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Democracy and discipline in Ghanaian education
International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 303–314 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev
Democracy and discipline in Ghanaian education Laura J. Dull 645 Hickory Bush Road, Kingston, NY 12401, USA
Abstract The author assesses the 1987 educational reforms in Ghana that mandated increased emphasis on inquiry and problem-solving teaching methods in training colleges. While teaching practices were not as rote and dictatorial as scholars have often claimed, trainees and teachers shied away from methods that could lead to ‘‘indiscipline.’’ Their concern with discipline exemplified the way in which certain global messages about how development and democracy are achieved have affected the practices and discourses of Ghanaian educators. # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: International education; Developing nations; Democracy; Teacher education; International organizations; Economic development
with declaring a winner a month after polls closed. For us in the emerging democracies, the difficulties can only be real. It is in this respect that we ought to pat ourselves on the back and be justifiably proud for this rather impressive start. (Daily Graphic, 2000, 7).
1. Introduction After years of ‘‘learning democracy from America,’’1 Ghanaians’ uncontroversial and peaceful presidential election in 2000 inspired national pride in this editor of one of the country’s largest daily newspapers: We acknowledge that there cannot be a completely flawless election anywhere on the face of this globe, including advanced and matured democracies with hundreds of years of existence such as the United States of America, which, even in recent times, is still grappling
Tel.: +1-845-658-8782 (home), +1-845-257-2849 (office). E-mail address: [email protected] (L.J. Dull). 1 This quote is from a teacher trainee at Peki Training College in Ghana where I worked in 2000–2001. Quotes in this text are from transcriptions of taped seminar discussions, interviews, written work from students, and my journals. I use sic only for written sources, inserting explanatory text for oral statements in order to preserve the trainees’ personalities and uniquely Ghanaian ways of speaking English. I use the actual names of students who gave me written permission; for others, I use pseudonyms.
The December voting marked the third consecutive election under the 1992 constitution and led to the defeat of the long-time ruling party, the National Democratic Council (NDC), by John Kufuor. NDC leader Flight Lieutenant John Jerry Rawlings had been in power for almost 20 years. Though Rawlings had presided over the adoption of the constitution of 1992 and won two elections since then—he could not run again due to term limits—he had come to power by staging a coup in 1979 and another in 1981. After a runoff between the two major candidates—neither received the required fifty-one percent of the vote to win—the concession of the ruling party to the opposition was a welcome break from a cycle of coups, civilian regimes, and counter-coups and
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led a New York Times editor to declare that Ghana ‘‘is a welcome African example of legitimate democracy’’ (2001). At the same time Ghanaians have been adopting democratic government, educators may be moving toward ‘‘democratic’’ teaching. According to a teacher trainee at Peki Training College, John, Ghanaian teachers began using the ‘‘activity method of teaching’’ since educational reforms were passed in 1987. In contrast to the past when teachers simply lectured, teachers now ‘‘allow the children to express their view about the topic he [the teacher] is coming to teach. . . Those days teachers were dictators but now we are practicing democracy.’’ Scholars such as Harber (1997); Willis (1997), and Levin (1992) argue that rote learning stifles critical thinking necessary for making informed decisions in a democratic society and suggest that ‘‘active learning’’ and group work could help reduce social inequalities. Poor pedagogy may also inhibit economic development. Researchers in West Africa found that ‘‘abstract’’ or rote teaching methods have ‘‘directly contribut[ed] to poor academic achievement, low self-esteem, and aptitudes ill-suited for eventual entry into the world of work’’ (Maclure, 1997, 29–30). These perspectives have led to an emphasis on particular forms of educational reform in developing countries. As part of their financial assistance to Rawlings’ government during an economic crisis in the early 1980s, officials at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund pressured him to write a constitution and conduct elections as well as implement economic and educational reforms. The 1987 educational reforms emphasized problem-solving and other progressive methods at training colleges,2 2
While many progressive educators cite Freire as inspiration, Roberts argues that problem-solving methods are ‘‘in tension with the dynamism of problem-posing education.’’ Not only does problem-solving imply that solutions are easily found, this form of education may also exclude participants from pursuing their liberation since ‘‘Beginning to perceive contradictions in ideological positions, institutional structures, and everyday practices [through dialogue] is one element in the process of revolutionary change’’ (2000, 56). In other words, the World Bank and US foreign policy-makers promote reforms that may be conservative and do not threaten to expose power relations.
instituted vocational and technical education in lower grades, and reduced state funding for senior secondary school to three, instead of four, years.3 Since the government passed these reforms, international donors and lenders have funded nine percent of Ghana’s annual overall education budget and fifteen percent of basic education (Ghana Ministry of Education, 1996, 2). My work in 2000–2001 as a Teachers for Africa (TFA) volunteer at Peki Training College was meant to support the 1987 reforms. The TFA program is sponsored by the International Foundation for Education and SelfHelp (IFESH), a U.S. non-governmental organization funded primarily by the US Agency for International Development. Part of my job description was to ‘‘train colleagues to use modern methods of instruction. . .For example, encouraging interactive rather than rote learning and using handouts in addition to textbooks [sic]’’ (IFESH, 1999). Besides teaching social studies methods and English writing, I supervised student teachers, coordinated a resource room, helped teachers create teaching and learning materials and, for my own research, conducted a seminar with teacher trainees to learn more about their teaching. In this article, I draw from classroom observations, discussions with trainees and colleagues, and written sources including social studies textbooks, newspapers, and policy documents to explore these questions: How did teachers understand and implement democracy in their classrooms? In what ways, if any, have teaching practices in Ghana changed as a result of the 1987 reforms? I found that teaching practices in Ghana were not as rote and dictatorial as scholars have often claimed about ‘‘African’’ teachers. But while primary and junior secondary school trainees and teachers encouraged student participation through questioning, they shied away from other methods such as inquiry or cooperative learning that could lead to ‘‘indiscipline.’’ There are multiple reasons for educators’ reliance on teacher-centered pedagogy. For example, Brock-Utne (2002, 20) found that many African teachers use rote methods because children must 3 This last reform reflects the neo-liberal agenda of the World Bank to cut government spending on services.
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learn and take exams in second languages. Standardized exams often compel teachers to focus on covering content rather than implementing problem-solving methods, as McNeil (1986) found in US high school social studies courses. Nieto explains that children from marginalized groups often endure poor teaching methods and ‘‘watered-down’’ curriculum because teachers fail to acknowledge their cultures and languages (2002, 54).4 Ghanaian educators’ teaching methods were also related to their understandings of globalization. Aware of the messages of international donors and lenders about how democracy and development should be achieved, trainees and teachers established certain classroom practices and norms in order to enforce the individual and national attitudes—honesty, hard work, and ethnic peace—that they believed were necessary for attracting investors (Foucault, 1980, 1995). In other words, according to educators, Ghana’s future development—indeed its survival as a nation—required particular forms of discipline, and thus particular kinds of teaching. 2. Teaching and learning democracy One can easily identify schoolchildren in Ghana: girls wear yellow shirts with brown jumpers and boys wear yellow shirts with brown shorts. Primary (elementary) and junior and senior secondary (middle and high) schools are usually one-story buildings made out of concrete bricks with metal roofs or built out of sticks and roofed with grass in poorer villages. Schools are open to the air and often surrounded by gardens or farms as well as cleared grounds for assemblies and recess—students tend the grounds and sweep classrooms before classes every morning. Many schools I visited needed a new coat of paint, were not yet completed, had sagging beams, or lacked supplies. A few had ceiling fans and/or electric lights, and almost all had blackboards, chairs or 4
For more on language, education, and power, see the special issue of International Review of Education, volume 47, number 3.
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benches, and desks. As one finds in most public spaces in Ghana, market women set up stalls on school grounds so that students or teachers can buy groundnuts, oranges, bags of water, rice or yam and stew, etc. for lunch. Teachers on break sit at tables under a shady tree—one trainee joked that teachers did not have a common room they had a ‘‘common tree.’’ Religious groups or communities (‘‘Local Authorities’’) build and maintain schools, while the government pays teacher salaries and provides textbooks—when it has the funds. Reflecting the push by post-independence leaders for Afrocentric curricula and vocational education, the content of all primary and junior secondary school subjects focuses on Ghanaian and West African life and required courses include Agricultural Science—growing crops and raising livestock—and Pre-vocational Skills—weaving and other Ghanaian craftwork—in addition to Ghanaian languages, English, Mathematics, Religious and Moral Education, Environmental and Social Studies, Physical Education, Music and Dance, and French as an elective. Children are instructed in their local languages until grade three, when English becomes the language of instruction. Ghanaian teachers followed a common format for forty-minute lessons. First teachers reviewed students’ ‘‘Relevant Previous Knowledge’’ usually by asking a question.5 Then they introduced the content of the lesson either by presenting a teaching and learning material or writing information on the board, eliciting information about the material by asking recall questions such as ‘‘What do you see in this picture?’’ or ‘‘How do you make a basket?’’ Next students heard a lecture on the topic or learned skills by following certain 5 Another volunteer and I noted how certain opening questions were used over and over again, sometimes during the same day. One of the favorites was ‘‘What did you take [eat] this morning before coming to school?’’ The children dutifully answered ‘‘coco’’ (porridge), ‘‘rice,’’ ‘‘yam.’’ This question was used in lessons about diet, nutrition, crops in Ghana, etc., topics that were covered in environmental studies, science, agricultural science, and pre-vocational skills—each year similar content was covered in primary schools, presumably in more depth as children got older.
