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I wasn't entirely sure how to write this follow up post from our presentation last Thursday on the education system in Ghana. When I emailed Alice she sent the following to me: "perspective/analysis: what was important to you about what you learned and tried to convey?  What did it shed light on (new insights, questions)?  What did you learn from selecting what to share?  How did that connect with what you are interested in already?"

I want to first start with discussing choosing the topic and how the topic grew. I chose the topic mostly because I'm a straightforward and I wanted a straightforward topic. Also, I found it interesting that in class we were discussing Ghana and its education system in terms of literacy, without really knowing anything about its education system. I felt that this topic was a necessary groundwork. I mentioned in class that when researching for this topic, many of the articles/resources were from an American perspective (one even went as far to mention outright that that certain article was for American students looking to study in Ghana or Ghanaian students looking to pursue their tertiary degree in America). The other information I was able to find were from governmental resources or international education resources. I had expected to find more sources almost from the "people" of Ghana about their education system, although I realize now that that might not be considered "official" information. 

The first discussion between Parkway West's Foundations in Education class and Bryn Mawr College's Sociology of Ed class will be regarding the movie School Colors. The BMC students have composed questions for each PW student to answer. Once the PW students answer in their prospective groups, their BMC groups members will respond. Each individual has to respond twice in their groups. Here are the questions:

1. One of the teachers at Berkeley High said: Why should we have integration in school when it doesn’t exist in society?  Do you agree/disagree?  Why?

2. What are your thoughts on tracking?  What about the links between diversity and tracking? 

3. Certain ways of speaking (white, middle class) are considered more “appropriate” than other ways of speaking.  How should schools deal with this issue? 

When answering the questions, make sure that you are clear about what question you are answering- you can also touch on more than one question.

Below I have an example of how a dialog should/could go.

Hmm... this picture is backwards...that's strange.

          “Persepolis” tells the story of Marjane Satrapi’s childhood, adolescence and transition into adulthood set on the changing backdrop of her cultural location and identity[1].  Through her personal story, Satrapi educates her audience on what it means to her to be an Iranian girl and woman, the political situation in Iran at the time of her upbringing, and how she often clashed with her surroundings and fought back against oppressive and simplistic ideology encountered in both Iran and Europe.    As inspiration for her graphic novel, Satrapi cites “Maus” by Art Spiegelman[2].  While in some ways “Persepolis” is very similar to “Maus,” the changes that Satrapi has made can be seen as her way of creating a feminist text out of an uncommon genre – the graphic novel.

After discussing some of Spivak's thoughts in "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism" and "A Literary Representation of the Subaltern: A Woman's Text From the Third World", I am frustrated. In "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism", we said that Spivak wants us to see the underlying constraints imposed by imperialism in texts like "Frankenstein" and "Jane Eyre". In particular, we said that Spivak sees "Jane Eyre", despite its reputation as a progressive and feminist text, as one that actually follows an old script. Shaped by imperialism, Jane also acts as a force of it when she ascends the ladder of social and economic mobility by marrying the wealthy Mr. Rochester, at the expense of the other and "other-ed" woman, Bertha. Imperialism is everywhere; it permeates even our classic literary texts, Spivak says. In class, we pointed out all the various ways in which imperialism exists institutionally and how we choose to submit to it, especially in higher education. My frustration is, well, where do we go from here? So now that we have this awareness or improved understanding of how imperialized every single one of our thought processes is, that's it? And any ways through which we might seek to subvert hegemonic, imperialist forces is probably in some way tinged by imperialism? We just have to accept that there's no way out? Not that I could even imagine what that alternative would be, but at least Woolf gave us the outsider's society, flawed though it may be. Perhaps a way out doesn't exist, but surely ones that are "less wrong" exist.

