First Week Of School

I am teaching 1st grade in a Catholic Primary and Junior High School. They have children from age 2 to 9th grade in the school. Every morning they have an assembly where they pray and sing songs. The teachers also go over any rules or important information the children should know at that time. On Wednesdays they have a longer assembly. 

This week was their first one back from break. It was a four day week which was nice because it gave me an extra day to adjust here before heading to school. Tuesday all the kids stared at me, which was no surprise because I am the only white person around here, or at least that I have seen since leaving the airport. My class was a little surprised, but now that they know my name they love to say it. 

On Tuesday I went out with the children during their lunch break and learned a few games. Once I joined them everyone wanted to be around me. Students will come up to me just to say hello or ask my name. My desk is in view of the door way, so many people will wave or adults will even come into the classroom to meet me. I have learned many names, but know faces better than names at this point. There are some people that have English names, but most people have Ghanian names that I am slowly getting better at pronouncing. 

There are about 35 kids in my 1st grade classroom. It is a big class even for here. One responsibility I was given right away was a to help check papers. This has really helped me to get to know students names. Often times class work is checked right away and the students have an opportunity to fix their mistakes before we put a score on them. We score them after they have completed the assignment correctly or we have moved on to the next task. For homework they have notebooks and the teacher writes the assignments on the board and then the students copy them into their notebooks. I also check those to make sure that the students wrote the problems down correctly, but I do not make any marks on them. The students writing their homework down takes a long time, but worksheets don’t really exist here. There are some students who get done early, but then have nothing to do, I am thinking of setting up an extra work station with books and paper and maybe even puzzles, so that those students are occupied with something and do not distract the others from finishing their work. I think this will also help with the times when the students are pretty rowdy. 

The classes that are taught here are pretty similar to those in the United States. The students are learning the same things in math, science, and grammar. They also work on handwriting skills. The students are learning two languages, TWI (a local language) and French. One thing they do not have is specials. There were three days this week when the classroom teacher had the students the whole day. Friday there was supposed to be someone coming in, but they did not show up. The end of the day on Friday they have exercise which is basically an extra hour of recess. There are some organized games going on, but mainly for the older children. 

I get my lunch from the canteen which is like a school cafeteria, but also serves as a concession stand where kids can buy snacks and drinks for their first break of the day. So far I have eaten eaten everything they have fed me, but I have learned to ask for sauce in moderation. They do not hold back on the spices like my host family does. My teacher has also been very generous in sharing her food with me. She lets me try her food, and even has brought me snacks to eat during snack time. On Friday she gave me a treat that she also gave the children. It is called Mr. Snacky corn snacks, but they are basically cheesy puff corn or cheese balls. The children were really excited to get them. The people I am surrounded with are very generous and are always trying to make me feel comfortable. 

One big difference about Ghanian schools is that they punish students. The teacher will walk around with a cane sometimes and hit students that are talking too much or misbehaving. My teacher uses more as a warning than actually punishing the students, but she has used it a few times. 

I am looking forward to starting to teach and getting more involved in the classroom.

The ICT (computers) teacher asked me if I have made a website before, so I will also be helping them set up a website for the school. They have one now that a previous student from St. Norbert helped create, but they have no way of updating the site.