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steps directed by the teacher—pronouncing words, reading texts, doing math problems, making baskets. This work was almost always done on their own, rarely did children work in groups. At the end, teachers asked students to recall the content of the lesson and listed responses on the board—e.g., ‘‘Name the two types of ducks in Ghana’’ or ‘‘How do you eat properly?’’ While at Peki Training College, I invited teacher trainees to meet for an hour and a half to two hours during their free time in a seminar on ‘‘Democracy in the Classroom.’’ The four women and ten men who participated reflected the gender composition of the campus. I set no requirements for joining the group other than willingness to attend regularly. We ultimately met eleven times. After two meetings, I asked the participants, ‘‘Would you describe this group [the seminar] as a democracy or dictatorship?’’ The students argued that it was a democracy because they could freely express their views and ‘‘you [the seminar leader] don’t impose your views on us. Even sometimes if you have an opposite view you allow us to explain our views as a group before you bring out sometimes yours.’’ When I noted that I had made up the discussion topics without their input which was undemocratic, Destiny responded that even though I gave them the topics, ‘‘You don’t come and tell us that, this and this. You bring us the topic, we argue it out.’’6 These evaluations concurred with how the trainees conceived of democracy in schools when discussing their teaching and that of others. For the seminar participants, democracy was manifested when children ‘‘come out with’’ concepts and information by using their own knowledge and experience to answer their teacher’s questions. Destiny wrote that a primary school lesson he taught was ‘‘democratic and activity centred in that pupils were involved in the lesson from the beginning to the end. This is because, pupils were asked, questions through which they came out with 6
I created the topics for our initial meetings. When the students wanted to continue meeting during the next term, I asked them to suggest topics for those meetings.
concept [sic].’’ Raymond described an activity I had them do in one of the seminars as ‘‘the activity method of teaching that we [Ghanaian teachers] have now adopted. There is no need to present the whole thing to them [students]. We allow them to think about the thing and come out with what they think about the topic we are teaching.’’ John was surprised at how much the children already knew in a lesson he taught: ‘‘I think my children don’t know the thing [topic] so. . .I asked them and they say all that I have to say. I don’t know what else to say so I had to think very fast to bring some [other] things out before I was able to finish this lesson. So the children are very good. . .they can even disgrace you [by knowing more than the teacher].’’ Democracy could also be modeled by involving children in decision-making. Destiny argued that students should be involved in choosing class leaders—rather than the teacher choosing them which seemed to be the usual practice—and might even help set class rules: ‘‘It should be the collective idea of the pupils. ‘Who do you think should be the best person to do this?’ Then it will follow ‘I think this man, I think that man.’ Then let’s put it to vote. Then through that indirectly you are making them democracy. . .or even some rules you [the teacher] will bring it ‘this is what I think we should do.’ Then you allow the pupils to come out with their rules.’’ The trainees’ understanding of the complexity of how democracy is learned and practiced was revealed by their extension of democracy to other settings. Edem showed a sophisticated understanding of ideology when he explained that although leaders promote democracy by encouraging people to vote, their daily practices are authoritarian: after this [elections] sometimes people heading various departments try to dictate the people who work under them. And you know we Ghanaians being so submissive ‘yes suh master me no spoil job’. . .the moment you begin to come out and air your views people begin. . .trying to de-employ you
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especially if you want to criticize your manager or your director.7 Edem also disputed the findings of reformers—I told them that some researchers claimed that African educational practices were inhibiting democracy—saying that ‘‘maybe they [critics of African education] did not view the outside of the classroom before they come out with their view’’ because ‘‘When the child goes back to the house after school. . .the parents in the home try to organize all of them together and do things as a family. Or. . .you realize that among friends they [children] try to emulate some qualities of democracy [as when playing games].’’ For the trainees, democracy in classrooms was most often associated with expressing oneself— either by giving one’s ‘‘views’’ or by ‘‘coming out’’ with answers to teachers’ questions on the topic. Teachers had an important role to play in encouraging free expression, though children may be inhibited by their difficulty with English, emotional problems, or intelligence levels. Group work or other progressive methods were never mentioned as ways to promote democracy in the classroom, even though trainees learned about these methods in their classes. For example, at her first lecture in Introduction to Education, a tutor asked second-year students to list the benefits and drawbacks of ‘‘class teaching’’—teaching to the whole group—and ‘‘group teaching’’— cooperative learning. While the tutor acknowledged that class teaching is the more common method and considered more ‘‘efficient,’’ she and the students were aware of the arguments for and against cooperative learning and used the discourse of progressive education to make their cases. For example, the trainees responded that class teaching ‘‘makes students passive learners’’ and makes it ‘‘hard to know and cater to individual needs and talents.’’ Students cited ‘‘more active learning,’’ ‘‘learn cooperation,’’ and 7
While respectful of older staff members and those of higher ranks, tutors were not afraid to confront administration and elders at staff meetings. But relations between upper-class Ghanaians or foreigners and their drivers or servants were more like what Edem describes.
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‘‘encourages democracy’’ as the advantages of group learning. The last response evoked loud murmuring among the students who knew that this answer was meant to appeal to me, a representative of the United States and its preoccupations with democracy. During an English lesson, another tutor warned third-year students to ‘‘always prepare well, be in the right mood, if your lessons are not interesting, if you are not playful, the students will not learn. When teaching English, always begin with a story.’’ Story-telling in Ghana incorporates many of the methods that progressive educators would encourage such as pausing the story to have children guess what will happen next and having children explain the lessons they learned after the story. Stories are also stopped in the middle for singing or dancing to keep children attentive. Later in his lesson, the tutor tied group work to national development: ‘‘In all your language lessons, have them do group work. In Ghana we have been miseducated because we grow up in a society where we can only succeed as a nation, as a society, as a community, as a group, by teamwork.’’ The reference to miseducation is an implicit critique of individualized methods of instruction used by Muslims and Europeans. For this tutor, progressive methods are not only vital to community and national success but are truer to Ghanaian values because they rely on collective work and story-telling, essential parts of pre-colonial education. A textbook on teaching environmental and social studies was comprehensive in its discussion of different ways to teach social studies and the advantages and disadvantages of each: the inquiry approach, role playing, dramatization, debate, local study, etc. (Nyame-Kwarteng, 1999). In his book on teaching English, Tsadidey recommended language games and giving mock news broadcasts along with drills and substitution tables as ways to teach English (1997). In a 2001 exam, students were asked to, ‘‘Describe how each of the following methods of teaching can be used effectively (select topics of your own choice to illustrate your answers) at the Primary school: (i) Activity; (ii) Role Play (iii) Discovery.’’ Teacher trainees thus learn about progressive
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methods in their textbooks, exams, and classrooms, but they saw few models of these methods by their tutors or in schools. 3. Practising democracy in the classroom I observed the lessons that several seminar participants conducted as student teachers and then we met as a group to evaluate the lessons. After learning about the lessons from their peers, the trainees concluded that the lessons had been democratic because students actively participated in the lessons. But while the teachers had established environments where children spoke out freely, the lessons remained teacher-dominated. For example, Vivian taught an environmental studies lesson on ‘‘foods eaten raw’’ in primary class two at Peki Training College Demonstration School. The eighteen boys and nine girls sat in rows and were very excited to see the yevu (foreigner). Vivian had to constantly warn the children to calm down: ‘‘Keep quiet, sit down, Selassie you are not the second teacher—are you also in teachers’ college?’’ When she brought out a bag filled with fruits and vegetables, several of the children rushed from their seats to look at it. After asking, ‘‘What food did you take this morning? What did you eat on break?,’’ Vivian began a discussion about whether vegetables like tomatoes can be eaten raw. Then the children played a game in which a child came to the front of the room, pulled fruits and vegetables out of the bag—‘‘He has picked something I don’t know the name of it. . .What is that?’’—and stated whether or not they could be eaten raw. While many wanted to participate, there were others who never spoke or raised their hand—at one point, Vivian sent a child who had his head down to stand at the back of the room. The teacher ended the lesson by having the children sing an alphabet song with a religious theme—‘‘C is for Cain that killed his brother.’’ According to the trainees’ definition, the lesson was democratic because ‘‘every child was asked to and allowed to bring out his/her view’’ and the lesson was ‘‘child-centred and activity oriented since they were involved in activities through
which the concept was developed by themselves [the children] [rather] than being spoon-fed.’’ I suggested that students would be even more involved if she asked them to bring in a fruit or vegetable from their homes and work in groups to establish whether or not they could be eaten raw. Students who were hesitant to speak in front of the large group might be more willing to participate in small groups. Raymond taught an environmental studies lesson on ‘‘Ghana and her neighbors’’ to a primary six class of fourteen girls and twelve boys. He began the lesson by asking, ‘‘What is the name of your country?’’ The pupils laughed when someone answered Peki Avetile, the name of their village. In eliciting the names of Ghana’s neighbors, Raymond encouraged participation by calling out, ‘‘Today is a special day for ladies and women—I want to see girl’s hands up,’’8 ‘‘Oh Ellen it’s a long time I heard from you,’’ and ‘‘I want to hear from this side.’’ He asked students to help others locate countries on the map pasted on the chalk board—‘‘Somebody to help Aiku,’’ ‘‘Who will be the ambulance or fire service to help him’’—and explained how to locate countries—‘‘What must you do first to locate a country on the map?’’ ‘‘Look at the key—the blue indicates the sea.’’ Raymond asked the class to list the ways Ghana and her neighbors interact such as in sports or trading and, at the end, asked, ‘‘All [the neighbors] are using the CFA [Communaute Financiere Africaine—the currency of most Francophone countries in West Africa] except Ghana so what should Ghana do to improve upon her relations with these countries?’’9 In their evaluation, the trainees noted 8 Many Ghanaians at the training college were aware that gender was an important concern of international aid workers. In conversations with me, several of my colleagues evoked ‘‘Beijing’’ referring to the 1990 United Nations Conference on Women, though it was often meant to tease me. These men were quite pleased when I chose to help the other women tutors—there were five women and eighteen male tutors at Peki Training College—serve food that the women had also cooked at faculty parties. 9 Since then, the economic community of West Africa (ECOWAS) that includes Ghana decided to adopt a common currency, the Eco, in January 2003.
