March 6, 2007 marks the 50th anniversary of Ghana's Independence.
Europeans first arrived here in the 1400s, and they liked it so much that they stayed in control until the British ceded power on March 6, 1957 . Ghana was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to be granted independence by its colonial master (only two sub-Saharan countries never had colonists in control). Some people, particularly people in Ghana, therefore consider March 6, 2007 to be the 50th anniversary of Africa.
After leading Ghana to independence, the country's first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, quickly moved to socialism and then outlawed all opposition political parties, occasionally with violent repercussions. He is defended by some who say that these measures were taken to combat violence and were necessary to maintain order. Regardless, Nkrumah lost power in 1966. He was deposed with the help of the CIA because of his socialism and his status as a leading African figure. Really ( http://www.seeingblack.com/x060702/nkrumah.shtml).
Ghana then had a couple decades of instability coupled with terrible poverty. Around 1980, Jerry Rawlings seized control and maintained power until 2000 when the current president, John A. Kuffuor won an election.
Depending on how you count, Ghana had nine or ten heads of state in 50 years. But with Rawlings in control for 20 and Kuffuor for seven, so that's seven or eight in 23 years, or a new leader about every 3 years. There were coups, authoritarianism and other things that are not helpful to a country's development. Nonetheless, despite all of that as well as the numerous other challenges and thanks entirely to me (that's a joke), Ghana seems to be moving forward in many ways and is now finally seen as a model African democracy.
According to the Ghanaian press, Ghana is spending $20 million on its celebrations and associated construction and cleanup. That's 200 billion cedis, which is a ton of money here. If there is any coverage at all of this in the American press, please send me it my way.
Addendum #1: President Kuffuor was just elected head of the African Union. He will serve a one-year term.
Addendum #2: What a game! Super Bowl XLI! Wow! My town was really excited for that one. Oh wait, no one cares about the Super Bowl here and I did not travel to Accra to watch it. Even though the NFL can probably include Ghana in its list of 200 countries or whatever the real number is that receive the broadcast (it's on satellite, which no one gets), no one watches it. In fact, the only foreign sport that seems to get any play is European football. Ghana's best player is on Chelsea, one of the top British teams. Besides, everyone here is seriously gearing up for the Oscars.
¶ 12:25 PM 0 comments
Although I have spent less than 10% of my time in Ghana in my school's computer lab, teaching computers is my primary "job" here. I consider this an easy job compared with, say, sitting in an office in New York for twelve hours a day in front of a computer. I couldn't think of a more severe punishment than that. I do sweat more here, but I am much more my own boss and there is quite nearly zero stress here.
Each of the eight first-year and second-year classes have 40 minutes of computer class a week. The four third-year classes have two 40-minute periods. That all adds up to 10 hours and 40 minutes of actual teaching each week. But there can be so many reasons why a class either does not come at all or comes late, so I have never actually taught the maximum. Beginning on Monday, I will be holding four hours of classes for the teachers, so that will bring my total workload up to nearly 15 hours.
However, I do spend about 30 hours a week in my lab. The non-teaching time is spent repairing computers (they break constantly), sitting around writing stuff like this, and miscellaneous. A lot of miscellaneous. While I am sitting in my lab, students with free periods (usually due to teachers not showing up), come and use the computers. I have to do a minimal amount of supervision, but security programs installed on the "good" computers combined with my belief that students should be free to explore all that the computer has to offer means that I don't have to really exert myself too much.
So what am I actually teaching? The vast majority of my first-year students have never used a computer before, so I have to start from the absolute beginning. We talk about all of the keys on the keyboards and practice using the mouse. I explain what a computer is and what it can do. We talk about why it's important to learn about computers (or maybe it's not?). This past week, I asked them to look at their desktop and tell me what they saw. On the board, I drew icons, the Start button, the taskbar, etc. Then we started Windows' calculator program and minimized it and talked about the taskbar. From there we will move on to Notepad and ultimately Word with a couple of lessons on Files and Folders in the middle.
The knowledge of the second and third year students varies, which makes it difficult for me. Some third-year students still do not know how to use the mouse and others have taken computer classes outside of school and are quite proficient. Keeping the class interesting for the advanced students while not leaving the laggards completely behind is the most challenging part of my job. I am giving basically the same lesson for all second and third year students this term. We are learning about Microsoft Word and so far have covered Format-Font and Format-Paragraph.