While the cultural and language training was informative and effective, the technical training was to an equal degree disappointedly tedious and unproductive. Let me take one second to discuss where technical training fits in within the whole Pre-Service Training roadmap. Education volunteers are brought here to teach math, science, visual art, and computers in Junior Secondary School (JSS) and Senior Secondary School (SSS), our equivalent of middle and high school, respectively. The average education volunteer has had the appropriate education in their respective subject areas but are equipped with little experience in teaching inside a classroom. As expected, much time in the three month training is devoted to getting us to be effective teachers.
The approach taken by Peace Corps Ghana was to throw inexperienced teachers into classrooms filled with Ghanaian students. This was a 3 week activity we call practicum. On paper this is a great way to practice teaching methods and techniques to control the classroom. However, little was discussed before practicum so few of us understood any teaching principles and lesson planning. We were not given tools to help us evaluate our students to adjust our teaching to a level appropriate for the students. It did not help that the whole practicum exercise was poorly organized and objectives loosely defined. The feedback that we received rarely went beyond asking us to speak louder in class. We then spent many hours sitting through sessions where although the subject matters were appropriate, the material was often too elementary for the audience and the presenters were often ill prepared. We started calling these painful ordeals suck-sions… What was equally disturbing was the lack of resources Peace Corps was able to provide to volunteers to help us teach. I was expecting a repository of lesson plans on every subject. In addition, since the main goal for all students is to score well in the final standardized exams given for each of the subjects that the students studied, I was expecting plenty of past questions and testing strategy. I was again disappointed. Lastly, as the majority of the students in the rural schools in which PC volunteers teach in will not enter universities or polytechnics, they need practical skills so they can operate effectively in agriculture and in the informal economy so as to not fall into poverty. Again, not much was there.
I certainly appreciate the difficulty of getting a large group of recent college graduates with little work experience to be ready to do development work in three short months. But with 45 years of experience of holding Pre-Service Training, I was frankly expecting more from Peace Corps. I am hoping my two years here will allow me to contribute towards enriching the training experience as it is an essential element to help volunteers to be productive and motivated operating in this difficult and unfamiliar environment.
On a positive note, we did get to go on a few interesting excursions during the seemingly never ending training. We visited two waterfalls, hiked into bat caves, stopped over in the Ashanti palace, observed monks in a monastery, and played with monkeys in the monkey sanctuary. It was an experience to stand inside the bat cave not able to see anything due to the darkness but feeling the little creatures flying next to my head. The cave had this damp stale smell which was mildly disgusting. But the highlight has to be climbing out of the cave on this wooden ladder covered in bat doo-doo. I felt really one with nature trying get the souvenir faecal matter my nocturnal friends had left me off my shirt. Here is a picture I took inside the cave. Since it was large and dark, all you can see are the reflections of bat eyes. But if you look closely, you can make out a few bats in mid flight, kind of creepy if you ask me:
And here is a picture of me. I know it has been some time. I don’t want you to forget how I look:
We had a really good time at the monkey sanctuary as well. My heart missed a few beats when the monkeys rushed towards me to grab the banana off my hand. This is him eating my banana:
On August 18th, I was officially sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer. I felt invigorated and anxious to go to my site to begin work. So I will talk more about my site on my next post.
Hi, Ernest,
Kim Smith sent me your blog. We met at a Sierra Club event last week. I was a volunteer in Burkina Faso (it was Upper Volta then) from 1979 to 1982. Sounds like the teacher training hasn’t changed much. I remember how terrified I was when I first had to start teaching. I traveled a lot in Ghana but don’t remember a place called Techiman. Have been to Tamale, Wa, Kumasi, and Dixcove though. I’ve still got my old Michelin map. What is Techiman near? You must have been at your post a few months by now. Hope all is going well. Am looking forward to seeing more of your blog. Ellen