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that the lesson was democratic because students had located countries on a map and ‘‘came out’’ with their views. But by posing the issue as the best way to promote friendly relations, Raymond missed an opportunity to run a discussion about the problems and benefits of using a common currency. John taught a lesson on English composition in class five to eight girls and twenty boys at Avetile Evangelical Presbyterian school. John’s humor and the topic, ‘‘Your Mother’’ got the children involved. He started with a funny question, ‘‘How many of you don’t have mothers or fathers?’’ He asked the children their mothers’ names, places of birth, color—‘‘Is she dark or fair?’’—and ages—the children laughed when someone answered ‘‘Fifteen.’’ John joked that his mother liked ‘‘lizard meat’’ and asked students what foods their mothers liked to eat. He emphasized good behavior by noting that his own mother likes ‘‘kids who are respectful and do their chores’’ and does not like children who are ‘‘insulting, stealing, lying, disturbing [misbehaving], talking.’’ The teacher then posted a fill-in composition about mothers for students to copy. Earlier I had told the trainees that I felt that these commonly-used essays stifled creativity by requiring children to fill in blanks with the correct words—Rejoice mocked the technique by saying that children might write ‘‘His age is tall. The name of my father is Dzake [name of a village]. He is 16 in complexion.’’ But some of the trainees argued that children did not know enough English to write essays by themselves. I observed other student teachers and teachers who used visual aids or objects. According to presenters at a workshop for Teachers for Africa volunteers, teaching and learning materials would change the practices of teachers from ‘‘dictatorship/autocracy to democracy’’ and student learning from ‘‘competition to sharing’’ since teachers will presumably practice hands-on learning and engage children in cooperative activities when using such materials. When the item was provocative and the teacher enthusiastic, the lesson might lead to a lively discussion. In a lesson on contaminated foods, third grade children at Peki College Demonstration School giggled at a
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commercially-made poster of people with intestinal problems and were eager to answer the teacher’s questions about the causes of the people’s distress. Mary’s enthusiasm as she used classroom objects to teach the English concepts of ‘‘on’’ and ‘‘in’’ got most of her first graders eagerly involved in the lesson. However, due to large class sizes and a lack of copy machines, it is difficult for a teacher to make multiple posters or models for groups to work with. Thus they tended to use one poster or a few objects for teacher-centered lectures and focused on eliciting facts in their questioning. For example, a trainee, Prince, asked students to list the dangers to the environment shown on a poster for his social studies lesson, but never asked students to explain how or why noise or garbage endangered the environment or what could be done to prevent pollution. In addition, children were rarely asked to create or find their own illustrations or objects to show understanding of concepts. The volunteer at another training college reported that, like me, she had never seen children’s work posted in the schools she visited. One trainee I observed asked students to draw pictures of ‘‘any plant’’ in their notebooks but did not intend to display them. Part of the reason items are not made is a lack of materials such as paper, crayons or markers. In addition, having students work on art projects might lead to indiscipline. While her students worked at their drawings of plants, the teacher exhorted them to ‘‘draw it nicely’’ and ‘‘be quiet.’’ In a pre-vocational skills class, junior secondary students worked individually at their desks making doormats, receiving help only from the teacher who constantly warned ‘‘no talking’’ and ‘‘hurry up.’’ Trainees were also constrained by the expectations of their tutors. At the same time that they taught about child-centered education, tutors emphasized classroom control and following procedure. At the end of a student’s sample lesson to his peers, an education tutor entered my classroom. After studying the blackboard, he declared that the lesson must have been good because the writing on the board was well organized. In a lesson on pie charts where a sample chart would
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seem an obvious choice, a trainee told me that he did not make one because ‘‘it would distract the kids.’’ After a senior noted at a presentation of his teaching and learning material—all seniors created one for their final project—that his students were excited about his ‘‘eclipse tree,’’ one tutor asked, ‘‘How can you control the rowdiness?’’ Yet in another case, she encouraged student initiative, asking a senior who displayed a poster with his own religious poem, ‘‘why not let them [children] come out with their own poems?’’ Another tutor told this senior that ‘‘you must be resourceful and think very fast; you can divert from the lesson plan. The theories might not work in the classroom’’ though he admitted that ‘‘you are not taught like that [at the training college]—you must follow step one, step two. . .’’. This was the same tutor who judged the lesson by the writing on the board. Many of the trainees’ and teachers’ lessons I observed were engaging, though the teachers maintained firm control over the lessons and missed opportunities to lead students to more complex understandings of issues, like using a common currency, or to allow students to use their creativity, such as writing essays on their own. When I asked the trainees why there was so little cooperative learning in their classrooms, they expressed concerns about discipline, noting that if students sit in groups ‘‘they will be playing’’ or ‘‘chatting’’ and that rows enabled teachers to move freely so that they could stop ‘‘someone [who] is doing something which is not compatible with the lesson.’’ Leading a discussion about a controversial topic might ‘‘give room to pupils to misbehave by saying anything at all.’’ Vivian’s conception of the classroom recalled Foucault’s panopticon: ‘‘Standing up in front of the class you can see what they are doing. Especially those at the back who like disturbing and will not like to keep quiet. So if you stand you will see them and then correct them when they are doing wrong.’’ Deviating from standardized ways of teaching also meant that the teacher was indisciplined, a college-wide and national concern.
4. Nihil sine labore10: Respect through Discipline Peki Training College is located in a lush, shady campus across the road from a series of villages that constitute the Peki Traditional Area in the Volta Region of Ghana. The one-story administration, library, and classroom buildings are clustered around a grassy courtyard and are made out of concrete blocks with metal roofs and lots of windows. Students lived in dorms—in the dorm I visited, there were about eighteen women in each room—and houses for faculty, staff, and administration are located throughout the campus. I was given a house that faced the principal’s to better ensure my ‘‘security.’’ Most staff members had gardens where they grew yams, cassava, maize, and other vegetables and kept chickens and goats. They also harvested fruits and palm wine from trees on campus. In contrast to university students who must often obtain loans to attend college, teacher trainees’ fees and monthly stipends of 180,000 cedis (about twenty-five dollars) are paid for by government funds provided to the country’s nine regions. In return, trainees must work in their host region for several years after graduation. The three-year experience of teacher training in Ghana is characterized by strict discipline. After rising at 5 a.m. to do ‘‘projects’’—cutting grass, sweeping, farming, etc.—trainees attend morning religious services, classes from 7:10 a.m. to 2 p.m.—each year students take a pre-determined set of courses five days a week—afternoon projects, evening study periods (‘‘preps’’), and ‘‘lights off’’ at 10:30 p.m. Students wear uniforms on and off-campus and are prohibited from wearing flashy jewelry or having ‘‘fashionable haircuts (and other weird hair cuts)’’ (Peki Training College, 2000, 18). Students must obtain an exeat (permission) to go to nearby villages or other destinations and some complained that they were not even allowed to accompany visitors to the bus stop when their guests were leaving. At their pre-admission interviews, several prospective students cited the ‘‘discipline’’ of the stu10 Nihil sine labore—nothing without work—is the college’s motto.
