Wednesday June 27, 2012  Africa:  Day 17

            We went to a school just outside of the refugee camp to teach the students about domestic violence and child abuse.  The Canadian interns didn’t come with us again, which made it a lot easier to coordinate lesson plans, etc.  Liz and Kelsey worked with the equivalent of first and second graders, I taught the third and fourth graders, and Liyam and Dixon took the fifth and sixth graders.  The junior high kids were away at a funeral of one of their students who was recently electrocuted at the camp when she tried to plug in a hot water heater. 

            It was a strange feeling to be up teaching a class again and I still can’t decide which school would provide the greater challenge between Vegas and Ghana.  Here there are no books, supplies, or visuals on the wall. The kids solely rely on a giant board of slate and some chalk to learn all their lessons. Our school in Vegas was overflowing with school paraphanelia, yet I found that using government money to fill a school full of the latest technology and most colorful posters does not mean that the quality of education is going to magically improve.  The students here in Ghana were incredibly well behaved and respectful.  They never spoke out of turn, and only a couple spoke at all.  My experience in Vegas was extremely different than this, but again I don’t know if a room of silent children means that they are learning more. I started to miss the conversations and interactions between the students and I even missed the challenge of keeping everyone engaged in the lesson.  I went ahead and taught the kids according to the attention span of my former students, yet I’m pretty sure that the kids here have been trained to sit silently in their seats for hours on end.  I would give some direct instruction and have the kids turn and talk to their neighbor about what I had just taught (they looked very confused at the idea of talking during class, but by the end I think they liked the change). Before moving on to a new topic, I would give them a chance to stand up and stretch.  I didn’t really care if this is something they are not used to.  I wanted to let them have some fun.  I taught them my favorite camp songs like “The Princess Pat” and “A-tooty-tat”.  We even did “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”.  The teacher sat in the back of the room the whole time with ear phones in his ears and staring at his laptop.  I did see him finally break a smile as all the kids were singing and dancing.

            After the class we went out and played with all the kids on the playground.  After a big game of Duck, Duck, Goose, some of the kids in my class started asking for the songs again.  Before I knew it, the entire school was crowded around me singing and doing the actions to “The Princess Pat” and “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”.  I lost track at how many times we put our heads back and tongues out to sing “A-Tooty-Tat”. 

            Some of the older kids then taught me more hand slapping games and some traditional dance moves while surrounded by a chorus of kids singing a beautiful African melody.

            This evening we met up with a friend of Helel’s that we met a couple of weeks ago when Helel was still in town.  Steven and a friend of his met us at a very nice hotel to watch a discussion on the history and future of Ghanaian film.  The presentation started on Ghana Time (an hour late), but they were showing a 1960s version of Hamlet filmed in Northern Ghana. Try to imagine the “To be or not to be” soliloquy performed in an African accent with the actor dressed in traditional Ghanaian gown and headpiece, sitting in front of a village of adobe dwellings.  It was probably one of my favorite ways I have ever seen Shakespeare performed.

            The discussion was very interesting as two Ghanaian actresses, a local English professor, and the Minister of Information talked about how Ghana needs to move beyond the low quality movies they turn out by the dozens. They kept comparing their films to American movies, and talking about how they need to stop trying to make poor imitations of the American film quality and start focusing on using film as an artform and a venue for storytelling.    I kept thinking that the U.S. should probably follow this same advice.