Back to Schooool

School has been in session now for about 3 weeks and goodness it’s been keeping me busy. I guess I never really thought about the fact that I was teaching junior high school – essentially the same as American middle school. Some days these kids are heathens and other days they are great! I always figured that every developing/third world country would have children just dying to learn. Not really, kids are kids no matter where you go; some care and some don’t. But let me start from the beginning and give you the skinny on my school.

Antoa D/A JHS, my school’s name, has about 200 children and three classes; again similar to our middle school system. They call classes “forms” and they go from 1-3. Each form has two classes; we call it a two stream system and they are split into “A” or “B.” My school is pretty big for a JHS, most JHS’s have only one stream and less than 100 students. Only English is to be spoken on school grounds and therefore all the teachers should teach in English. This is not the case really at all. The teachers speak about half English and half the local language. Most of the children do not know English well at all so the teachers start talking about a subject in English and then switch to Twi to explain it further. It’s definitely frustrating for me because I don’t have that option. Anyway, the school day lasts from 8 AM to 2 PM and the school offers extra classes for another hour which the students have to attend. The class periods last 35 minutes and instead of the children moving and the teachers staying in the same classroom, the children stay in the same room and the teachers come to them. So the school has 6 classrooms in total; all in one line so it’s just a long building. As far as classrooms go, it’s just some old school wooden desks and a blackboard! The subjects taught in school are English, Twi (Ghanaian language), Maths (they add the “s” on math for some odd reason and don’t know what I am talking about when I don’t add it), Integrated Science, Social Studies, P.E. (which consists of them weeding), Religious and Moral Education, B.D.T (basic design and technology? It’s just isometric drawing) and I.C.T. We are lucky and do have some computers, about 10 I think in total. Of course, only 2 work. That’s what happens when you try to have a computer lab without air conditioning, poor power supply, and tropical weather. It’s beyond me why they focus on having computers before they have real toilets; it still blows my mind that they don’t mind to shit in a fly infested pit. But I diverge, lol.

There are about 10 teachers at the school and honestly I wish we had more. There is a lot to be done to keep the school running smoothly on top of just teaching and it’s a decent amount of work for each person. For instance, I am the Form 3A Master. That’s right, master;). I am responsible for any issues with that class and I take role every day. If a student doesn’t show up for school that day they have to write me a letter explaining why and I have to punish them if it is not a good enough excuse. I am having a hard enough time coming up with good punishments for the kiddies in my own classroom! I teach Form 1 and 2 Maths which ends up being about 26 periods a week. All in all I teach some 3 hours a day, which sounds like nothing I know! Between the heat, the lack of any educational tool besides the blackboard and chalk, the disruptions, and classroom management I get tuckered out pretty easy.

As far as what it’s like to teach here, it’s kinda crazy. There are a lot of issues teachers face so you have to get creative to deal with them. Like I said, the student’s English is poor; especially the Form 1 students coming from the primary school. Many of them have a hard time speaking English and I’m finding now that they also can’t read it. I had been writing everything on the board since they have no book to refer to and have them copy them into their notebooks. I’m rethinking that since that doesn’t help if they can’t read and refer back to it. They are also the hardest ones to handle. They thought that it was just some fun game having the white lady teach them. I had to break them of that pretty quick.

Classroom management has been one of my biggest challenges so far. They use the cane here, and they use it frequently. Most teachers take pride in their caning which disgusts me. I do have to remind myself that we just got rid of beating kids in school just in the 50’s and 60’s. I am not allowed to cane and even if I was I wouldn’t. I can’t even bring myself to tell on any kids to any other teachers because I know they will just take it upon themselves to cane them. So here is the issue, the kids quickly find out that I will not hit them. They push the limits and act out to see what I will do instead. I have had to come up with some random and creative punishments so far, lol. I have students kneel in the front of the class (it is supposed to make them feel shame, but I think they just get bored staring at the wall for any length of time), kneel in the sun (that’s when they are really bad), I have them hold their book bag over their head for a couple minutes, write sentences, and if they don’t they have to sit on the floor for an entire class period. I had three students sit on the floor for 3 class periods and finally upped the anti and told them they would have to clean my toilet if they still didn’t write their sentences, haha. It worked! I have to keep coming up with punishments so I keep them guessing. I’m not a fan of punishments and really have no fun giving them out but I have at least one person kneel per class period. I have to be strict to keep the class in line, especially since there are so many distractions. The students sit two to a small desk, are cramped into a small, hot classroom, and the doors and windows are open so any outside noise can be easily heard. My form 1’s each are about 40 students and my form 2s are about 20 students in each stream. For extra classes the streams are combined and I had to teach 80 little Ghanaian children for an hour! It was probably my biggest fear. They were sitting 3 or 4 to a desk and some didn’t even have a desk. I had 6 kids kneeling at once in the first 5 minutes! I can’t blame them for misbehaving, they are squished like sardines, they have been sitting all day long, it’s hot and they want to go out and play. I kept the lesson short and taught the poor things how to play heads up seven up They definitely liked it and as a teacher I can see why they let us play it so much when I was younger – it is the quietest game ever invented. It’s perfect. I’m trying to instill positive reinforcement to help with classroom management too. I did a material check to make sure the students had all their things out and ready when I came in the classroom and gave out candy to those that did. I also gave out some of those shaped rubber bands the kids love in the U.S. to my group leaders when I attempted group work one day. The group leaders were the smarter ones and I allowed them to explain to the other group members how to do the problems in Twi since my English explanations were getting nowhere. So I am trying to incorporate little things like that to motivate and help the students. It’s fun in some ways because I get to come up with and try new stuff every day. It’s also frustrating at the same time.

Finally, the poor education, work ethic and attitude towards school are a huge challenge. Junior high is free so there are kids there that don’t care at all. They just want to get out and do whatever they want. Parents don’t take much interest in their child’s education either. One of the teachers today said that some parents care more about their fowls than their children. It’s tragic but fairly accurate. Education is not considered important because there are so many farmers. You don’t need an education to farm. You also don’t need an education to sell your produce at the market. It’s hard to convince people how important education is. In addition, the gap between those that are educated and those that are not is very large too, so those that are educated are treated differently. The teachers at my school are treated as outsiders by the town and do not like how ignorant the townspeople act. It’s pretty crazy. So the children are not very smart. I hate to say it, but it is the truth. They haven’t had the positive learning atmosphere we all grew up with – good teachers, supportive parents, books, endless learning materials, etc. The students grew up being taught to memorize and regurgitate. They struggle with critical thinking and connecting dots. For instance, I taught my form 2’s how to solve linear equations. I taught them they have to do the opposite to get “x” alone. So if there is an x+2, then you -2 so there is nothing adding to “x.” If there is a + sign then you minus and if there is a – sign then you add, simple right? No. They always subtract. It was the first example I did and any deviation from that they don’t know what to do. I have to tap into that critical thinking part of their brains that has been dormant for some 13 years and it’s incredibly hard. I started giving some bonus questions to challenge the smarter students and that is definitely helping. I get insanely excited when I get a student that can do my bonus’ right – they are usually pretty hard.

That’s all for now! I’m just constantly adjusting to teaching and even living here in Antoa. Never a dull day.