Some impressions of teaching in Africa

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Richard has written about some teaching expertiences in Savelugu..

Children the world over are similar. A classroom will have bright lazy pupils, hard working less able pupils, characters who are cheeky and hard grafting solid citizens. I have found the children in Africa a delightful mix of the above.

The chemistry here is quite a challenge and some of it is of a higher standard than much of the diluted A level that I have been teaching recently. My teaching load is not heavy and it is great fun to have time to prepare a few lessons! The pupils are very good at sitting there taking notes but I’m not sure how much is going in! They are well trained in copying off the black board. Dictation is a different thing even though we all speak English our pronunciation is quite different. They did find me difficult to understand originally but they are slowly getting used to me. I on the other hand can still struggle to cope with their questions, which are few and far between.

Much of the basics of chemistry, which is a pyramidal subject, are not understood and it can be quite a challenge to get over difficult concepts when many of the simple ones have not been assimilated properly. I do feel though that after a few weeks here that the pupils are getting used to my demands of them and I feel that some progress is being made.

The teaching environment is fair. The classroom has no windows but shuttered open spaces, the pupils buy their own desks and the black board, of variable standard, is just about useable though the quality of the chalk is poor. It is not even made of chalk so that when I dropped some of it in some hydrochloric acid no carbon dioxide was evolved! The occasional visit by a chicken or goat is a normal occurrence. If it rains then teaching is impossible because of the noise on the corrugated iron roof.

There is also a laboratory, which is shared with Physics and Biology but there is no gas or running water. I have not done any class practical but have managed quite a few demonstrations. I have managed to hook up a Bunsen burner to an lpg gas cylinder so some heating is possible. My first demonstration was the reaction between ammonia gas and hydrogen chloride gas to produce a white smoke of ammonium chloride. The pupils were quite impressed and many had not smelt ammonia gas before - it woke one or two of them up on a hot and sultry afternoon. They are pretty wary of chemicals in general and have very limited lab experience though they do have to sit a Practical examination at the end of three years of Senior Secondary School.

The school is reasonably equipped with a library but most of the titles are old textbooks from Europe and North America and are somewhat dated. There are one or two Ghanaian texts for chemistry, which are reasonable but again dated and pretty basic in their approach. The best textbook however has taught me a fair amount about the Chemical Industry in Ghana. They produce aluminium, gold but no iron in the country. There is also an Oil Refinery at Tema, which refines crude oil from Nigeria mainly. Much of the other industry is cottage industry.

My journey of about 25 kilometres to and from school is quite an experience. In the morning I walk from home to the cross road and I am collected in a pick up and we sit in the open back on benches or sometimes on the wheel hubs. If it rains on the way to school then the journey stops and we take shelter and wait for the rain to stop. This does not happen very often but no one seems to mind that we are late for school. The journey is quite bearable but conversation is not possible because of wind noise. Most of my return journeys are by shared taxi, which I pick up from the centre of town. The taxis are usually old cars, most do not have a working speedometer, fuel gauge or rev counter and virtually every windscreen is damaged. However, I have always managed to get home safely even though there are sometimes six or seven of us crammed into a five-seater car.

Homework is not something that happens very effectively. Most work set is not done but I now have a weekly test for which they have to work for reasonably well. Progress with some pupils is slow because absence is a major problem. One group that I teach seems to have a new pupil in the class every lesson but several others missing. Attendance by teachers is even a little suspect and many classes can go untaught for several lessons in the day.

I am having a great time here and my colleagues, pupils and other members of the non teaching staff are all very welcoming and in the short time that I have been here I hope that I may have set one or two of my pupils on their way to a career in medicine, nursing or engineering. The country is desperate for good graduates.

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Comments

[fiona lydiate]

I ve read all the blogs
Have been very interested in the trip and work in Ghana, you will all be going to Australia soon. This is all very different from Marlborough and Summerfield. Take care and enjoy Aderlade Fiona