Spare the rod, spoil the child

Next to the blackboard in my grade five classroom was a small room. A place only a select few ever stepped inside, it was here that the teacher prepared for classes and caned unruly students. I'm pleased to say I never saw the inside of it - only boys were caned - but I can still remember the sound of the cane cutting through the air.

Corporal punishment came as a rude shock. I began my primary education in a state where the cane had long since been outlawed. In New South Wales, in 1980, however, it was still going strong. Thirty years later, with that memory still vivid, I find it fascinating to listen to arguments in the media here, claiming that corporal punishment should be reintroduced in order to instill a sense of discipline and allow teachers to reassert control over their students.

An editorial in one of today's papers denounces a recent attack on a teacher who was assaulted by a group of men who broke into his house and attacked him for confiscating a student's phone. The rest of the teachers in the school have apparently fled. In decrying this act, the editorial reflected on the glory days of discipline in the 60s and 70s when teachers were revered by parents and educational standards were high.

And yet, those students of the 60s and 70s are now the parents of the undisciplined. The children who were educated in highly disciplined environment are the parents who apparently no longer respect teachers, their children are now insulting teachers, and refusing to behave. What happened along the way? Are the current generation of parents simply rebelling against the structures they suffered through as children?

Alternately, I wonder whether the issues lie in the broader relationship between the school and its environment. Research into bullying in schools suggests that the most effective solutions come when there is a united strategy implemented by the entire school community - teachers, parents and peers. It is not simply enough to enact punishment on the bully. In some cases the schools are intricately connected to their communities, others are not. I was fascinated to hear, during one of our recent school tours that the school had no formal mechanisms for the administration to communicate with the parents. There was no PTA and the senior teacher seemed at a loss as to how parents communicated with the school - "I suppose you could make an appointment..."

Perhaps parents in many schools no longer have the time or inclination to become involved, perhaps schools, for their part ,are happy to keep parents at arms length.

Whatever the underlying factors, I'm still not convinced that beating the children is the way to go about resolving the problem.

Where's Nyani?

Well may you ask, "where's Nyani?". At the moment I can honestly say I have absolutely no idea. Last time I spoke to him was early this morning and he was getting on a plane bound for Bamako, Mali. He has been contracted to shoot photographs for a mining company and was heading to their offices in Mali, or maybe Guinea, or maybe Senegal, perhaps in that order, or maybe somewhere completely different. For his part, Nyani was "going with the flow". Hopefully I will hear from him eventually.

Nyani's had an eventful few weeks. Exhibiting an incredible sense of drive and enthusiasm he has been knocking on doors across town, folio in hand. Last weekend he volunteered to shoot for Ghana's Haiti Solidarity Concert. Photos from the evening are posted here. A successful shoot on the night was influential in landing his current work in Mali (et al).

A visit to a local arts centre resulted in the possibility of submitting photographs to an exhibition to be held in Germany later in the year. And he's been offered space at the Du Bois centre to exhibit as part of Black History Month - probably from the Black Men All Look the Same series.

In between, he's been shooting portraits of Ghana, a wedding, and some sunset beach portraits for family. He doesn't know it yet, but next week he's photographing a IT training centre being run out of a shipping container!

Photos are posted either on his site - www.nqphotography.com - or on his facebook fan page - www.facebook.com/nyaniquarmynephotography

And if do you happen to bump into him this weekend somewhere in West Africa, let me know!

Where's Tali?

It has been noted that there's been a shortage of Tali references in posts of late. Just to be clear, Tali is currently in the best of health and living in the lap of luxury but just not with us. At this point I have to qualify all my comments as Teya has appeared and is reading over my shoulder...

She says I have to make it quite clear that Tali is "visiting" in the lap of luxury. (Teya misses Tali A LOT!)

Tali is currently on holidays in Antigonish with Liliona and Jon (Tali's aunt and uncle) who very kindly offered to dogsit her when we went to New York (and a non-dog friendly apartment) and then further agreed to look after her while we get ourselves established in Ghana.

Hopefully she will be hopping on a plane in the very near future. In the meantime she's experiencing her first snowy winter and is performing vacuum duties in the wake of an 18month old, who is apparently refining her organisational skills bossing Tali around.

Book Review: A Kids Guide To Giving

A Kid’s Guide to Giving was written by Freddi Zeiler, a young girl who realised at the age of 13 that the rest of the world didn’t look anywhere near as comfortable as her sheltered experience to date. She decided to contribute but didn’t know where to start. Seven years of research into both the ins and outs of the major American charities and the publishing industry, and support from by kids for kids, a company that supports young entrepeneurs, resulted in the publication of a wonderful book.

