Red Card

My crusade to ban caning in my school continues. Some teachers have really taken it on board but some remain surgically attached to their canes! I have resorted to walking around the campus every morning to take all the canes out of the classrooms. I am asked about suitable disciplinary methods all the time, which can be difficult as I have very little experience as a teacher and not much with kids at all. But in my classes I have introduced a yellow and red card system. Most of Ghana love football so they understand this rule pretty quickly- yellow card is a warning, red and you’ve gone too far! I am happy to say it’s working with one of my classes very nicely. My older class is a little harder to control and despite having the entire class, bar about 4 people, scrub the long drop toilets for not doing their homework, this week they have not handed in their work again. I sound mean but I asked them to come up with their own ‘Code of Conduct’ for certain rule breaking and they came up with scrubbing the toilet!

I have been asked by the headmaster and proprietor to come up with a solution for the poor time keeping in the school as well. Currently there are two breaks in the day and the kids are fed full meals twice. The cooks do not turn up on time which means they cannot prepare food in time for the timetabled breaks. This results in the breaks lasting until the food is ready; I have been in school when break has lasted the entire afternoon so classes have missed 6 lessons in a day! It’s not just the cooks, the kids have no qualms with turning up 2 hours late for school. For some, however, it’s because their parents make them rise early and farm before they can come to school. This is where the laid back attitude of Ghana has negative consequences, when children miss out on their valuable education. So that’s this week’s challenge!

As I have said before, as children start school at different ages and are placed in classes according to their ability, I teach kids ranging from 13-18 in one class. This can be very difficult and embarrassing for the older ones and only serves to limit their confidence even more. I have an older guy like this in one of my classes and have arranged to have extra lessons with him until I go, which also start next week. I have also started a debate club at the school- next week we debate the positives and negatives of television.

This week the girls in my empowerment club wanted me to talk to them about HIV/ AIDS. I had a lot of swotting up to do as I have never really learned about it myself. We had a long chat about causes, effects, treatment and prevention. They all tell me that there is no way they will ever, ever have sex before they are married. I tell them that whilst I respect that and believe them, it’s best to be realistic and prepared. HIV/ AIDS is on the decrease in Ghana but is still a very real risk. It is most prevalent amongst women (56% of all sufferers in Ghana are women) and in the age group of 25-34. I informed the girls that, before marriage, the best thing they can do is either abstain or use a condom. They told me that their pastors tell them that using a condom is tantamount to abortion and therefore is an abomination. Whilst I see the positive influence faith and Christian morals has on this country, this upsets me greatly and is a hard one to argue against when they have been told this since birth. I managed to circumvent an entire debate about religion and my personal beliefs (one I am now very much versed in) and lightened the session by showing photos of my family, Jonny’s mum and my friends-Flick and Verity, as they’d requested I brought them in last week. They were fascinated! Next week they want to discuss teenage pregnancy and how to prevent it- I don’t think they’re going to like my answers!

Film club was a huge hit at the orphanage again this week with the airing of a classic- the Jungle Book. They loved it and it was so funny seeing which bits they were in fits of laughter about. They were not at all keen on the snake; it got a pretty bad reception, which I can only think is down to their learning of the book of Genesis. While they happily watched the film, I found the two 6 week old puppies who are the newest residents at the orphanage. They are so beautiful and can be seen on Jonny’s facebook pictures. The poor things had about 100 ticks in each ear so I removed them all as I couldn’t imagine how annoying that would be for them.

My school took a mid-term long weekend this week so I have had a good and welcome rest. However, it’s now Monday and I still have a lot of planning to do so best crack on! Happy Halloween everyone!