Too Cool for School

I realized that in my normal post last week I didn’t mention much about what’s going on at school. Mostly because I get into a routine there that seems boring to me so I forget to share. First of all, during the last week of September we held our first Girls’ Club meeting of this new school year. Twenty-five girls turned out to discuss malaria since it’s the rainy season and the disease is prevalent right now. I always try to open our meetings with a game and this time was no different. We played mosquito tag (I got the idea from a friend who worked on health education with a Canadian NGO in tamale) where 3 girls where mosquitoes and were ‘it’ and 3 other girls were doctors who could cure the sick by rolling a ball between the ‘frozen’ girls’ legs. Since it was their first time playing tag, it took several tries until they were actually running and playing but I think they enjoyed. At the end they told me they were tired and ready to come inside the classroom. First we talked about misconceptions or beliefs regarding malaria and the cause of it. I shared with them something I learned in a Malaria 101 training I attended that malaria literally means ‘bad air’ because before someone discovered it was caused by mosquitoes people thought it was an airborne disease. Then we played a High Risk, Low Risk game with laminated pictures showing people sleeping under mosquito nets, people sleeping under nets with holes in them, people going to the doctor when sick with malaria, people refusing to go to clinic, etc. Through the game we discussed signs/symptoms, treatment, and most importantly prevention. We closed by watching an instructional video on how to make neem cream and then I gave them girly butterfly stickers as a small incentive. O one thing that made me really happy is that when I announced we’d have the club the following day to the form 3 students the library prefect Ruth audibly gasped (or made some kind of noise) from excitement.

It’s going to get more difficult to schedule girls club from now on because we’re organizing extra classes for the students after school. I think the concept is good but honestly I just wish teachers would teach all their normal periods during the week. And Friday at school is such a joke- mostly just PE and entertainment. So if Friday was treated as a regular day instead we wouldn’t need extra classes. But during the PTA meetings parents agreed to pay (it’s optional) for the extra classes so we’re going forward with them. We’ll see how it goes… I actually enjoy the extra classes because it seems like it’s mostly the serious students who stay. Plus it’s easier to teach with a smaller number of students. I have more time to individually check their understanding which is so important in math. And last week when I held extra maths for the form 2s after I gave what we call a ‘Try’ question I let those students who got it correctly and understood it leave the class. Then I had time to further explain to some of those who weren’t getting it. A lot of the girls really struggle with math so it helped to have time with just them.

I finally went to the primary school last week to pick up a Primary 6 (P6) English textbook for my friend Titus. He’s blind but has been helping out at the Kunkwak Primary School but started having trouble because he doesn’t have any Braille materials to help with his teaching. So we hatched a plan to acquire some books so I can read for him to translate to Braille. He attended the Wa School for the Deaf in the Upper West where he learned Braille and really good English. Saturday I biked over to his house for us to begin our work. It was really interesting for me to watch the whole process: putting the paper in the frame, using the stylus to form the dots, and reading to ensure correctness. We spent almost two hours during which I read and he recorded three poems and two grammar exercises. We enjoyed some laughs because of misunderstandings caused by my American English.  I also told him I want him to come help me with a lesson one day at school because I was teaching the form 3s recently about how you can use ICT in learning. One of the examples was people with disabilities like the blind can listen to the radio and deaf can watch TV. I decided ask my students if the blind can read. The response: “O madam no of course not.” So you can imagine the amazement in the classroom when I explained Braille to them. It really is rather incredible and definitely impressive. Whenever I have some free time Titus and I will work on his teaching and learning materials. I’ve also been tasked with helping to find additional paper for him to use which might be difficult if it’s only available in Accra like we think it is. I took several videos and photos which I will try to post at some point when I have high speed internet access.