Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Dem Travels: The Prequel- Women Who Stare at the End of Term

The end of term was wrapping up. The horizon was here. At least that is what I was thinking as the time went on. Of all the program associates with Expo, I think I was the only one going on as long as I did. The peer to peer program wrapped up with its final on April 16th and we had our celebration on the 21st.

It all went well for the most part. For the final exam, 25 students came in to take it (we had originally 36 sign up at the start) and of that, we had a 261% growth on the class average in math and 192% in English. Now, the numbers are so high when you consider that on the math section the average number of questions right out of 15 was 1...so really it can only hopefully go up.

On the 21st we had a short celebration. We (the tutors with me passing out candy) handed out certificates for: perfect attendance, highest exam score, most improved in math and English, and a tutor award (those picked out by the tutor for growth and behavior). It was all nice. Anne came by and took picture of all the students receiving the certificates and it was super cute. When all was said and done, I also announced the scholarship winners for the term. I gave 1st place to Agnes with 350 cedis and Enock 2nd place with 100 cedis. It was super difficult and in the end I decided I would also give some of my own money to Fatima and John because I felt they deserved something. So I am giving each student 100 cedis to help pay for their school fees for this term. I also increased the amount Enock would receive to 200...It was my own choice and it is my own money, but truthfully it is close to just $60 and it will do more for them than me. Whatever. They fucking deserve it and no one can tell me differently....

I ended up staying in Antoa a little longer because on the last day of school the Girl Child Project group at the school was going to learn how to cook traditional Ghanian food. So I stopped by to support my friend Mary, the French teacher at the JHS, and learn something! It was kind of chaotic, but the girls had a lot of fun. As well, my friend Mavis had a dress for me made! So now I have my first sewn Ghanian dress.

All in all, the term did well. My students did show growth, but I am looking to try and have more conversations with the JHS teachers to track the students and see how they improve in school. I know sometimes you won't see the growth because we mostly work on improving basic skills rather than act as remediation, but it would nice to track the students in a more formal way.

But the term was approaching its end, and I was a woman watching towards it to begin my travels. I may have watched the term for a long time to see the future of my travels, but I did not know where these travels would take me. The following posts are based on that saga. The saga of my travels or.....

The Travel Wars....


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