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dents or the college as the primary reason they wanted to attend Peki College. Other commonly cited reasons were strong faculty and the success rate of students on national teacher exams. While these answers in many cases represented what students felt interviewers wanted to hear, their responses illustrate the importance given to disciplined teacher training. Peki tutors and teachers felt that trainees would ‘‘abuse’’ or take advantage without strict rules at college and that this training was necessary because teachers were expected to act as role models in the villages or towns where they would work. The centrality of discipline was apparent during a lesson in which I asked groups of second year students to answer questions about Ghanaian education. In listing the qualities of a good teacher, one group said that teachers should be ‘‘disciplined and helpful,’’ and the group assigned to list qualities of a bad teacher mentioned, ‘‘He is indiscipline [sic].’’ Discipline for teachers related to both personal habits and teaching methods. Ghanaian citizens regularly condemned social vices such as drunkenness, tardiness or absenteeism, excessive cruelty, and sexual misconduct among teachers in articles or letters in newspapers. For example, a speaker at a school awards ceremony blamed poor performance in many of the Volta Region’s schools in part on teachers who ‘‘engage in other activities such as extravagance on alcoholic drinks at the expense of their own welfare and to the detriment of classroom teaching’’ (Dzamboe, 2001, 13). In addition to good moral conduct, teacher discipline is manifested by carefully following procedures. When I asked students in my social studies methods class what they meant by discipline, a trainee mentioned that discipline was when ‘‘teachers closely follow their lesson plans.’’ In another lesson, after I asked students to create children’s books, several expressed alarm because they had not yet learned how to make teaching and learning materials. For them, a disciplined teacher must know the proper procedures before starting a task. The trainees also worried that Ghanaian citizens and Africans were indisciplined. During one of our seminar meetings, I asked three groups to place five countries—the United States, Ghana,
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Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, and South Africa—on a continuum from most democratic to least. Two groups said that Ghana was most democratic because the 2000 presidential election had been more ‘‘free and fair’’ than the United States’ contested elections. But the pro-American group argued that the United States’ longer history of democracy and the fact that Democratic candidate Al Gore had conceded defeat indicated that the US had the stronger democracy. They added that there would have been rioting in developing countries if the election had been as troubled as that in the US, because ‘‘we [Africans] don’t understand that word democracy.’’ Two of the participants, Kumah and Destiny, responded that Ghanaians must understand democracy because their elections were peaceful, even though they required a run-off, and Rawlings had stepped down. I engaged in a similar discussion with a tutor who argued that ‘‘Africans’’ were not yet ready for democracy because there was no tradition of it and they needed strong leaders to keep control. When I countered that Ghanaians seemed to make decisions using democratic methods at staff meetings, he claimed that this may be true among ‘‘educated’’ people but ‘‘not in villages.’’ In one of the seminar discussions about student choice, Edem and Kumah explained that ‘‘illiterate’’ parents in ‘‘remote’’ areas often do not take an interest in their children’s education. In another discussion, the trainees explained that in the December 2000 elections, many people ‘‘just followed the crowd’’ in their choices or were given money to vote for certain candidates. Though many of the tutors and trainees had come from villages, they feared that people in villages perpetuated the image of indisciplined Africans—ignorant, lazy, violent, corrupt. Others blamed all citizens for the country’s lack of development and poor reputation. An education official at a local cultural competition declared that if Ghanaians are to ‘‘catch up’’ with the developed world, people had to change their ‘‘work culture,’’ complaining that too many ‘‘dodge’’ work and are ‘‘lazy.’’ An editorial in Peki News (local newspaper) blamed the Accra Stadium disaster of May 9, 2001, at which 126
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people were killed while fleeing from tear gas, on ‘‘INDISCIPLINE. Yes NATIONAL INDISCIPLINE. . .I am included, you are included everybody included [sic], Ghana is NATIONALLY INDISCIPLINED.’’ The writer cites political corruption and gambling as other forms of ‘‘national indiscipline’’ that ‘‘officially aid and abet LAZINESS!’’ Because of such indiscipline, ‘‘Ghana will no more command any cognizable respect in the local, national, continental nor international arena.’’ At the end, the writer pleads, ‘‘Can’t we at least, for his [Kofi Annan, ‘‘Prime Minister of the Whole World’’] sake, behave decently to enable him to hold his head up, chest out wherever he goes?’’ (2001, 2). These discussions and my classroom observations illustrate how particular global ideas about how modernization is achieved, and why ‘‘Africans’’ have ‘‘failed’’ to develop and democratize, shape Ghanaian educational discourses and practices. In their policy statements, US and World Bank officials make clear their requirements for continued aid, loans, and investment: honest government, ethnic peace, free and fair elections. Drawing from modernization theory— and forgetting the United States’ own messy experiment with democracy—they envision an orderly progression to development once a country holds elections.11 After President Bush met with four West African leaders including President Kufuor at the White House in 2001, the group issued a joint statement, published on the front page of the Daily Graphic, that reflects the modernization perspective on how development is achieved: ‘‘Stability and peace are ends in themselves, but they are also essential pre-requisites for economic prosperity, development and poverty alleviation.’’ The statement warned that: ‘‘The United States opposes any action that undermines legitimate democratic rule, including coups and a direct grab’’. Some Ghanaians chafed at the threat underlying such messages and wondered about the true motives of outsiders. Destiny asked, ‘‘Why is the West so opposed to our development? They put 11 For a review of the history and theories of modernization, see So (1990).
conditions on the money they give us and end up thwarting our own plans for development.’’ But as we have seen, educators also blamed ‘‘illiterates’’ for impeding democracy and fretted about instances of ‘‘national indiscipline’’—such as election fraud or the tragedy at Accra stadium—that threatened Ghana’s global image. Maintaining discipline in teachers’ classrooms and lives was thus not only necessary for effective teaching, it was a daily struggle against negative images of Africans. 5. Democracy and discipline Though some Ghanaian teachers I observed were overly strict or unimaginative, others used humor, teaching and learning materials, and questions to involve children. Many of the teachers, trainees, and tutors I spoke with felt that teaching had improved since the 1987 reforms because teachers asked more questions and encouraged students to give opinions and ‘‘come out’’ with information. However, even what they viewed as democratic was highly controlled: teachers constrained the extent of pupil’s responses by limiting discussions to factual questions and quickly suppressed questions that strayed from the topic. While in some cases, discussions were inhibited because children were using a new, second language, Ghanaian teachers’ fears of indiscipline, and striving toward discipline, also helps explain their teaching discourses and practices. As we have seen, discipline had many meanings and was applied to student behavior, teacher’s personal lives and teaching methods, and citizens’ behaviors. For example, teachers were concerned with maintaining student discipline through teacher-dominated methodologies and teacher discipline by following standardized procedures. Besides maintaining orderly classrooms and pleasing supervisors, trainees and teachers’ concerns with discipline were related to their interpretations of democracy and how it is achieved. From news reports and speeches about the reasons for Ghana’s failure to develop, the trainees understood that democracy and development required particular forms of discipline—honesty,
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hard work, social and political stability. These values were spread in the content of lessons—for example, students learn in a fifth grade textbook that they must engage in honest work: ‘‘We should also not do the type of work that will become a disgrace to our country. . .We all have a duty to protect this respect [of other countries] and not bring disgrace to our country’’ (Baku et al., 1991, 37)—as well as in the conduct of teachers’ lessons and lives. Since many of the teachers would be working in villages, they were expected to model the behaviors required of disciplined citizens. Educators were thus held to high moral standards outside of the classroom— abstinence from alcohol, sexual restraint, promptness and hard work, etc. Through moral and social discipline, they believed, with Weber (1998), that their country might achieve economic development and international respect. After I asked the students in one of my classes what they would like me to teach Americans about Ghana, one student wrote that I should explain that they ‘‘peacefully co-exist’’ and have a ‘‘good democratic dispensation [sic]’’ because ‘‘if this information can be passed on to the people of USA, it would encourage people/investors to come down and invest in our economy for mutual benefit to citizens of both countries.’’ Such discourse illustrates how Ghanaian teachers support, but also resist and modify, local, national, and global relations of power (Foucault, 1978, 101). Not only do teachers ask us to resist prevailing and popular images of Africans, their words and actions force us to re-think scholarly images as well. Rather than ‘‘colonized’’ or ‘‘recolonized’’ victims, Ghanaian teachers accept the terms of international lenders and donors through their emphasis on discipline, understanding that this might liberate them from aid-givers. References Baku, J.K., Akorli, C.A., Omudie, J.S.D., Ballans, H.N., Atta-Boison, G.K., 1991. Ghana Social Studies Series, Pupil’s Book 5. Ghana Ministry of Education, Accra, Ghana. Brock-Utne, B., 2002. Language, Democracy and Education in Africa. Discussion Paper no. 15. Uppsala: Nordic
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Africa Institute. http://130.238.24.99/webbshp/epubl/dp/ dp15.pdf Daily Graphic, 2000. Ghana shows the way again (editorial). Daily Graphic, 8 December, 7. Daily Graphic, 2001. Let’s build bridges towards peace— Bush. Daily Graphic, 30 June, 1. Dzamboe, T., 2001. 124 teachers, pupils honored. Daily Graphic, 9 April, 13. Foucault, M., 1978. The History of Sexuality vol. 1. Pantheon Books, New York. Foucault, M., 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977. Pantheon Books, New York. Foucault, M., 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Random House, New York. Ghana Ministry of Education, 1996. Basic Education Sector Improvement Programme Policy Document: FCUBE by the Year 2005. Ministry of Education, Accra. Harber, C., 1997. Education, Democracy and Political Development in Africa. Sussex Academic Press, Brighton, UK. IFESH, 1999. Teachers for Africa Handbook. The International Foundation for Education and Self-Help, Phoenix, Arizona. Levin, H., 1992. Effective schools in comparative focus. In: Arnove, P., Altbach, P., Kelly, G. (Eds.), Emergent Issues in Education: Comparative Perspectives. State University of New York Press, Albany, New York, pp. 229–245. Maclure, R., 1997. Overlooked and Undervalued: A Synthesis of ERNWACA Reviews on the State of Education Research in West and Central Africa. www.info.usaid.gov/ regions/afr/hhraa/overlooked/overlook.htm McNeil, L., 1986. Contradictions of Control: School Structure and School Knowledge. Routledge and Kegan Paul, New York. New York Times, 2001. An African success story (editorial). New York Times, 8 January, A16. Nieto, S., 2002. Language, Culture, and Teaching: Critical Perspectives for a New Century. Erlbaum and Associates. Mahwah, New Jersey and London. Nyame-Kwarteng, 1999. Towards Effective Teaching and Learning of Environmental and Social Studies. Wesley College. Kumasi, Ghana. Peki News, 2001. The price for indiscipline (editorial). Peki News 2, May–June, 2. Peki Training College, 2000. Peki Training College Official Handbook and Prospectus. Peki Training College, Peki, Ghana. Roberts, P., 2000. Education, Literacy, and Humanization: Exploring the Works of Paulo Freire. Bergin and Garvey, Westport, Connecticut. So, A., 1990. Social Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency, and World-System Theories. Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA. Tsadidey, S.W.K., 1997. A Comprehensive Guide to English Methods for Teachers in Training. Published by author, Akrokerri, Ghana.
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Weber, M., 1998. The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Roxbury Publishing Co, Los Angeles.
Willis, P., 1977. Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids get Working Class Jobs. Columbia University Press, New York.
