Field research in rural schools

Schools in Ghana are very different from schools in Canada; quite obviously. We spent the past 2 weeks working in rural schools in the Gomoa West District, the first week my group of 5 spent in one school and the second week groups swapped and we researched in the second school. It became quite clear that the first school was the “high performing” school and the second school was the “low performing”. At the second school, teachers sat outside of classrooms not teaching, came late, left school early, and for three days there was a workshop where the majority of teachers had to attend, and there is no concept of “substitute teachers” in Ghana, so students simply came to class and sat unattended, or other students taught classes for one another. It is difficult not to impose my biases and perceptions of acceptable classroom practices when describing the schools. Watching students being “caned”, smacked, or “shamed” by the entire class when they participate with the wrong answer was at times difficult to observe. But there were many beautiful elements as well. When a student would make a valuable contribution, the teacher would say “clap for him” and they would all clap in patterned unison, and some teachers created their own teaching and learning materials if nothing was provided by the school.
That Ghanaian culture is much more physical and collectivist than Canadian culture is quite evident in schooling. On Wednesday worship, students all sing, clap, dance, pray aloud, drum, jump together; immensely powerful (look forward to my posting a video on facebook). Every morning starts with Assembly (led by students, as teachers are not yet at school) where students line up, walk together (picture an army march), sing the National anthem, pray aloud in unison, play drums. Yet, even though discipline is physical, and encouragement is physical, and worship is physical, the teaching pedagogy itself is very one-sided as teachers read from a book, write on the board, drill questions or lecture while students remain seated for the entire duration, unless of course they answer a question which requires them to stand. Further, when anyone enters the room, all students stand and greet the person in unison; another physical, communal practice.

Beyond these observations, we conducted interviews with 6 pupils (2 high performing, 2 average, and 2 low performing) from each of the classes 4-8, provided Headmasters and teachers with questionnaires, and interviewed community members, elders, and Queen Mothers. English proficiency was always quite clear immediately- many children could not understand my English so I was forced to take notes as my partner Gladys spoke with the children in Twi and translated for me. One boy was 18 years old, still in school, but due to Wholesale Promotion (where every child must pass on to the next grade regardless of their performance) he was unable to speak English.

Yet once again, there were beautiful moments and children with brilliant minds who understood every word I said and contributed valuable insight into the challenges of their schools and the importance of education. I would be lying if I didn’t share that my heart broke many times while working in these schools, where “sanitation” and the only “bathroom” available was to pee outside in an enclosed block on cement, or that there was no running water, many students without pens or pencils, most children had not eaten before school, children who wanted to speak and learn English but were afraid because they were mocked and tormented by fellow students, students attending school barefoot because if they wear “slippers” (flip flops) they are caned or sent home, children in dirty, torn, outdated uniforms, students leaving class to buy food and run errands for teachers. There were also interesting community beliefs that hinder the achievement of quality education; some believed that the reason the students were not performing was due to witches in the community, and that there were barrels at the threshold of every classroom so that as every student leaves class all the knowledge they learned is sucked out of their minds and sealed into the barrels. How do you convince community members to invest in schools, to encourage students to attend and learn when they feel academic performance is the result of witches?

We are now currently in Cape Coast, coding and analyzing all of our qualitative and quantitative data, trying to make sense of it all before the report is due on Tuesday. As of now I cannot share our findings or recommendations, but I can say that the problems are very complex and intertwined and to merely attribute performance to a lack of trained teachers, textbooks or school supplies would be short sighted and naïve. Clearly, there are many community and cultural perceptions that effect pupil perceptions of education, and the lack of role models in these rural communities results in all students wanting to be “tro tro drivers” when they grow up because that is all they see, what their siblings do, one of the few things you can do without secondary school education. Situational factors, such as a select few members of the community who obtained wealth/success without attending school, or members who learned better English working in the market than their siblings attending schools, lead people to believe that school is not needed to succeed or to learn English, so why bother? Why continue? Why study? Why attend school? And when the pressures of living in poverty, in large families requires all children to fetch water day and night, wash dishes, cook, clean and some even have to go and work on Market days or work on the farm, it becomes unimportant/impossible to attend school regularly, or learn at home or at school.

And yet, as always, there are always gems. One student I interviewed, Emmanuel, stole my heart. He was brilliant, a high performing student who knew the answer to every question and was always smiling. He spoke fluently in English, and asked for my address in Canada so he could come visit me one day. He told me he wanted to be a journalist and I told him he could be. He told me that it’s hard at home because there is not enough food, his parents work in another village so he is being cared for by his older sister, and he often goes to school without eating, and without money/food to eat during the day. I asked him if he liked living here, and his face sank and he said “no, it’s very hard”. I wanted to hug him, buy him food, give him money, but what kind of researcher is that? The day we were leaving I called him over and gave him a pack of my cookies and he said thank you and left, and I later saw him walking around sharing the cookies with other children; such a beautiful child.

Another day, when teachers were at the workshop or sitting outside chatting, I realized that a class had been unattended for the entire day, so I went to see what they were doing, and I observed that a child was teaching the same lesson they had been taught the day before about 6 English Keywords (porch, barking and family are all I remember right now). After realizing that every child could say the words and had been going over the same story over and over, I decided to write a story about myself on the chalkboard with the keywords in it, had them read it, and then proceeded to talk to the children about Canada, and asked them what subject they were supposed to be learning. One boy was much tinier than the rest, and when I asked how old the students were, they all said 12 or 13 but he said he was 10. I discovered that he was in the class because he was “smart” and “could read”. He could understand all that I said and would translate for the rest of the class. He told me they were to be learning math, so he got me the textbook and told me where the teacher left off, so I put some problems on the board for them. It is very hard to fathom that teachers would attend school and just sit outside and talk the entire day while students sit in the classrooms. It is amazing that the children still come to school, and surprising that they are not doing worse than they are.

I don’t mean to be pessimistic or paint a dark picture of a beautiful world, because at the end of each day I was always overwhelmed with love for these children, seeing them smiling and laughing, hearing their voices singing, and yelling “mami obruni” will always warm my heart. My intention is to share what I have been doing and what I have observed, and understandably what often stands out to a foreigner is what is upsetting/depressing/surprising. Once again I want to clarify that all of my observations are very subjective, biased and based on a miniscule sample size of 2 schools, so by no means do my opinions reflect all of the education system in Ghana, because Ghana is actually known for their education system throughout Africa.

Look forward to more about my research and about some of the challenges of working in an intercultural context with Ghanaian and Canadian University students.

I cannot believe I have only 2 short weeks left in this beautiful country, with these incredible people, and so I cannot become nostalgic/emotional, but I promise to enjoy every moment I have left, and to write much more in the next while; internet access permitting ;)

With lots and lots and lots of love,
Robin