I want to teach math!

What a week! Week one of being at His Majesty’s Christian School is complete and we are now left with the weekend to process what’s just happened, what we’ve learned and what we need to do to start teaching next week. There are definitely some major differences between how Canadians and Ghanaians teach/learn.

Here’s what a typical day looks like at HMCS: First is assembly, where the kids line up in a boys’ line and a girls’ line to pray, sing both the Ghanaian and Canadian national anthems and recite the Ghanaian pledge. Then it’s circle time and we sing songs and figure out our left from right in “You put your right hand in” and learn how to plant in “I’m digging on a farm”, etc, etc. Once inside the school we have our first class. Starting Monday the other Canadian girls and I will be starting to teach our classes. We only have 4 different classes throughout the week in Kindergarten here, and I’ll be teaching language and literacy and creative arts in KG2 (equivalent of Senior Kindergarten). To be honest, I wish I was teaching math (I know, shocker!), but the children didn’t understand a WORD of what was trying to be taught yesterday in math and I kept thinking of gazillions of different ways that I could teach them the same thing that the teacher was trying to get across. Who ever thought I’d want to teach math?!

After first class comes snack and an hour break. Wish our first recess at Knox had been an hour! I’ll often push kids on the two wooden, rickety swings on the tiny jungle gym in the back, man the line of pushing and shoving boys who are waiting for a turn on the Little Tikes bike, or play “Round and round the garden” on the girls’ hands. They love being tickled :)

Then we have another class after break before Belinda comes with lunch. Since we are still getting used to Ghanaian food, Belinda usually cooks something slightly different for the three of us and we sit at our own table in the corner of the room. The kids will often come and exclaim over our meal and ask for something that they didn’t get. We had one very humbling and uncomfortable experience earlier this week: We were given chicken legs one day as part of lunch. For those of you who know me, you know that I’m really not a big fan of meat. I ate most of the chicken on the bone, washed it down with my bottled water and left the small, gross pieces on the ends. As we finished, and while we were still sitting at the table, Belinda came and starting clearing our plates. (That in and of itself is still difficult for me to accept.) By that time a group of about 4 or 5 kids were following her closely and pleading in their small but strong Twi voices. Belinda took our leftover yams and put them in their bowls. I was fine with that since we weren’t going to eat them anyway. But then she took our mostly cleaned chicken bones and also put them in their bowls. The pit still sits in my stomach when I think about that and when I remember them licking them clean. How much do we complain about what food we eat in North America, or about being full and not able to eat another bite, and how much do we just throw away without batting an eye? Seems like a pretty “duh” observation of mine, but it touched me deeply.

After another hour break for lunch, the kids come inside and lay on the mats for nap time – our favourite time! Steph, Karen and I usually use the quiet, down time to journal and just breathe. After nap is a Twi lesson, where I sit and don’t understand a word of what’s going on. Closing prayer in their lines outside and a final marching song as they head to the little, yellow school bus ends the day. Most often the teachers (and occasionally even us) ride on the bus along with the kids. We got to see where some of them live yesterday before we got dropped off at the bottom of our hilly driveway, and they were excited to pat our arms and tell us where they live.

There’s something about being with children all day that is humbling and reshuffles our thinking. Imagination should never die. We should be allowed to colour outside of the lines. Running around and learning how to get along with each other as we go about daily lives is the best education. Excitement about going to school is a privilege.