An African Routine

Today marks the beginning of my 11th week in Ghana. This is the half way point until I am home for Christmas (not that I am counting). As I've said before, I cannot believe I have been here that long! Time flies when you are having fun...always.

I have finally developed somewhat of a routine. For anyone who has been to Africa for any amount of time you know that those two words, routine and Africa, do not go together.  Over the last two months I have somehow figured out what exactly my role is at the school I am working with. Before coming to Ghana I was under the impression that I would be teaching and training the teachers of the school. With that information I racked my brain for weeks before departure and tried to figure out what exactly I would be training them to do. Once I got here, I realized that there was no way that I could have prepared for this job before seeing the unique needs of the school, individual needs of the students, and understanding the culture. Below are some of the things I do regularly at Greater Heights.

-Interview Potential  Teachers-This is one of my least favorite things to do. It is a long , boring process, and we rarely have anyone that is truly qualified to teach. When we interview a teacher that passed most of their classes and seems to have an actual interest in kids, it is a good day. You might think that this is something that would be done before the school year started and we would only need to do it once a year, however that is not the case. We interviewed about 60 teachers a month before school started, five more a couple weeks after school started, and then 20 more just last week. This seems to be a never ending process. 

-Plan Curriculum- There is a huge gap in education here. I could write and entire entry about this alone. The "text books" that you can buy here are about 50-100 pages and are expected to be used throughout the entire school year. That just doesn't add up. So, instead of ignoring the problem like I would really like to do some days, I try my best to fill the gaps. Every week I plan what will be taught and the work that students will do for Nursery 1 (2 year olds) through 3rd grade. I supplement the curriculum with other materials like books from home, activities that I find online (lets be honest, just pinterest), or other ideas from educational websites. At first this was a very overwhelming task. After two weeks of stressing over this I decided I needed a schedule so that I could get it all done. Now I plan two grades each day for the following week. Most days don't go as planned and I end up doing most of it at the end of the week, but by Friday I must be finished with planning. For some of the older grades I use 4 or 5 different books for a subject just to get enough for them to really grasp the concepts. I hate to admit the fact that I give them worksheets, yes I said it, worksheets. I would love nothing more than to utilize all of the amazing ways to teach that I learned in college, but for now we are lucky to just have enough desks and chairs.

-Student placement- Many of the students coming from new schools are coming here because they were struggling to learn in their previous school. I would too if I was stuffed in a classroom with 50-100 students, one teacher (on a good day, if they show up), and a less than lacking curriculum. This is their reality. Most other schools would just throw them in the next grade like they have always done, year after year, whether or not they have learned anything. There may be a 9 year old in first grade, or a 6 year old in 2nd grade just because there is very little structure to the education system. After identifying this issue I decided we needed to test every incoming student to see what grade level they were really on. We found that most are at least a grade below in their math and reading if not more. Our school is not like the other schools here. We think differently than the other schools and we believe strongly that each student can learn, it just takes more work. 

Waris and Umar working on correctly writing letters.

I wrote the letters with chalk on the floor and we played a game. They had a blast!  Hamid can  jump!

They had to jump from letter to letter and when I said "stop" they had to tell me what letter they landed on. That is Linda, our volunteer from Holland, playing along to show the students what to do.

This is our classroom! I am back there doing flashcards with Hamid.

Cutie Waris. 

- Reading Recovery- After doing the placement tests we found a handful of students grades 1-4 who could not read at all. One boy is 10 years old and should be in the 4th grade, however, he doesn't even know all the letters of the alphabet. I saw a huge need to bring these students up to where they can at least be in the regular classroom and then their teacher can work with them on getting to a higher reading level. I had no idea the best way to go about this, so I just decided to make an extra class for these students. After lots of ideas, and many failed attempts later, we now have a reading class. I never planned on teaching it, I was just going to tell the teachers what to do and supervise it but once I worked with the kids on that first day (before we even had a teacher for it) they stole my heart. I accepted the fact that I would be the one teaching the class. I have a volunteer from Holland that is helping me with the class. She has never taught before but I would never have guessed that, she is a natural. So from 8-10 each morning you can find me in the car port beside the house working with my sweet little readers. We are still working on the letters of alphabet but I can't wait to see how far they come by December. Teaching this class is my favorite part of the day. 

-Pen Pal Program- Even when I was in elementary school I loved the idea of talking to someone in a different country, it always fascinated me. I thought it would be really fun and a great learning experience for the students here to be pen pals with a school back home. Also a great learning experience for the kids back home! There are so many benefits from participating in a pen pal program  My mom has a friend who knew of what I was doing here and had the same idea. So I figured we might as well give it a try! The other teacher that I am working with, Mrs. Hays, is a kindergarten teacher from my hometown. She found a teacher from 1st-3rd that are also going to be participating in the program. The first letters will be sent from the Logan-Rogersville classes to the Greater Heights classes via email this week. I am so excited to see how this grows over the next year. 

-Recorder Donations- One of our Ghanaian teachers knows how to teach recorders and we really want to have a music class. The only problem is getting recorders. They are much more expensive here than they are back home. I learned how to play the recorder in 5th grade and my junior year in college. If it was mandatory for me then, that means that it is still mandatory for a bunch of students now. I know that I didn't keep my recorder around and I am sure that most of the other students don't either. I contacted both the elementary music teacher from my hometown, and my college music professor and simply explained what I was interested in and they were both so glad to help out. They both informed their classes of my request and are collecting any recorders that students want to donate. Some of the students in the 6th grade music class even asked if they could donate other small instruments! It is amazing what people are willing to do when you just ask. When I go home in December I will pack all that they have collected and bring them back with me in January. 