Democracy and discipline in Ghanaian education Laura J. Dull 645 Hickory Bush Road, Kingston, NY 12401, USA
Abstract The author assesses the 1987 educational reforms in Ghana that mandated increased emphasis on inquiry and problem-solving teaching methods in training colleges. While teaching practices were not as rote and dictatorial as scholars have often claimed, trainees and teachers shied away from methods that could lead to ‘‘indiscipline.’’ Their concern with discipline exemplified the way in which certain global messages about how development and democracy are achieved have affected the practices and discourses of Ghanaian educators. # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: International education; Developing nations; Democracy; Teacher education; International organizations; Economic development
with declaring a winner a month after polls closed. For us in the emerging democracies, the difficulties can only be real. It is in this respect that we ought to pat ourselves on the back and be justifiably proud for this rather impressive start. (Daily Graphic, 2000, 7).
1. Introduction After years of ‘‘learning democracy from America,’’1 Ghanaians’ uncontroversial and peaceful presidential election in 2000 inspired national pride in this editor of one of the country’s largest daily newspapers: We acknowledge that there cannot be a completely flawless election anywhere on the face of this globe, including advanced and matured democracies with hundreds of years of existence such as the United States of America, which, even in recent times, is still grappling
Tel.: +1-845-658-8782 (home), +1-845-257-2849 (office). E-mail address: [email protected] (L.J. Dull). 1 This quote is from a teacher trainee at Peki Training College in Ghana where I worked in 2000–2001. Quotes in this text are from transcriptions of taped seminar discussions, interviews, written work from students, and my journals. I use sic only for written sources, inserting explanatory text for oral statements in order to preserve the trainees’ personalities and uniquely Ghanaian ways of speaking English. I use the actual names of students who gave me written permission; for others, I use pseudonyms.
The December voting marked the third consecutive election under the 1992 constitution and led to the defeat of the long-time ruling party, the National Democratic Council (NDC), by John Kufuor. NDC leader Flight Lieutenant John Jerry Rawlings had been in power for almost 20 years. Though Rawlings had presided over the adoption of the constitution of 1992 and won two elections since then—he could not run again due to term limits—he had come to power by staging a coup in 1979 and another in 1981. After a runoff between the two major candidates—neither received the required fifty-one percent of the vote to win—the concession of the ruling party to the opposition was a welcome break from a cycle of coups, civilian regimes, and counter-coups and
0738-0593/$ - see front matter # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2004.01.001
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led a New York Times editor to declare that Ghana ‘‘is a welcome African example of legitimate democracy’’ (2001). At the same time Ghanaians have been adopting democratic government, educators may be moving toward ‘‘democratic’’ teaching. According to a teacher trainee at Peki Training College, John, Ghanaian teachers began using the ‘‘activity method of teaching’’ since educational reforms were passed in 1987. In contrast to the past when teachers simply lectured, teachers now ‘‘allow the children to express their view about the topic he [the teacher] is coming to teach. . . Those days teachers were dictators but now we are practicing democracy.’’ Scholars such as Harber (1997); Willis (1997), and Levin (1992) argue that rote learning stifles critical thinking necessary for making informed decisions in a democratic society and suggest that ‘‘active learning’’ and group work could help reduce social inequalities. Poor pedagogy may also inhibit economic development. Researchers in West Africa found that ‘‘abstract’’ or rote teaching methods have ‘‘directly contribut[ed] to poor academic achievement, low self-esteem, and aptitudes ill-suited for eventual entry into the world of work’’ (Maclure, 1997, 29–30). These perspectives have led to an emphasis on particular forms of educational reform in developing countries. As part of their financial assistance to Rawlings’ government during an economic crisis in the early 1980s, officials at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund pressured him to write a constitution and conduct elections as well as implement economic and educational reforms. The 1987 educational reforms emphasized problem-solving and other progressive methods at training colleges,2 2
While many progressive educators cite Freire as inspiration, Roberts argues that problem-solving methods are ‘‘in tension with the dynamism of problem-posing education.’’ Not only does problem-solving imply that solutions are easily found, this form of education may also exclude participants from pursuing their liberation since ‘‘Beginning to perceive contradictions in ideological positions, institutional structures, and everyday practices [through dialogue] is one element in the process of revolutionary change’’ (2000, 56). In other words, the World Bank and US foreign policy-makers promote reforms that may be conservative and do not threaten to expose power relations.
instituted vocational and technical education in lower grades, and reduced state funding for senior secondary school to three, instead of four, years.3 Since the government passed these reforms, international donors and lenders have funded nine percent of Ghana’s annual overall education budget and fifteen percent of basic education (Ghana Ministry of Education, 1996, 2). My work in 2000–2001 as a Teachers for Africa (TFA) volunteer at Peki Training College was meant to support the 1987 reforms. The TFA program is sponsored by the International Foundation for Education and SelfHelp (IFESH), a U.S. non-governmental organization funded primarily by the US Agency for International Development. Part of my job description was to ‘‘train colleagues to use modern methods of instruction. . .For example, encouraging interactive rather than rote learning and using handouts in addition to textbooks [sic]’’ (IFESH, 1999). Besides teaching social studies methods and English writing, I supervised student teachers, coordinated a resource room, helped teachers create teaching and learning materials and, for my own research, conducted a seminar with teacher trainees to learn more about their teaching. In this article, I draw from classroom observations, discussions with trainees and colleagues, and written sources including social studies textbooks, newspapers, and policy documents to explore these questions: How did teachers understand and implement democracy in their classrooms? In what ways, if any, have teaching practices in Ghana changed as a result of the 1987 reforms? I found that teaching practices in Ghana were not as rote and dictatorial as scholars have often claimed about ‘‘African’’ teachers. But while primary and junior secondary school trainees and teachers encouraged student participation through questioning, they shied away from other methods such as inquiry or cooperative learning that could lead to ‘‘indiscipline.’’ There are multiple reasons for educators’ reliance on teacher-centered pedagogy. For example, Brock-Utne (2002, 20) found that many African teachers use rote methods because children must 3 This last reform reflects the neo-liberal agenda of the World Bank to cut government spending on services.
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learn and take exams in second languages. Standardized exams often compel teachers to focus on covering content rather than implementing problem-solving methods, as McNeil (1986) found in US high school social studies courses. Nieto explains that children from marginalized groups often endure poor teaching methods and ‘‘watered-down’’ curriculum because teachers fail to acknowledge their cultures and languages (2002, 54).4 Ghanaian educators’ teaching methods were also related to their understandings of globalization. Aware of the messages of international donors and lenders about how democracy and development should be achieved, trainees and teachers established certain classroom practices and norms in order to enforce the individual and national attitudes—honesty, hard work, and ethnic peace—that they believed were necessary for attracting investors (Foucault, 1980, 1995). In other words, according to educators, Ghana’s future development—indeed its survival as a nation—required particular forms of discipline, and thus particular kinds of teaching. 2. Teaching and learning democracy One can easily identify schoolchildren in Ghana: girls wear yellow shirts with brown jumpers and boys wear yellow shirts with brown shorts. Primary (elementary) and junior and senior secondary (middle and high) schools are usually one-story buildings made out of concrete bricks with metal roofs or built out of sticks and roofed with grass in poorer villages. Schools are open to the air and often surrounded by gardens or farms as well as cleared grounds for assemblies and recess—students tend the grounds and sweep classrooms before classes every morning. Many schools I visited needed a new coat of paint, were not yet completed, had sagging beams, or lacked supplies. A few had ceiling fans and/or electric lights, and almost all had blackboards, chairs or 4
For more on language, education, and power, see the special issue of International Review of Education, volume 47, number 3.
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benches, and desks. As one finds in most public spaces in Ghana, market women set up stalls on school grounds so that students or teachers can buy groundnuts, oranges, bags of water, rice or yam and stew, etc. for lunch. Teachers on break sit at tables under a shady tree—one trainee joked that teachers did not have a common room they had a ‘‘common tree.’’ Religious groups or communities (‘‘Local Authorities’’) build and maintain schools, while the government pays teacher salaries and provides textbooks—when it has the funds. Reflecting the push by post-independence leaders for Afrocentric curricula and vocational education, the content of all primary and junior secondary school subjects focuses on Ghanaian and West African life and required courses include Agricultural Science—growing crops and raising livestock—and Pre-vocational Skills—weaving and other Ghanaian craftwork—in addition to Ghanaian languages, English, Mathematics, Religious and Moral Education, Environmental and Social Studies, Physical Education, Music and Dance, and French as an elective. Children are instructed in their local languages until grade three, when English becomes the language of instruction. Ghanaian teachers followed a common format for forty-minute lessons. First teachers reviewed students’ ‘‘Relevant Previous Knowledge’’ usually by asking a question.5 Then they introduced the content of the lesson either by presenting a teaching and learning material or writing information on the board, eliciting information about the material by asking recall questions such as ‘‘What do you see in this picture?’’ or ‘‘How do you make a basket?’’ Next students heard a lecture on the topic or learned skills by following certain 5 Another volunteer and I noted how certain opening questions were used over and over again, sometimes during the same day. One of the favorites was ‘‘What did you take [eat] this morning before coming to school?’’ The children dutifully answered ‘‘coco’’ (porridge), ‘‘rice,’’ ‘‘yam.’’ This question was used in lessons about diet, nutrition, crops in Ghana, etc., topics that were covered in environmental studies, science, agricultural science, and pre-vocational skills—each year similar content was covered in primary schools, presumably in more depth as children got older.