When I asked our host at the museum how long the exhibition had existed in its original format - she sighed deeply and said a long, long time. This was no surprise at all but reminded me of a book by "journalist and writer Charlayne Hunter-Gault called "New News out of Africa" (2006). The whole idea of the book is to present a more nuanced image of Africa, with updated stories about what was really happening on the ground to subvert the narratives of the "four d's" i.e. death, destruction, disease and despair which dominate media coverage. It struck me on Friday that the high school students were aware of the singularity of the image they held of Africa and were very interested in learning about the experiences of their peers in environments such as school or their interests in things like music or fashion.

The "old"exhibition was dated in that it was from a time when the archeologists and anthropologsts were focusing on Africa as an object of study and not engagement. The new section was well-designed to update the ways in which people want to interact with Africa and represents a symbolic transformation in the approach to representing the continent.

I'm curious to revisit with more leisurely time to really pore over what the choice in artifacts on display is trying to achieve and to think more about what new narrative is possible considering their dated collection.

This week was quite the exciting week in terms of our class! On Tuesday, we had the chance to reflect on our progress throughout the semester and discussed what it meant to be writer. On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to hear Canadian author Kathy Knowles speak about the literature that she writes for Ghanian youth. On Thursday, we learned about the education system in Ghana and heard Theresa Cann talk about her experience in Ghana, specifically talking about language. On Friday, we were up bright and early for our field trip with Parkway West to the Imagine Africa exhbit at UPenn. Throughout all of these discussions and experiences, a theme that has really stuck me has been the disconnection between academia and "real-life" and the values we place on different literacies. Something that I found really striking was when Kathy talked about how most Ghanaians do not find reading to be a pleasurable experience. Our initial reaction was one of horror since so many of us grew up homes where reading was encouraged and an activity associated with love and family since our families would tuck us into bed with a story. Many of those who grow up in low-income homes may also experience this disconnection from reading and pleasure. Due to lack of access to literature as well as the fact that most literature that Ghanaians read is in English, often their third language, many of them see in strictly in an academic sense. Only 4% of Ghanaians go onto tertiary education and only those who can afford it make it there.

I had an amazing experience in my field placement on Friday. I'm in a charter school where the special ed program is primarily inclusive. I frequently work with a student named "Jeremy" who often struggles to stay with the lesson, especially in large group instruction. One specific behavior that can be disruptive is when he calls out in the middle of the lecture--it is frequent enough that his classmates are distracted and that it interrupts the flow of the lesson. Throughout my time at this school, the teacher and administrators have been working on various interventions for him, including a paycheck for good behavior, check-ins with the teacher after every subject, and "choice time" when he makes it through a lesson. On Friday during the Writing mini-lesson, when he started to interrupt, the teacher told him to get a piece of paper and write it down. He did! He makes so many connections to the material, and he wants to share it with everyone, but in the middle of the lecture is not the most appropriate time. By writing it down, he got to express himself without requiring anyone's immediate attention. He made it through the rest of the mini-lesson and worked productively and independently throughout Writer's Workshop, specifically answering the prompt from the mini-lesson using appropriate vocabulary and responding to the feedback I gave him.

After skyping with the founder of an NGO which provides libraries and Ghanaian children novels in Ghana (I forgot the name of the NGO but I believe Kathy Knowles is the name of the founder) and learning more about the history of formal education in Ghana, I became to reflect a lot about what could be done to improve the education system in Ghana. According to Ms. Knowles, literacy is a problem in Ghana because reading is not seen as a leisurable activity, and is only associated with academic work. Moreover, education there is based upon repetition and memorizatioon, thus school can be very boring and dry to students. Also, students are constantly anxious about being graded since the whole curriculum and attitude of the teachers is based upon doing well on the exams. Additionally, I personally feel that such a system does not cultivate appreciation for the art of learning. We've virtually discussed (via twitter) the importance of making mistakes for one's learning and education. However, such a system in Ghana appears to leave no room for mistakes, or creativity for that matter. These aspects along with many others compose Ghana's education system and consequently do not appear to be conducive towards a positive, fun, and interesting learning atmosphere for students (or the teachers).