apples are for teachers

Pine-apples that is.  I thought the pineapple sitting on this teacher's desk was perfect.  What better reflection of the differences in our classroom culture? 

This picture was taken a couple of  weeks ago when I went to Nkwatia, a small town in the eastern region of Ghana to conduct a teaching semniar with Alayna.  Alyana has been working on a curriculum development project for a few years, and this seminar was part of the implementation.

The first day she presented on integration, lesson planning, inquiry, experimental procedure, etc.  The second day I presented on reading skills and phonics.  It was really short, but a good start.  We were only with the primary 1, 2, and nursery teachers.  Turns out rhyming was not a part of their training, they found it quite challenging to create simple rhymes out of words that I had written down and given to them.  They did however, get really into the "letter aerobics" song.

It is really interesting to try and present material and methods to individuals who have no previous experience with such methods and philosophies of teaching.  I felt like I was speaking a foreign language for most of the presentation.  Hopefully some seeds were at least planted to focusing on literacy skills in the primary classrooms!