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steps directed by the teacher—pronouncing words, reading texts, doing math problems, making baskets. This work was almost always done on their own, rarely did children work in groups. At the end, teachers asked students to recall the content of the lesson and listed responses on the board—e.g., ‘‘Name the two types of ducks in Ghana’’ or ‘‘How do you eat properly?’’ While at Peki Training College, I invited teacher trainees to meet for an hour and a half to two hours during their free time in a seminar on ‘‘Democracy in the Classroom.’’ The four women and ten men who participated reflected the gender composition of the campus. I set no requirements for joining the group other than willingness to attend regularly. We ultimately met eleven times. After two meetings, I asked the participants, ‘‘Would you describe this group [the seminar] as a democracy or dictatorship?’’ The students argued that it was a democracy because they could freely express their views and ‘‘you [the seminar leader] don’t impose your views on us. Even sometimes if you have an opposite view you allow us to explain our views as a group before you bring out sometimes yours.’’ When I noted that I had made up the discussion topics without their input which was undemocratic, Destiny responded that even though I gave them the topics, ‘‘You don’t come and tell us that, this and this. You bring us the topic, we argue it out.’’6 These evaluations concurred with how the trainees conceived of democracy in schools when discussing their teaching and that of others. For the seminar participants, democracy was manifested when children ‘‘come out with’’ concepts and information by using their own knowledge and experience to answer their teacher’s questions. Destiny wrote that a primary school lesson he taught was ‘‘democratic and activity centred in that pupils were involved in the lesson from the beginning to the end. This is because, pupils were asked, questions through which they came out with 6
I created the topics for our initial meetings. When the students wanted to continue meeting during the next term, I asked them to suggest topics for those meetings.
concept [sic].’’ Raymond described an activity I had them do in one of the seminars as ‘‘the activity method of teaching that we [Ghanaian teachers] have now adopted. There is no need to present the whole thing to them [students]. We allow them to think about the thing and come out with what they think about the topic we are teaching.’’ John was surprised at how much the children already knew in a lesson he taught: ‘‘I think my children don’t know the thing [topic] so. . .I asked them and they say all that I have to say. I don’t know what else to say so I had to think very fast to bring some [other] things out before I was able to finish this lesson. So the children are very good. . .they can even disgrace you [by knowing more than the teacher].’’ Democracy could also be modeled by involving children in decision-making. Destiny argued that students should be involved in choosing class leaders—rather than the teacher choosing them which seemed to be the usual practice—and might even help set class rules: ‘‘It should be the collective idea of the pupils. ‘Who do you think should be the best person to do this?’ Then it will follow ‘I think this man, I think that man.’ Then let’s put it to vote. Then through that indirectly you are making them democracy. . .or even some rules you [the teacher] will bring it ‘this is what I think we should do.’ Then you allow the pupils to come out with their rules.’’ The trainees’ understanding of the complexity of how democracy is learned and practiced was revealed by their extension of democracy to other settings. Edem showed a sophisticated understanding of ideology when he explained that although leaders promote democracy by encouraging people to vote, their daily practices are authoritarian: after this [elections] sometimes people heading various departments try to dictate the people who work under them. And you know we Ghanaians being so submissive ‘yes suh master me no spoil job’. . .the moment you begin to come out and air your views people begin. . .trying to de-employ you
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especially if you want to criticize your manager or your director.7 Edem also disputed the findings of reformers—I told them that some researchers claimed that African educational practices were inhibiting democracy—saying that ‘‘maybe they [critics of African education] did not view the outside of the classroom before they come out with their view’’ because ‘‘When the child goes back to the house after school. . .the parents in the home try to organize all of them together and do things as a family. Or. . .you realize that among friends they [children] try to emulate some qualities of democracy [as when playing games].’’ For the trainees, democracy in classrooms was most often associated with expressing oneself— either by giving one’s ‘‘views’’ or by ‘‘coming out’’ with answers to teachers’ questions on the topic. Teachers had an important role to play in encouraging free expression, though children may be inhibited by their difficulty with English, emotional problems, or intelligence levels. Group work or other progressive methods were never mentioned as ways to promote democracy in the classroom, even though trainees learned about these methods in their classes. For example, at her first lecture in Introduction to Education, a tutor asked second-year students to list the benefits and drawbacks of ‘‘class teaching’’—teaching to the whole group—and ‘‘group teaching’’— cooperative learning. While the tutor acknowledged that class teaching is the more common method and considered more ‘‘efficient,’’ she and the students were aware of the arguments for and against cooperative learning and used the discourse of progressive education to make their cases. For example, the trainees responded that class teaching ‘‘makes students passive learners’’ and makes it ‘‘hard to know and cater to individual needs and talents.’’ Students cited ‘‘more active learning,’’ ‘‘learn cooperation,’’ and 7
While respectful of older staff members and those of higher ranks, tutors were not afraid to confront administration and elders at staff meetings. But relations between upper-class Ghanaians or foreigners and their drivers or servants were more like what Edem describes.
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‘‘encourages democracy’’ as the advantages of group learning. The last response evoked loud murmuring among the students who knew that this answer was meant to appeal to me, a representative of the United States and its preoccupations with democracy. During an English lesson, another tutor warned third-year students to ‘‘always prepare well, be in the right mood, if your lessons are not interesting, if you are not playful, the students will not learn. When teaching English, always begin with a story.’’ Story-telling in Ghana incorporates many of the methods that progressive educators would encourage such as pausing the story to have children guess what will happen next and having children explain the lessons they learned after the story. Stories are also stopped in the middle for singing or dancing to keep children attentive. Later in his lesson, the tutor tied group work to national development: ‘‘In all your language lessons, have them do group work. In Ghana we have been miseducated because we grow up in a society where we can only succeed as a nation, as a society, as a community, as a group, by teamwork.’’ The reference to miseducation is an implicit critique of individualized methods of instruction used by Muslims and Europeans. For this tutor, progressive methods are not only vital to community and national success but are truer to Ghanaian values because they rely on collective work and story-telling, essential parts of pre-colonial education. A textbook on teaching environmental and social studies was comprehensive in its discussion of different ways to teach social studies and the advantages and disadvantages of each: the inquiry approach, role playing, dramatization, debate, local study, etc. (Nyame-Kwarteng, 1999). In his book on teaching English, Tsadidey recommended language games and giving mock news broadcasts along with drills and substitution tables as ways to teach English (1997). In a 2001 exam, students were asked to, ‘‘Describe how each of the following methods of teaching can be used effectively (select topics of your own choice to illustrate your answers) at the Primary school: (i) Activity; (ii) Role Play (iii) Discovery.’’ Teacher trainees thus learn about progressive
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methods in their textbooks, exams, and classrooms, but they saw few models of these methods by their tutors or in schools. 3. Practising democracy in the classroom I observed the lessons that several seminar participants conducted as student teachers and then we met as a group to evaluate the lessons. After learning about the lessons from their peers, the trainees concluded that the lessons had been democratic because students actively participated in the lessons. But while the teachers had established environments where children spoke out freely, the lessons remained teacher-dominated. For example, Vivian taught an environmental studies lesson on ‘‘foods eaten raw’’ in primary class two at Peki Training College Demonstration School. The eighteen boys and nine girls sat in rows and were very excited to see the yevu (foreigner). Vivian had to constantly warn the children to calm down: ‘‘Keep quiet, sit down, Selassie you are not the second teacher—are you also in teachers’ college?’’ When she brought out a bag filled with fruits and vegetables, several of the children rushed from their seats to look at it. After asking, ‘‘What food did you take this morning? What did you eat on break?,’’ Vivian began a discussion about whether vegetables like tomatoes can be eaten raw. Then the children played a game in which a child came to the front of the room, pulled fruits and vegetables out of the bag—‘‘He has picked something I don’t know the name of it. . .What is that?’’—and stated whether or not they could be eaten raw. While many wanted to participate, there were others who never spoke or raised their hand—at one point, Vivian sent a child who had his head down to stand at the back of the room. The teacher ended the lesson by having the children sing an alphabet song with a religious theme—‘‘C is for Cain that killed his brother.’’ According to the trainees’ definition, the lesson was democratic because ‘‘every child was asked to and allowed to bring out his/her view’’ and the lesson was ‘‘child-centred and activity oriented since they were involved in activities through
which the concept was developed by themselves [the children] [rather] than being spoon-fed.’’ I suggested that students would be even more involved if she asked them to bring in a fruit or vegetable from their homes and work in groups to establish whether or not they could be eaten raw. Students who were hesitant to speak in front of the large group might be more willing to participate in small groups. Raymond taught an environmental studies lesson on ‘‘Ghana and her neighbors’’ to a primary six class of fourteen girls and twelve boys. He began the lesson by asking, ‘‘What is the name of your country?’’ The pupils laughed when someone answered Peki Avetile, the name of their village. In eliciting the names of Ghana’s neighbors, Raymond encouraged participation by calling out, ‘‘Today is a special day for ladies and women—I want to see girl’s hands up,’’8 ‘‘Oh Ellen it’s a long time I heard from you,’’ and ‘‘I want to hear from this side.’’ He asked students to help others locate countries on the map pasted on the chalk board—‘‘Somebody to help Aiku,’’ ‘‘Who will be the ambulance or fire service to help him’’—and explained how to locate countries—‘‘What must you do first to locate a country on the map?’’ ‘‘Look at the key—the blue indicates the sea.’’ Raymond asked the class to list the ways Ghana and her neighbors interact such as in sports or trading and, at the end, asked, ‘‘All [the neighbors] are using the CFA [Communaute Financiere Africaine—the currency of most Francophone countries in West Africa] except Ghana so what should Ghana do to improve upon her relations with these countries?’’9 In their evaluation, the trainees noted 8 Many Ghanaians at the training college were aware that gender was an important concern of international aid workers. In conversations with me, several of my colleagues evoked ‘‘Beijing’’ referring to the 1990 United Nations Conference on Women, though it was often meant to tease me. These men were quite pleased when I chose to help the other women tutors—there were five women and eighteen male tutors at Peki Training College—serve food that the women had also cooked at faculty parties. 9 Since then, the economic community of West Africa (ECOWAS) that includes Ghana decided to adopt a common currency, the Eco, in January 2003.