There are lots of other little things that consume my days, but these are some of the highlights. There is so much work to be done here and at times it can be very overwhelming and stressful. The Lord is always closest by my side on those days. I am thankful to have a full year to work with this school and I cannot wait to see where it is at when I leave. 

*Oh, and a little story to brighten your day, cause it sure did mine. I was on my way back to the house tonight after walking to get minutes for my phone and all along the way sweet little voices yelled out "hello salminga!" like they always do. As I was about to walk into the gate that surrounds our house, I saw a little boy running down the road towards me. I wasn't sure if he was running to me or just happened to be in my direction. He was probably about 3 years old, no shoes, and wearing only a dirty old orange shirt. He ran with purpose, as fast as his little legs would take him. I just felt like I needed to wait at the gate until he got there, so that is what I did. He ran directly up to me and without saying a word gave me a strong high-five and turned right back around to go home. That was all he wanted. To give the salminga a high-five. It is moments like that that make me know I am supposed to be here. Those are the moments I hold onto when it is hard. Could you imagine if we all ran to God like that little boy ran to me today? 

To Be Known

It has been over a month since my last update. That is both hard to believe and not a surprise at all. It does not feel as if I have been here for a month and a half already. It is not that I have been so busy that there has been no time to post, but I am simply terrible about communicating specifics about my life. Since I am in it and living it, I sometimes forget that the only image of my life here that people back home have is my last post or the pictures I've uploaded on facebook.

The first couple weeks of being here were simply getting over jet lag and adjusting to the culture.  It is a completely different world in every aspect. Once I was a little more used to everything here, I was able to focus on what I am doing with the school. I began with creating a workshop for the teachers from Creche (1 year olds) to Primary 4 (4th grade). I had no idea where to begin. Sure, I went to college to be a teacher but my professors did not teach me how to teach other teachers in a third world country. I was incredibly overwhelmed by the entire idea of doing a workshop at first. I really thought that God was crazy for calling me here. I thought that Di, the lady I live with who also started the school, was also crazy for believing I could be of any help here.

 So I prayed. I prayed a lot. I prayed that the Lord would simply help me do whatever He wanted me to do. Every morning I would pray for guidance, direction, and wisdom. Once I began, the Lord just continued to guide me. Somewhere between having no idea what I was doing here and the end of today, I created and presented a  workshop for 24 teachers at Greater Heights. I am realizing that even though I wasn't trained to do exactly what I am doing, I am using so much of what I learned in college that at times I thought I would never use. The beginning of the workshop was going over very general components of teaching and the expectations that I have for the teachers. The schools here are nothing like the schools in America. I do not want to change their culture, but I want to give them the knowledge of how things are done in other places so that together we can combine the two and make it work for Ghana. In the last part of the workshop I explained and somewhat demonstrated three different activities or methods of teaching. Circle Time, Centers, and Guided Reading are the three components I decided to introduce. I was very worried that nothing I said would make any sense to them. I'm not saying that they are not capable of understanding me, but what I was teaching them are things that have been engraved in my brain over the last 4 years of college and I know them like the back of my hand. I wanted to make sure that I was communicating it correctly to them so that they would realize that even though this is something they have never heard of, they will be able to use it in their classrooms.

Other than creating the workshop I have been busy planning the curriculum for the first part of the school year. This was another place where I had no idea what I was doing, but God did. I started with a basic overview of each grade for one month. Then I made a weekly plan for each grade and gathered all the materials for the first week of school. This will be a work in progress as the year goes on. There is a lot that I have to learn, and so much of this aspect can only be done week by week because it depends on so many different things.

Aside from school I go to church in the village every week with my dear friend Dorcus and I go on walks around our house in the evening after school. There isn't very much to do here for entertainment and I'm learning that I am okay with that. I did learn how to drive a motorbike though.  I have so much more time to devote to being in The Word and prayer that I actually enjoy not always having something else to do. I'm realizing how distracted I was from God before.

It is not always easy. I had in my mind that God would be enough. It would be okay that I didn't have my friends and family because I would have God. I was so confused when it wasn't enough. It took some time, but then one night it just clicked. God wasn't enough now because before I came here I hadn't taken the time to get to know Him they way I knew my friends. I know my friends better than they know themselves sometimes. They were my whole life. They were what I put all of my energy into. They were what mattered most to me. God was there when I needed Him and I didn't need Him as much when I had my friends. Now I don't have any of my friends and I somehow expected God to just fill that spot. It isn't that easy though because friendships take time and work. Time and work that I had never put into getting to know God before now. I didn't know God well enough for Him to fill every void. Don't be mistaken, this was by no fault of His, but completely mine. I'm now in the process of getting to know God better than I know my friends.

My biggest lesson the last few weeks has been that I am on this earth for one purpose. To make His name great. I am not here to live an exciting, adventurous, or even comfortable life. In everything I do, I am here to make Him known. To show His love, mercy, and power. In that, I have realized that I will rarely know what I am actually doing but God will always know what He is doing. He delights in being strong in my weakness.  That is so much of the beauty of this story. Through God's grace, He is using me to write another part of His story. And even though it is difficult  a lot of the time, that is what gets me through. The simple fact that this is His plan and I am only in it by His will, to make Him known.


Grace and Peace,

Shelby