The best time to blog is when there is a national strike.

Well, it has been crazy busy here in Osiem, Ghana... until this morning, that is. Starting yesterday, a nation-wide strike of 12+ workers unions has ensued. The two national teachers unions are included in this, thus, teachers are not coming to school. With no teachers in school, there is no point to bringing students, so school was closed this morning with no certain re-start date. I honestly have no idea when the strike will end – it seems the unions are looking for pension benefits, so let’s see how long the government will hold out on the majority of its workforce.

In the meantime, a lack of classes gives me a brief chance to blog! Mind you, I am not sitting idle – especially since, as an AgriCorps volunteer and unpaid teacher, my job is still intact. But we’ll come back to that.

So it’s been about 3 weeks since I’ve last updated you – I thought I would have much more time to blog in Africa, but it seems this is not the case. Since classes started 3 weeks ago, I’ve been moving from sunrise to sunset. Between planning and teaching five 35-minute classes a day, two 4-H meetings a week, a district 4-H advisor training, test taking (for the students), a weekend AgriCorps training, day-long power outages, and visits to my fellow Corps members, I haven’t had much down time. But I suppose this is better than being super bored and feeling deficient – something that may creep up on us if this strike lasts long.

Amidst all the activity, I am continually being affirmed as to why I am truly here – I’m here for the students. How is this different than being an ag teacher/FFA advisor in the states? Well, it really isn’t that different – young people are hungry to be seen, heard, and invested in. It doesn’t matter if they are poor Ghanaian middle schoolers or middle class Pennsylvanian high schoolers. They simply desire to be valued. Teachers all around the world have the extremely significant task of loving on youth. Here in Ghana, I’ve found that this does not look the same as in the U.S. The hierarchal structure here has children as inferior to adults and therefore completely submissive to the teacher’s authoritative role in the classroom – this can be visualized by the “cane.” Teachers in Africa (similar to teachers in the U.S. about 50 years ago) are the center of the classroom, thus instruction is centered around them. If there is a learning disruption or lack of submission to the system, students are “caned” (whipped in the backside with a long, flexible wooden rod). Teaching usually involves lecture and copying of notes, with question asking as the most common method of checking for understanding. However, in classes of 40-60 students, not everyone gets the chance to answer questions – so the stars shine and the slower students sit quietly.

Mind you, teachers are not heartless beings – they generally care about their students. But caring about youth here means that you teach them to be disciplined and respectful to their elders – something that we often neglect in the U.S. I’ve come to respect the way that children are always willing to serve their elders (even if it is another youth just a few years their senior). I feel as if I don’t deserve the service from these children since I didn’t really have to serve my elders in the same way when I was a youth...

Regardless, student-centered instruction is scarcely seen here. Thus, the student learning “activities” I have utilized so far have been widely accepted by the youth and even misunderstood at times (i.e. these students have never been asked to “teach” their peers, so a small group teaching activity wasn’t quite grasped at first). One of the most rewarding results of my desire to use experiential, student-centered learning has been a comment by one of the 9^th grade students. He came up to me about 2 weeks ago and said, “Madam, the way you teach agriculture in class – it makes me want to study agriculture at university. I want to learn more and become a successful agriculture scientist and you have made me believe I can do that.”

I wasn’t expecting to see many fruits of my service here, but that one was pretty huge – powerful enough to motivate me for another 8 months!

Another exciting event has been the success of the 9^th grade class on their animal digestion exam. They took the test this past Friday and, as opposed to the normal test average of 50-60%, the class average is 79%! I was so proud to give so many stickers to those who scored an A (80%) or higher and especially proud that some of the top scorers were the executive officers of the Saviour 4-H club!!

Okay, I’m done bragging about the 9^th grade class. But I really am proud of them – I have a lot of fun teaching them, even if it is a class of 64 students. Let’s hope this strike ends soon so we can get back to the unit on soil and water conservation (one of my favorite topics)!

What else is happening? Well, 4-H Saviour is receiving funding from the head church pastor (who is also a nationally renowned cocoa farmer and member of the Ghana presidential council) to build their pig rearing structure! We hope to break ground next week so that the piggies can arrive in early November! Hopefully we can be productive with the free time during the strike to really get moving on this project, along with several others. However, I do realize this isn’t a sustainable model (wait for school to be canceled to do all the work...). Oh well, we’ll be opportunistic! More updates/photos to come on the pig project!

As I observe other teachers and get frustrated with them beating children, I realize that I cannot make them change their ways. I am attempting to demonstrate student-centered, youth empowering strategies that will hopefully be picked up and adopted here. Thankfully, I have a very understanding and adaptive counterpart who I hope will continue to use innovative teaching methods. I’ve been telling him, any time he complains about Ghana or poverty, that change starts with him changing his actions. This is how I am trying to live... You all know the famous Ghandi quote, and its ironically painted on the wall of our school library (by a previous U.S. educational volunteer group): 

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Students will be successful. Students will be seen and heard. Students will be life-changing leaders. It starts in a student-centered classroom. 

Here are some long-overdue photos to update you on other exciting things!

4-H members planting seeds in the nursery of the school garden! Not all the seeds germinated, but it definitely looks better than it did in August!

I do enjoy African food... but this was super special. I made an American dish with boxed mac n cheese from Koforidua, sausage (hot dogs) and a fresh vegetable salad!

2 week ago was a special entertainment event (AKA dance party) for the whole school, as planned by the 4-H Saviour Entertainment/Recreation committee!

