Street Academy Review

Name: Mary York
Date: 26 September 2009
Organization: Street Academy
Position: Teaching Assistant

Description of my placement and time in Ghana:
I came to Ghana at the end of August 2009 to volunteer for 4 weeks in the Street Academy set up by Ataa Lartey. My role as a teaching assistant was to involve attending to the children's extra needs within the classroom setting; whether those struggling and requiring extra help to catch up, or those who were slightly ahead of the others in their class and therefore required additional harder work.

My first 2 weeks at the school were slightly unusual as it was still the summer vacation and therefore lessons had not yet started. The first week consisted of meeting some of the children who attended the summer school voluntarily and this enabled me to help them with their reading. Many of them simply wanted someone to sit with them whilst they read from their exercise book, to correct their pronunciation mistakes and help them recognise words they did not know. At first I observed, but then was able to create ways in which to try to help them remember the new words. Often in twos or threes I would let them read a passage and then take away the book and ask them to spell some of the words from the passage. Making notes of the ones they got wrong I would correct them and then ask them again later on. The children seemed to enjoy such games and often awarded each other points for the amount they got right. They were all very determined and competitive.

The second week consisted of a teacher training week for teachers from schools in Accra. This was a very interesting experience as we got to experience the ways in which teachers are instructed and taught the methods of how to in turn teach a class. It was interesting as there were so many differences from the way in which teachers are trained in England. I felt I learnt a lot about the education system and how things are conducted within school in Ghana.

The final 2 weeks of my placement involved the commencement of actual lessons after the summer vacation. This involved a huge variety of preparations in the first week; including tidying, cleaning and organising the school and classrooms, giving out and covering all the new text and exercise books, deciding which children to place into which classes, enrolling new pupils and taking those with scholarships to the 'formal schools'. This was a very emotional week for the students and volunteers as we watched some of the children we had grown close to leave the Street Academy to continue their education at a new school. Many were very upset to leave and often came back after school to visit us. This shows how the children felt about the Street Academy and what a welcoming and safe environment they viewed it as.

The lessons themselves were very enjoyable. I was assisting in the beginners' class with 2 other volunteers. We were all required even though the class itself was only a total of about 15 children, as one-to-one help was crucial for many of them. It was sometimes difficult to follow the instructions in the classes as Constance, the teacher, needed to explain the exercises to the children in Twi(local language) as many of them had very limited English. However it was extremely rewarding to be able to sit with them individually and offer help and encouragement as they practiced writing the alphabet and numbers, initially with their fingers in the air, and gradually progressing to using a pencil and an exercise book. Each of the volunteers helped a different group of children in order for us to be able to develop a relationship with those children and be able to track their progress as the days went on. It was also important for us to help those children who found several lessons in the beginners' class too easy. Indeed there were several children who struggled with English, however excelled at maths and were able to complete multiplication and division, whilst others were still learning how to write the numbers and symbols. We were able to support these children and help them progress further by writing them additional exercises to complete in their books and giving them homework to do. It may have been much more beneficial for these children to be able to move to a higher class for mathematics.

Achievements:

• Learning how to detect those children who required additional assistance.
• Having the ability to explain and help a child to understand an exercise despite the language barrier.
• Identifying potential gaps in the lessons/teaching material and providing suggestions as to how to improve this. This included me and another volunteer suggesting the need for large posters of all the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 1-10. With the children's help we were able to create these posters and display them around the classroom for use in lessons.

Recommendations for future volunteers:

• Try to identify further areas for improvement and use your knowledge of the education system in your own country to suggest additions to the lessons in Ghanaian schools.
• Target the same children each day in order to be able to assess their progress more effectively than attempting to all help each child everyday (unless of course you are the only volunteer within that class).
• Discuss teaching methods and suggestions with the teachers - they are often open to suggestions and even ask for help conducting lessons and activities.
• The other volunteers and myself focussed on helping to develop the resources available to the children when learning the alphabet and numbers. It may be beneficial for future volunteers to carry on with this work and think of creative ways to teach the children 2,3 and 4 letter words, and then simple sentences.
• The school lacks basic resources such as picture cards, posters, number cards etc. I.e. Things that would enable the children to put letters and numbers together in a practical way to enhance their understanding.

Tips and advice regarding the placement:

• Find out as much as you can about how things are taught in Ghanaian schools as this will help. It is very different from the English educational system and there is a much higher emphasis on religion as well as extra-curricular activities such as singing, dancing, drumming and sports.
• I found the school to have a much more relaxed environment than English schools and teachers and pupils often seem to interact as friends.
• Talk to the teachers as much as possible. They will want your opinions and help often.
• Bring as many classroom resources as you can (pens, pencils, paper, rubbers, especially good pencil sharpeners!) and be prepared to prepare activities for lessons as you may be asked to teach some of the classes rather than just be an assistant to the teachers. It is very rewarding and a good challenge!

Read a volunteer's BLOG about her time at Street Academy.