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| Main Street, Sanfo. on my way to Atta's house for a Saturday night movie. |
I have been in Ghana nearly six
months. I have taught for nearly
three. At this point the Peace Corps
“invited” (aka “ordered”) all first term education volunteers to attend a week
of in-service training. All have arrived and last night it was fun to actually
spend time with the other teachers and hear their stories. All in all it was encouraging if only because
I could see that I was not the only one who struggled with classroom management
and seeing children master the objectives provide so idealistically by Ghana
Education Services.
Last Tuesday I gave my students
a big test in fractions. Actually I
didn’t think it was a very hard test, but when I got the results I nearly cried. In the class exercises they did quite well,
but in the test they made every mistake possible. (i.e., adding denominators,
comparing them raw.) Their errors were so correlated. It was obvious that most
of them cheated (usually from the wrong person). And I left for Thanksgiving in
Accra so I had no opportunity to challenge them or make them account for their
performance. In Accra I was able to
print the test. Normally all work is
copied onto the chalkboard and they copy it into their workbooks. We don’t even have clean paper that I can
give them to do a test on. At the Peace
Corps office, I printed three section tests so that I can help them prepare for
district end-of-term exams when I get back on Monday.
Anyway commiserating with Lou
Triacci, the only guy in our education group who is older than me, he suggested
that part of their problem is self-confidence.
Even when they know something, if they happen to see someone out of the corner of their eye with a
different answer than theirs they assume their answer was
wrong. Lou taught in New York for many
years and he says that he gives his pupils some feel-good exercises in addition
to fractions and word problems. I need
to think of something that will give them confidence in their thinking as well
as their feelings. Overall my kids are bright and working with them is a lot of
fun. I only have 35 in my math class; Lou has 60. They work hard for their
families to cook, wash clothes and farm.
They greet me with an enthusiastic “Mr. Jim” whenever I come near their
compounds. We have a long way to go but the material is there.
This month was Thanksgiving. In
that spirit, I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn to teach here, my good
neighbors prepare delicious fufu, red-red and other Ghanaian dishes for me, my room
is comfortable, my family in America
support and sustain me, and my Peace
Corps colleagues are amazing.
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| Three slices of pie on this plate, Apple, Pumpkin & Pecan. |
On Thanksgiving Day we had a
full scale Thanksgiving Dinner at the home of US Ambassador Gene A. Cretz and
his wife Annette. All Peace Corps
volunteers in Ghana were invited. Cretz is from Albany, New York and I got the
opportunity to introduce him to a couple of our volunteers from his
region. We all enjoyed the time. I spent through Friday night in the PC Hq in Accra. There are three rooms with bunks where we can hang out if we make a reservation or have an official reason to be there (i.e., medical checkup). The air conditioner leaked onto the floor of my room so i spent an hour or more mopping the floor while the other residents were out for the evening. The next day i met with the doctor who gave me three shots and weighed me. 160 lbs! That's what i weighed when we first moved to Washington State in '75. I'm not sure I'm thrilled about that, because a lot of it was muscle. I'm still soft in places. In the afternoon, I was reading in the PC library and Raven, a Utah PCV who dressed up as Tin-Tin for our Halloween party in Kumasi, asked if i wanted to see a movie. Sure! About 6 of us took 2 drop cabs to an American style shopping mall out past the airport. We saw the latest Bond 007. I don't want to spoil it, but i think the villain was the best (i.e., worst) I've seen. Fun stuff
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| Accra, Ghana Temple |
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