Senior High School Visit

Yesterday, Alisa and I went to the senior high school in Juaboso to meet with the students about forming a health club. It was a rather rewarding experience, I thought, but it definitely brought to light the drastic teaching differences in Ghana and America. We stood up in front of probably 100 students, I’m really bad at estimating things like this so who knows how many were actually there, but the classroom as chocker-block full of students. We did our little spiel again of how we want this club to be theirs and we are only here as a resource. After laying out the objectives of our meeting and it finally came time for some audience participation. Instead of leading them with ideas, we wanted them to voice their own thoughts and opinions. We wanted them to tell us what they wanted to learn, or things they didn’t understand and wanted more information. Well after a few minutes of silence and blank faces, we looked to the assistant headmaster for some help. Maybe the just didn’t understand our accents? So the assistant headmaster asks them if they understand and they do, so why didn’t they respond to us?

Here in Ghana, the students are lectured at and told what to learn. There is no critical thinking it is all memorization. The teacher writes something on the board and the students copy it diligently. So when we asked them to share their thoughts and ideas and to really express themselves, they were lost. In the end, we ended up giving them examples of possible health topics like family planning, abortion, nutrition, hygiene, etc. Eventually they got the idea and started to raise their hands. We ended up with a list of at least 20 topics they wanted to learn more about. I’ll give you some examples: body odor, family planning, safe abortion, oral hygiene, toe warts, vision, and sanitation. The list goes on but you get the idea. Because the school year is coming to an end we said that over the break if they get an idea in mind to write it down and we’ll compile an even bigger list at the start of the new term in September. I think our meeting was successful once we got over the bumps in the beginning. I was surprised at how many girls volunteered their ideas; I would have thought they would have been more reserved, especially in front of the boys.

It was even more rewarding when we were walking out, a couple girls ran up to us with more questions. It really made me feel like we actually did some good and the students are interested in learning. One girl asked us some questions about her birth control pills, so Alisa and I went over how and when to take them. Look at us saving babies!