should take away from each section or unit of the textbook. Our goal in providing these to the teachers is that they will be able to assess their teaching at the end of the lesson. They’ll be able to ask themselves are all my students able to add one-digit number? If the answer is yes, then they can move on to teach the next skill. If the answer is no, then they will be able to reteach the skill to a small group or the whole class or teach it in a different way.

The standards are written based on the syllabus outlining what the students need to learn for each particular subject. This syllabus is provided to us by the GES (Ghanaian Education System). The series of textbooks our school has purchased/is in the process of purchasing align with the GES standards so we are using these to guide our standards writing. Additionally, we are using the Basic Education Certificate Examination. This test is what students have to pass to continue their education in Ghana. Therefore by using this as a guide we are hoping to ensure that we do not miss any crucial skills they will need to eventually pass the test.

We are in the process of finishing up our math standards for the last class. Following the completion of this, we will move on to English using the textbooks we were just able to purchase thanks to several generous donations. Our goal is to hold a seminar for the teachers on how to effectively use the standards to impact their teacher and from them to be able to continue using the standards long after we are gone.

None of this would be possible without the education and experiences we received from Drake University. We continue to be thankful and appreciative of all the love and support we receive from family and friends, but especially want to thank our classmates and professors from Drake who provided us with the opportunities and training these teachers never received.

Please continue to follow our journey and support us in any way you can. We have just purchased 10 English textbooks for each class, but are still working to purchase math and science books for the students to use. Thank you!

~Mary