This may not seem like much, but it is me using my first ever personal machete!! And I am making a mound for pumpkins in my first ever personal garden!! 

Dustin and Blaze leading some Parli Pro discussions at our district 4-H advisor training

My first ever Ghanaian wedding! It only lasted 3.5 hours :)

Eunice is another 4-H advisor - here she is reviewing all the Parli Pro concepts I had just taught to our members... but in their local language. I think it went well!! 

"Do you understand what I am saying?"

When I asked the 9th grade class how my English is different from theirs (referring to the fact that they spell esophagus with an "o" because they speak/write in UK English), I was told that "you speak fast" and "please, madam, your English is very deep." Because I had previously received the "deep" English speaking comment from a taxi driver, I knew it meant my accent is simply very different from theirs. However, I don't want this to get in the way of my time here - so I constantly ask the question above: "do you understand what I am saying?"

This week is my first week of teaching students!! Time for another student quote:

 “You taught so different than what we were used to. The African teachers, they don’t do what you did. What you did – when you gave us the papers to match them and made us work through the processes in groups – I know I will remember the content better. I will think back to the lesson and say ‘this is what madam taught us.’ And the lesson, it went by really fast... we enjoyed it very much.” ~9^th grade student and 4-H member referencing the first lesson of a unit on animal digestion

Time to throw some credit to my wonderful teaching preparation program – Penn State Teach Ag (Agricultural and ExtensionEducation)! Without such great advising and emphasis on diverse teaching styles, I would not have received such encouraging remarks from these students – Thanks PSU AEE!!

A lot has happened since my last blog post – I am surprised to find myself claiming that I have been pretty busy over the past few weeks. Actual teaching (for me) began this week, and thus far I havem taught the first lessons of the 9^th grade animal digestion unit and the 8^th grade human reproduction and growth unit.

Yes, I am teaching 8^th graders about human reproduction. But I am super thankful that the first lesson wasn’t as awkward as I expected it to be: I drew the male reproductive system on the board (on my first day of teaching) and taught them about each part and its function... and nobody giggled! Either they didn’t really know much about the system before I taught it or they are super afraid of this obroni (white foreigner) and don’t want to risk laughing in class. Regardless, it was a pretty successful lesson! I know I still need to speak slowly for these lessons, but I was surprised at how much the children actually got from the first day’s content! I’m praying that they continue to be interested, I continue to think of creative teaching methods, and they remain respectful so that I don’t have to discipline them...

Just to brief you on discipline in African schools, it usually involves “caning” – using a flexible switch (wooden rod) to smack a child in the back or buttocks. While I cringed at first sight of this act, I soon realized it is an accepted means to discipline youth. Many people (students included) have asked me if I “cane” and, although I never want to have to hit a child with a wooden stick, I have told them that I am not afraid to discipline: this is where the cultural norms and personal ethical philosophy may clash a bit... so let’s just hope the kids are good and I never have to punish them (I know, I am dreaming)!

I said I have been busy – with what you might ask? Well, 4-H is in full swing! Since my last blog post, we have had 5 4-H meetings with member attendance averaging around 50 students! Students registered their home projects, I gave a lesson on record keeping, we had committee meetings (a new concept that seems to be pretty effective! Committees are animal husbandry, crops, and recreation/entertainment), and I facilitated the “human knot” activity. It was quite amusing considering boys and girls didn’t want to touch each other and they initially thought they were supposed to simply “pull” themselves apart... nonetheless, they achieved the goal after a few more tries and we had some entertainment.

First class - group time for the 9th graders!

Human knot!

Yesterday, we spent several hours preparing the school garden for planting. A fence was erected around the sides, ditches were dug, the compost pile was turned, and the children cut down all the weeds. Then, upon completion of the work, we had some “entertainment” from the recreation committee – the chairman had a radio/speaker in the shape of a car and, with a USB jump drive plugged into it, he played various Ghanaian hip-hop songs while students danced in the garden. It made my night! Then I danced in the middle of the 40 or so children and they fell to the ground laughing... needless to say, seeing an obroni dance made their night: especially when I taught the “fisherman” dance move to my fellow 4-H advisor, Richard, and I reeled him across the garden.

There have been several other exciting things happening, but for blog length’s sake I think I will just list them for you!

• I got a dresser! After “custom” ordering a simple dresser from the carpenter in the next town 3 weeks ago, I now have a legitimate wooden dresser to put all of my clothes and things in (rather than living out of suitcases for a year). It’s not nearly as high quality as my father’s handiwork, but it will certainly do its job (especially for the price I got it!). My room now definitely feels like home.
• My little “brothers” now have American toys – I gifted some Hotwheels cars to them that my mother sent in a care package with Dustin (when he went back to the US) and now they only play with them. While they enjoy them, I am noticing they were content without these toys and didn’t fight as much before I gifted them... an interesting discussion on materialism to be had later.
• Over 60 students came to the house the other day to clear the grass in the front yard as a favor to Richard. While cutting, someone injured and killed a decent sized lizard and they brought it to me... so I did what any science teacher would do and dissected it (using 2 machetes wasn't the easiest way to do so, but it worked)!
• One of the 9^th grade JHS students, who is the chairman of the animal husbandry committee, gave a wonderful speech to over 200 people at yesterday’s PTA meeting, requesting support from the community for our piggery construction project! I was so proud.

Today marks 1 month since moving into Osiem... time has flown by. And I know if I don't keep my eyes open and on our goals for the year, these next 8 months will disappear before I know it!

My dresser... strapped in the back of a tro tro for the 20 minute ride from town. I was super nervous...