The Presbyterian Secondary School

The Presbyterian Secondary School (Presec) is located in a subdivision outside of Accra.As an American I automatically assumed that the Presbyterian Secondary School would be a private school. I was wrong though as I discovered that many public schools in Ghana were started by missionaries and the government just kept the same names when they took over the educational system. Presec is a school which focuses primarily on the sciences, but they do have a curriculum which covers four of the basics: Science, Mathematics, English, and Social Studies. Exams for the students have actually already begun, but a few of the teachers allowed us to come in as they conducted reviews and preparations for finals.Andy joined me at the school visit and we were placed in the capable hands of the history teacher, Yaw Oti-Dankese. In the Ghanaian school system, a secondary student attends for three years although that is increasing to four beginning with next years form 1 (freshmen) students. Mr. Dankese teaches all of the history classes at his school. In the first year the focus on 10 main issues in ancient history. In the second year, the focus moves to pre-colonial Africa. Finally, in the third year the students discuss Ghana since colonialism. It is important to note that all three years focus virtually entirely upon Africa with the last two years dedicated almost exclusively to Ghana. This is of course not completely possible since it was the colonial boundaries that created the borders of the African nations today.



I was a little disappointed that I did not get to have a lot of time to discuss information with students, but it is very understandable given what time in the school year it is. On the first day, a saw an English teacher review about various figures of speech including metaphors, similes, and personification. The students were pretty well engaged and seemed to understand, which is a good sign since it was review.Mr. Dankese reviewed Ancient Egypt to his form one class. It was a good review, but the information was not at all new to me, so I was hoping for something better. We then met a physics teacher named Alex Yalley. We then met Mr. Yalley's class. He was going over the last quiz of the term; he had 41 students in his class. (Speaking of class size, when we returned to the boss and boarded the shuttle bus which had dropped each of us at different schools, it was interesting to hear that some of our colleagues visited classrooms with over 70 students. Mr. Dankese told Andy and me that a starting teacher makes a small fraction in salary a year. These last two facts make me appreciate my job more so than I already do.) When Mr. Yalley gave the students their quizzes back, he gave them out publicly and in order from first to worst (in performance). Initially, it seemed demeaning. In fact, I could only imagine what would happen to me if returned quizzes in such a fashion. However, it turned out that the school is enormously competitive, and the kids seemed to be genuinely interested in how they fared up against their mates. Mr. Yalley also called out the scores, but after the scores dipped below an 85, he no longer called out their marks as he called them. Andy noted that his method seemed cruel to us, but one could tell by the way the students responded to him that he cared about their progress very much. Mr. Yalley was also in charge of the computer lab, which has been "down" for two years because their server was broken. I will revisit Mr. Yalley later in this entry.



On our second day, Mr. Dankese's class began @ 7:20 AM, so Andy and I decided that we would hire a cab instead of waiting for our bus. Frances, one of our guides who pamper us, went and negotiated our fare for us. Andy and I took a ten minute cab ride for approximately $2.20. It is kind of fun here how negotiating for prices for nearly everything here is part of the culture. Andy and I gave the driver a little extra for being so nice to us. Anyway, Andy and I arrived at Presec at about 7:15. Mr. Dankese was a little late, but one of his students came to where we were waiting and invited us in. When he arrived Mr. Dankese, decided to review for his form 2 class about an area in the northern part of present day Ghana. (Later we found out that he only conducted the review for us, because the students had already begun finals and the standard was to use class time to let the students study for their next test.) This is just one example of how nice the people of Ghana are. Anyway, the review was tremendous and I learned about a subject that I knew almost nothing about. I also acquired a self-imposed nickname. Mr. Dankese told us about a king who was named Tohajie (the Red Hunter). He had a fair complexion and was a warrior, and he led his people from the Lake Chad region into Zamfara in present day Nigeria. The group of people continued to migrate until they wound up conquering what is part of northern (PRESENT DAY) Ghana. After the lecture, we set up an appointment with Mr. Yalley because he and Mr. Dankese are key contact people in what my ever-changing curriculum proposal will be.

With help from Garry Hill, I had this vision of helping to facilitate some micro-credit loans of entrepreneurs in the surrounding community of a Ghanaian school. But after visiting Presec, which is considered one of the best schools in Ghana, I discovered that their server for Internet access had failed to work for nearly two years. Mr. Yalley is in charge of the school's computer lab. I also wanted to establish communication links with a history class here in Ghana. So I discussed with Mr. Yalley and Mr. Dankese the possibility of providing some resources to help them get their computer lab up and running again, so that my class and Mr. Dankese's class can set up a blog where each class can set up a way to discuss the respective presidential elections in 2008. President Kuofor is leaving office after serving two four year terms, as is President Bush. Oodles of individuals are in the process of seeking their parties' nod to be the main candidate. Compared to Ghana, this is "old hack" for the US, while Ghana has never really experienced a peaceful transition of civilian power to the fullest extent. Both elections are receiving tons of media attention, and Mr. Dankese and I agree that it would be interested to half the students correspond with each other over the coming months. So, any of you that have ideas please think about them, so that we can discuss in full this proposal. I have made no promises to Mr. Yalley and Mr. Dankese, but I would be thrilled if we could assist in getting them up and running. Please think of ways the Lovett community can assist. Presec is a college prep school like Lovett, only their infrastructure is poor in comparison to ours. It would be exciting to help make this happen. In the Twi language I say to all of you, Medasse' Pa, which means thank you very much. Please think of ways to help Tohajie be a red warrior for the sake of modern education. Thank you and may all of you be blessed. I'll write again soon, but we leave the Accra area on Tuesday and I do not know what my Internet access will be like. Nante Yie!!!