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that the lesson was democratic because students had located countries on a map and ‘‘came out’’ with their views. But by posing the issue as the best way to promote friendly relations, Raymond missed an opportunity to run a discussion about the problems and benefits of using a common currency. John taught a lesson on English composition in class five to eight girls and twenty boys at Avetile Evangelical Presbyterian school. John’s humor and the topic, ‘‘Your Mother’’ got the children involved. He started with a funny question, ‘‘How many of you don’t have mothers or fathers?’’ He asked the children their mothers’ names, places of birth, color—‘‘Is she dark or fair?’’—and ages—the children laughed when someone answered ‘‘Fifteen.’’ John joked that his mother liked ‘‘lizard meat’’ and asked students what foods their mothers liked to eat. He emphasized good behavior by noting that his own mother likes ‘‘kids who are respectful and do their chores’’ and does not like children who are ‘‘insulting, stealing, lying, disturbing [misbehaving], talking.’’ The teacher then posted a fill-in composition about mothers for students to copy. Earlier I had told the trainees that I felt that these commonly-used essays stifled creativity by requiring children to fill in blanks with the correct words—Rejoice mocked the technique by saying that children might write ‘‘His age is tall. The name of my father is Dzake [name of a village]. He is 16 in complexion.’’ But some of the trainees argued that children did not know enough English to write essays by themselves. I observed other student teachers and teachers who used visual aids or objects. According to presenters at a workshop for Teachers for Africa volunteers, teaching and learning materials would change the practices of teachers from ‘‘dictatorship/autocracy to democracy’’ and student learning from ‘‘competition to sharing’’ since teachers will presumably practice hands-on learning and engage children in cooperative activities when using such materials. When the item was provocative and the teacher enthusiastic, the lesson might lead to a lively discussion. In a lesson on contaminated foods, third grade children at Peki College Demonstration School giggled at a
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commercially-made poster of people with intestinal problems and were eager to answer the teacher’s questions about the causes of the people’s distress. Mary’s enthusiasm as she used classroom objects to teach the English concepts of ‘‘on’’ and ‘‘in’’ got most of her first graders eagerly involved in the lesson. However, due to large class sizes and a lack of copy machines, it is difficult for a teacher to make multiple posters or models for groups to work with. Thus they tended to use one poster or a few objects for teacher-centered lectures and focused on eliciting facts in their questioning. For example, a trainee, Prince, asked students to list the dangers to the environment shown on a poster for his social studies lesson, but never asked students to explain how or why noise or garbage endangered the environment or what could be done to prevent pollution. In addition, children were rarely asked to create or find their own illustrations or objects to show understanding of concepts. The volunteer at another training college reported that, like me, she had never seen children’s work posted in the schools she visited. One trainee I observed asked students to draw pictures of ‘‘any plant’’ in their notebooks but did not intend to display them. Part of the reason items are not made is a lack of materials such as paper, crayons or markers. In addition, having students work on art projects might lead to indiscipline. While her students worked at their drawings of plants, the teacher exhorted them to ‘‘draw it nicely’’ and ‘‘be quiet.’’ In a pre-vocational skills class, junior secondary students worked individually at their desks making doormats, receiving help only from the teacher who constantly warned ‘‘no talking’’ and ‘‘hurry up.’’ Trainees were also constrained by the expectations of their tutors. At the same time that they taught about child-centered education, tutors emphasized classroom control and following procedure. At the end of a student’s sample lesson to his peers, an education tutor entered my classroom. After studying the blackboard, he declared that the lesson must have been good because the writing on the board was well organized. In a lesson on pie charts where a sample chart would
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seem an obvious choice, a trainee told me that he did not make one because ‘‘it would distract the kids.’’ After a senior noted at a presentation of his teaching and learning material—all seniors created one for their final project—that his students were excited about his ‘‘eclipse tree,’’ one tutor asked, ‘‘How can you control the rowdiness?’’ Yet in another case, she encouraged student initiative, asking a senior who displayed a poster with his own religious poem, ‘‘why not let them [children] come out with their own poems?’’ Another tutor told this senior that ‘‘you must be resourceful and think very fast; you can divert from the lesson plan. The theories might not work in the classroom’’ though he admitted that ‘‘you are not taught like that [at the training college]—you must follow step one, step two. . .’’. This was the same tutor who judged the lesson by the writing on the board. Many of the trainees’ and teachers’ lessons I observed were engaging, though the teachers maintained firm control over the lessons and missed opportunities to lead students to more complex understandings of issues, like using a common currency, or to allow students to use their creativity, such as writing essays on their own. When I asked the trainees why there was so little cooperative learning in their classrooms, they expressed concerns about discipline, noting that if students sit in groups ‘‘they will be playing’’ or ‘‘chatting’’ and that rows enabled teachers to move freely so that they could stop ‘‘someone [who] is doing something which is not compatible with the lesson.’’ Leading a discussion about a controversial topic might ‘‘give room to pupils to misbehave by saying anything at all.’’ Vivian’s conception of the classroom recalled Foucault’s panopticon: ‘‘Standing up in front of the class you can see what they are doing. Especially those at the back who like disturbing and will not like to keep quiet. So if you stand you will see them and then correct them when they are doing wrong.’’ Deviating from standardized ways of teaching also meant that the teacher was indisciplined, a college-wide and national concern.
4. Nihil sine labore10: Respect through Discipline Peki Training College is located in a lush, shady campus across the road from a series of villages that constitute the Peki Traditional Area in the Volta Region of Ghana. The one-story administration, library, and classroom buildings are clustered around a grassy courtyard and are made out of concrete blocks with metal roofs and lots of windows. Students lived in dorms—in the dorm I visited, there were about eighteen women in each room—and houses for faculty, staff, and administration are located throughout the campus. I was given a house that faced the principal’s to better ensure my ‘‘security.’’ Most staff members had gardens where they grew yams, cassava, maize, and other vegetables and kept chickens and goats. They also harvested fruits and palm wine from trees on campus. In contrast to university students who must often obtain loans to attend college, teacher trainees’ fees and monthly stipends of 180,000 cedis (about twenty-five dollars) are paid for by government funds provided to the country’s nine regions. In return, trainees must work in their host region for several years after graduation. The three-year experience of teacher training in Ghana is characterized by strict discipline. After rising at 5 a.m. to do ‘‘projects’’—cutting grass, sweeping, farming, etc.—trainees attend morning religious services, classes from 7:10 a.m. to 2 p.m.—each year students take a pre-determined set of courses five days a week—afternoon projects, evening study periods (‘‘preps’’), and ‘‘lights off’’ at 10:30 p.m. Students wear uniforms on and off-campus and are prohibited from wearing flashy jewelry or having ‘‘fashionable haircuts (and other weird hair cuts)’’ (Peki Training College, 2000, 18). Students must obtain an exeat (permission) to go to nearby villages or other destinations and some complained that they were not even allowed to accompany visitors to the bus stop when their guests were leaving. At their pre-admission interviews, several prospective students cited the ‘‘discipline’’ of the stu10 Nihil sine labore—nothing without work—is the college’s motto.
