First Conference Day 6/26/19

First conference day! I woke up excited but very nervous. I am used to presenting information to students, but presenting to adults seemed far more daunting. To relieve some nerves Eliza, Shelby, Yvette and I got up early to workout. I had just enough time to shower and get organized before breakfast. After breakfast Zacchaeus, Evans, and few other people who work at the hotel started rearranging chairs in the meeting room. Before long all of the in-country teachers, the other fellows, members of the GES, representatives from Afrikids and our team leads were packed into the conference room for our opening ceremony. Issac from Afrikids, Monty and the GES members spoke about the goals and value of the program. The GES seemed happy to have us there, and Isaac said some really nice things about the impact of the program.

Of course by the time everyone had arrived, and we had gotten started we were a bit behind schedule. We had to begin our conferences by reviewing the 6 principles of effective teaching as outlined but LRTT, which all of our teachers had learned the previous year. Then we had to give a pre-assessment, and then got into the elements we had planned. We reviewed the power of goal setting, tracking and growth mindset. We talked about the importance of feedback, and compliment sandwiches, also the potential for learning in teams and groups, academic discussion and the power of error analysis. The teachers wanted to make sure we really understand the challenge they faced in the numbers of students in classrooms. It is a factor we absolutely had to consider when we prepared. There are a number of strategies or games I use that wouldn’t work in a class of 60-120 without being altered a bit. We assured them we had considered that, and that we would do some modeling when we spent times in each of their classrooms.

Our group wasn’t very talkative which always makes me nervous. Luckily we had Sumsideen who was exceptionally talkative. He loves giving us a hard time and joking. It worked out well because I could use him as a model of engaging students or correcting behavior and everyone in the group would chime in. It provided some regular comic relief as well. We had 4 mothers with babies in our group as well. In Ghana when a woman has a baby they don’t have to find childcare in order to go back to work. The mothers just bring their babies to school with them. They wear them on their backs wrapped in beautiful kente cloth, let their interns, assistants or other teachers hold them, or they sit on the cloth on the floor. The babies are so socialized. In the United States babies often cry when a new adult holds them, but in Zebilla the babies happily are passed to different adults while their mothers work. During our conference Jasmine and I held babies in shifts so their mothers could participate in our activities. It really illustrated the community nature of raising children in that area. It takes a village, as the saying goes.

We wrapped up the day, and had covered most of what we planned for the first day. We had lunch and then Jasmine and I spent a lot of time planning for the next day. We decided to split into two groups and then switch so we could each cover some topics in depth. We worked up until our team meeting. We had finished our first day by asking the teachers what they were really hoping for more of the next day. Many of them had asked about more learning games and songs. We all know songs are not my go teaching strategy. Luckily Keely one of our team leads had several on deck and taught them to Jasmine and I. Sumsideen had challenged us to be resourceful and come up with TLM (teaching and learning materials) with the resources we saw that they had available. Eliza, Shelby, Lemora and I spend a lot of time brainstorming ideas. I decided to cut up all the extra water bottles in my rooms, and use them with rocks as a whole group or small group motivation and behavior system. Lemora’s mom came up with the idea of using our left over boxes from all the water bottles to create anchor charts with the cardboard, or flash cards. I also realized I could use the extra sheet I brought to model some parachute games the next day. We spent the rest of the night making materials and preparing for the next day.

This was such a wonderful day. I have a lot to consider and reflect on as we continue to try to meet the needs of these wonderful and talented teachers.