Packaged in an environmentally friendly cardboard cover, the book explains the reasons for contributing, how to go about contributing money and time and then goes through 100 major charities in detail (people, animal and the environment), explaining what they do, where the money goes to, and how your contribution is actually spent.

This book is a fabulous resource for kids. It is inspiring and practical. The only limitation is that it focuses primarily on American charities. It would be great to see it adapted for other countries around the world. Perhaps there’s a project for some community minded school to take up.

By way of definition

“The Poverty of Progress”: A transition phase en route to prosperity. A state of being, characterised by rapid and widespread urban migration, infrastructure limitations such as water and electricity shortages, unemployment and inadequacies in basic services including rubbish collection. A strange period in which people are apparently going somewhere good but are often worse off than when they started.

This period is apparently a “necessary evil”. I’m not sure why that is though.

It reminds me of the slogan of Scenic America, an organization committed to enhancing the scenic character of communities and countryside. They firmly believe: “Change is inevitable, ugliness is not.”

Serendipity Moment For The Week

Or maybe just a huge coincidence...

On Saturday night we were introduced to a Zimbabwean/South African couple who have been in Ghana for about six months. Naturally we embarked on a "where did you go to school?/who do you know?" conversation. It turned out that Tatenda (he's from Zimbabwe) went to primary school with Nyani and is best friends with the wife of one of Nyani's best friends. Meanwhile his wife Rogene went to the same secondary school as Nyani in Swaziland although left the year before he arrived. Had she stayed they would have been in the same year group, so they knew all of the same people.

It's a small continent.

a few changes

I've decided to seize a moment of synchronicity - both power and internet - and do some interim housekeeping on the blog. There are still domain name changes and tweaking to come, but I thought it was about time I made it clear that I do know we're not in North America any more.

Just don't tell Nyani that I've managed to delete the links to his photographs...

The search for a school

We’ve decided to take a temporary break from our quest to find a school for Teya.

To put the experience in context, think back to the last time you went in search of a rental property. Remember the enthusiasm of setting out? The conviction that the perfect house was out there waiting? And then think of how you felt when you saw the first one, the one with smelly carpet, or the one with the odd neighbours, or the one with the green and purple wallpaper. Of course you know you’ll eventually find the perfect place, but in the meantime you’re struck by a desperate desire to go home, lie down and have a stiff drink.

I know the perfect school is out there, but for now, I need a drink. Then again, maybe I’m just having a drink at the wrong end of the experience.

I’m sure a good gin and tonic would have improved my impression of the school run by a manic lady who looked like she’d escaped from the set of Fawlty Towers. “Students?? Well, we have lots of students from Nigeria and Tanzania and well, Ghana of course, well, we’ve got lots of Africans I suppose, but then *manic laugh*, we’re in Africa so that’s hardly surprising is it????” This was the tiny, dirty school (it's only been open two years) where a teacher, when asked what he thought of the school replied, “Well, there are worse out there.” Teya, for her part, never quite got past the pink stripey uniforms.

It would have taken a solid afternoon of drinking, though, to take the edge off the bright green school in a converted house, where the teaching head interviewed us in what looked remarkably like a converted broom cupboard. The school itself reminded me of a turn of the century school house we saw in Alabama, although the Alabama school was far cleaner and better equipped, and its floor coverings were far more sanitary. Like the previous principal, the teaching head was quick to remind us that we were in Africa – she noted somewhat apologetically that she'd take a break from the curriculum in order to spend a week studying Ghanaian history. She hastened to add that they would be returning to the core curriculum for the rest of the term - ie British history. They’d just finished the Tudors…

At least the uniform wasn’t pink. It was lurid green, the same colour as the walls.

I could perhaps feel more generous towards these schools if they were in poor communities, or if they were state funded; however, both were private “international” schools charging USD1,500 per term, with an additional enrollment fee of around USD3,000. It is hardly surprising that some of their classes have only five students in them. The year 7 class at the latter school has only two students.

We do have one good option, the Ghana International School, which has offered Teya a place and not only has good facilities but, from what we can tell, good staff as well. The only catch is that they have a tiered fee scale and will only admit her at “Short Term Expatriate” rates – a level pegged especially for diplomats and foreign company expatriates, that is well out of our price range. Although technically she is a Ghanaian, she doesn’t qualify for Ghanaian rates because to do that you need to enrol at birth.

So for now we’ve reverted to homeschooling. The premises are clean, the facilities of a high standard and the canteen is excellent. And, as far as the teaching staff are concerned, well, “there are worse out there”.

Marketing 101

You have to admire an entrepreneur with a keen sense of marketing; a man who can take a product and, with a simple image, not only convey what the product does but also its blistering efficacy.

Like, for example, the hawker often seen at intersections in the Airport Residential area.

One man, fifty packets of rat sack and two dead rats on a hook.

Enough said.