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dents or the college as the primary reason they wanted to attend Peki College. Other commonly cited reasons were strong faculty and the success rate of students on national teacher exams. While these answers in many cases represented what students felt interviewers wanted to hear, their responses illustrate the importance given to disciplined teacher training. Peki tutors and teachers felt that trainees would ‘‘abuse’’ or take advantage without strict rules at college and that this training was necessary because teachers were expected to act as role models in the villages or towns where they would work. The centrality of discipline was apparent during a lesson in which I asked groups of second year students to answer questions about Ghanaian education. In listing the qualities of a good teacher, one group said that teachers should be ‘‘disciplined and helpful,’’ and the group assigned to list qualities of a bad teacher mentioned, ‘‘He is indiscipline [sic].’’ Discipline for teachers related to both personal habits and teaching methods. Ghanaian citizens regularly condemned social vices such as drunkenness, tardiness or absenteeism, excessive cruelty, and sexual misconduct among teachers in articles or letters in newspapers. For example, a speaker at a school awards ceremony blamed poor performance in many of the Volta Region’s schools in part on teachers who ‘‘engage in other activities such as extravagance on alcoholic drinks at the expense of their own welfare and to the detriment of classroom teaching’’ (Dzamboe, 2001, 13). In addition to good moral conduct, teacher discipline is manifested by carefully following procedures. When I asked students in my social studies methods class what they meant by discipline, a trainee mentioned that discipline was when ‘‘teachers closely follow their lesson plans.’’ In another lesson, after I asked students to create children’s books, several expressed alarm because they had not yet learned how to make teaching and learning materials. For them, a disciplined teacher must know the proper procedures before starting a task. The trainees also worried that Ghanaian citizens and Africans were indisciplined. During one of our seminar meetings, I asked three groups to place five countries—the United States, Ghana,
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Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, and South Africa—on a continuum from most democratic to least. Two groups said that Ghana was most democratic because the 2000 presidential election had been more ‘‘free and fair’’ than the United States’ contested elections. But the pro-American group argued that the United States’ longer history of democracy and the fact that Democratic candidate Al Gore had conceded defeat indicated that the US had the stronger democracy. They added that there would have been rioting in developing countries if the election had been as troubled as that in the US, because ‘‘we [Africans] don’t understand that word democracy.’’ Two of the participants, Kumah and Destiny, responded that Ghanaians must understand democracy because their elections were peaceful, even though they required a run-off, and Rawlings had stepped down. I engaged in a similar discussion with a tutor who argued that ‘‘Africans’’ were not yet ready for democracy because there was no tradition of it and they needed strong leaders to keep control. When I countered that Ghanaians seemed to make decisions using democratic methods at staff meetings, he claimed that this may be true among ‘‘educated’’ people but ‘‘not in villages.’’ In one of the seminar discussions about student choice, Edem and Kumah explained that ‘‘illiterate’’ parents in ‘‘remote’’ areas often do not take an interest in their children’s education. In another discussion, the trainees explained that in the December 2000 elections, many people ‘‘just followed the crowd’’ in their choices or were given money to vote for certain candidates. Though many of the tutors and trainees had come from villages, they feared that people in villages perpetuated the image of indisciplined Africans—ignorant, lazy, violent, corrupt. Others blamed all citizens for the country’s lack of development and poor reputation. An education official at a local cultural competition declared that if Ghanaians are to ‘‘catch up’’ with the developed world, people had to change their ‘‘work culture,’’ complaining that too many ‘‘dodge’’ work and are ‘‘lazy.’’ An editorial in Peki News (local newspaper) blamed the Accra Stadium disaster of May 9, 2001, at which 126
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people were killed while fleeing from tear gas, on ‘‘INDISCIPLINE. Yes NATIONAL INDISCIPLINE. . .I am included, you are included everybody included [sic], Ghana is NATIONALLY INDISCIPLINED.’’ The writer cites political corruption and gambling as other forms of ‘‘national indiscipline’’ that ‘‘officially aid and abet LAZINESS!’’ Because of such indiscipline, ‘‘Ghana will no more command any cognizable respect in the local, national, continental nor international arena.’’ At the end, the writer pleads, ‘‘Can’t we at least, for his [Kofi Annan, ‘‘Prime Minister of the Whole World’’] sake, behave decently to enable him to hold his head up, chest out wherever he goes?’’ (2001, 2). These discussions and my classroom observations illustrate how particular global ideas about how modernization is achieved, and why ‘‘Africans’’ have ‘‘failed’’ to develop and democratize, shape Ghanaian educational discourses and practices. In their policy statements, US and World Bank officials make clear their requirements for continued aid, loans, and investment: honest government, ethnic peace, free and fair elections. Drawing from modernization theory— and forgetting the United States’ own messy experiment with democracy—they envision an orderly progression to development once a country holds elections.11 After President Bush met with four West African leaders including President Kufuor at the White House in 2001, the group issued a joint statement, published on the front page of the Daily Graphic, that reflects the modernization perspective on how development is achieved: ‘‘Stability and peace are ends in themselves, but they are also essential pre-requisites for economic prosperity, development and poverty alleviation.’’ The statement warned that: ‘‘The United States opposes any action that undermines legitimate democratic rule, including coups and a direct grab’’. Some Ghanaians chafed at the threat underlying such messages and wondered about the true motives of outsiders. Destiny asked, ‘‘Why is the West so opposed to our development? They put 11 For a review of the history and theories of modernization, see So (1990).
conditions on the money they give us and end up thwarting our own plans for development.’’ But as we have seen, educators also blamed ‘‘illiterates’’ for impeding democracy and fretted about instances of ‘‘national indiscipline’’—such as election fraud or the tragedy at Accra stadium—that threatened Ghana’s global image. Maintaining discipline in teachers’ classrooms and lives was thus not only necessary for effective teaching, it was a daily struggle against negative images of Africans. 5. Democracy and discipline Though some Ghanaian teachers I observed were overly strict or unimaginative, others used humor, teaching and learning materials, and questions to involve children. Many of the teachers, trainees, and tutors I spoke with felt that teaching had improved since the 1987 reforms because teachers asked more questions and encouraged students to give opinions and ‘‘come out’’ with information. However, even what they viewed as democratic was highly controlled: teachers constrained the extent of pupil’s responses by limiting discussions to factual questions and quickly suppressed questions that strayed from the topic. While in some cases, discussions were inhibited because children were using a new, second language, Ghanaian teachers’ fears of indiscipline, and striving toward discipline, also helps explain their teaching discourses and practices. As we have seen, discipline had many meanings and was applied to student behavior, teacher’s personal lives and teaching methods, and citizens’ behaviors. For example, teachers were concerned with maintaining student discipline through teacher-dominated methodologies and teacher discipline by following standardized procedures. Besides maintaining orderly classrooms and pleasing supervisors, trainees and teachers’ concerns with discipline were related to their interpretations of democracy and how it is achieved. From news reports and speeches about the reasons for Ghana’s failure to develop, the trainees understood that democracy and development required particular forms of discipline—honesty,
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hard work, social and political stability. These values were spread in the content of lessons—for example, students learn in a fifth grade textbook that they must engage in honest work: ‘‘We should also not do the type of work that will become a disgrace to our country. . .We all have a duty to protect this respect [of other countries] and not bring disgrace to our country’’ (Baku et al., 1991, 37)—as well as in the conduct of teachers’ lessons and lives. Since many of the teachers would be working in villages, they were expected to model the behaviors required of disciplined citizens. Educators were thus held to high moral standards outside of the classroom— abstinence from alcohol, sexual restraint, promptness and hard work, etc. Through moral and social discipline, they believed, with Weber (1998), that their country might achieve economic development and international respect. After I asked the students in one of my classes what they would like me to teach Americans about Ghana, one student wrote that I should explain that they ‘‘peacefully co-exist’’ and have a ‘‘good democratic dispensation [sic]’’ because ‘‘if this information can be passed on to the people of USA, it would encourage people/investors to come down and invest in our economy for mutual benefit to citizens of both countries.’’ Such discourse illustrates how Ghanaian teachers support, but also resist and modify, local, national, and global relations of power (Foucault, 1978, 101). Not only do teachers ask us to resist prevailing and popular images of Africans, their words and actions force us to re-think scholarly images as well. Rather than ‘‘colonized’’ or ‘‘recolonized’’ victims, Ghanaian teachers accept the terms of international lenders and donors through their emphasis on discipline, understanding that this might liberate them from aid-givers. References Baku, J.K., Akorli, C.A., Omudie, J.S.D., Ballans, H.N., Atta-Boison, G.K., 1991. Ghana Social Studies Series, Pupil’s Book 5. Ghana Ministry of Education, Accra, Ghana. Brock-Utne, B., 2002. Language, Democracy and Education in Africa. Discussion Paper no. 15. Uppsala: Nordic
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Africa Institute. http://130.238.24.99/webbshp/epubl/dp/ dp15.pdf Daily Graphic, 2000. Ghana shows the way again (editorial). Daily Graphic, 8 December, 7. Daily Graphic, 2001. Let’s build bridges towards peace— Bush. Daily Graphic, 30 June, 1. Dzamboe, T., 2001. 124 teachers, pupils honored. Daily Graphic, 9 April, 13. Foucault, M., 1978. The History of Sexuality vol. 1. Pantheon Books, New York. Foucault, M., 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977. Pantheon Books, New York. Foucault, M., 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Random House, New York. Ghana Ministry of Education, 1996. Basic Education Sector Improvement Programme Policy Document: FCUBE by the Year 2005. Ministry of Education, Accra. Harber, C., 1997. Education, Democracy and Political Development in Africa. Sussex Academic Press, Brighton, UK. IFESH, 1999. Teachers for Africa Handbook. The International Foundation for Education and Self-Help, Phoenix, Arizona. Levin, H., 1992. Effective schools in comparative focus. In: Arnove, P., Altbach, P., Kelly, G. (Eds.), Emergent Issues in Education: Comparative Perspectives. State University of New York Press, Albany, New York, pp. 229–245. Maclure, R., 1997. Overlooked and Undervalued: A Synthesis of ERNWACA Reviews on the State of Education Research in West and Central Africa. www.info.usaid.gov/ regions/afr/hhraa/overlooked/overlook.htm McNeil, L., 1986. Contradictions of Control: School Structure and School Knowledge. Routledge and Kegan Paul, New York. New York Times, 2001. An African success story (editorial). New York Times, 8 January, A16. Nieto, S., 2002. Language, Culture, and Teaching: Critical Perspectives for a New Century. Erlbaum and Associates. Mahwah, New Jersey and London. Nyame-Kwarteng, 1999. Towards Effective Teaching and Learning of Environmental and Social Studies. Wesley College. Kumasi, Ghana. Peki News, 2001. The price for indiscipline (editorial). Peki News 2, May–June, 2. Peki Training College, 2000. Peki Training College Official Handbook and Prospectus. Peki Training College, Peki, Ghana. Roberts, P., 2000. Education, Literacy, and Humanization: Exploring the Works of Paulo Freire. Bergin and Garvey, Westport, Connecticut. So, A., 1990. Social Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency, and World-System Theories. Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA. Tsadidey, S.W.K., 1997. A Comprehensive Guide to English Methods for Teachers in Training. Published by author, Akrokerri, Ghana.
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Weber, M., 1998. The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Roxbury Publishing Co, Los Angeles.
Willis, P., 1977. Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids get Working Class Jobs. Columbia University Press, New York.