Today was my last full day in Accra, and I had the pleasure of returning to L & A Academy.  This fine school has been sharing letters with an impressive school in the U.S.: North Marion Elementary and Middle Schools.  The students in Ghana were on holiday, but the proprietress, headmaster,  Kankam (who has spearheaded the project at L & A), and about fifteen students came in to spend time with me, which I am very grateful for.

Whenever I speak to Ghanaian students, I try to take the U.S. down at least a few inches from the pedestal on which it is placed.  Many of the students here are under the impression that everyone in the U.S. is wealthy and educated.  So I point out that we have hungry people and homeless people and a lot of people in prison and a LOT of students who wish that they were not in school.  For Ghanaian students, school is a break from work, and it's their best chance to have a better life than their parents were able to have.  They are, therefore, serious about their studies.  So I told them that they have already figured out the key to success in life (being devoted to your work and to your family and friends).  And I thanked them for inspiring me to expect more of myself and of my students.

Today I returned to Purity Preparatory School--with the essential assistance of Lucy of the Aya Centre--to interview the staff and to watch them and their students at work.  I got to observe pre-school; primary school, and junior secondary.  All three classrooms were relatively small and highly interactive.  Ghana's education curriculum is fixed; the state decides what should be covered, and their lengthy exams control access into the top high schools and universities and, therefore, professions.  So the teachers are under a great deal of pressure to prepare students for these fact-based examinations.  But the best teachers, in Ghana as elsewhere, do more than "chalk and talk."   The teachers at Purity School demand a great deal of their students.

They ask them to come to the board to demonstrate what they know.  The class is told to "clap for her" when a student answers a difficult question--and  any student may be called on at any time.  He must then stand and deliver--or  risk incurring his teacher's disapproval.  It's a much different system than in the U.S., where we are loathe to put students on the spot and encourage more independent and creative thinking.  Ghanaians are much more definite about what an educated person should know--and much more directive in getting him or her to that point.

I thought that this photo sums up Anani Memorial International School in many respects: they expect a lot from young children, from behavior to knowledge.  The children are taught both English and French by the time they are six or so, and their teachers expect great things of  them.

What the photo doesn't suggest is the tremendous sense of joy and love that the teachers also share with their students.  Music and clapping often breaks out in all of the classes, and the young scholars are made to feel important and precious.

Many of them are missing one or both parents and would be going to no school at all if  it weren't for this amazing school in the heart of the Nima slum.  Here's another photo, with happier faces.

Today was certainly one of the most unforgettable of my life.  The students and staff of Purity School, led by Proprietress Madame Constance Boakye Afriyie and Headmaster Mr. P.M. Offei, welcomed us before we even entered the school, as ceremonial dancers came out to greet us.

We then had a program of speeches and performances.  Many references were made to Elizabeth Fosler-Jones, who has led the efforts to raise money for the school, and to my son, Peter del Mar, visited the school with me in November and is one of about sixteen students working with Elizabeth.

I then interviewed seven of the school's leading students, who described with passion and eloquence how the school has helped them and how we might help them to make it even stronger.

The visit reminded me of why I have been trying to bring schools in Ghana and the U.S. together.  Certainly we have material resources that can help.  The Pals of Purity School already helped Purity School purchase its first computer.  But the Ghanaian students and their teachers also have a great deal to offer us, including a deep commitment to learning and graciousness that both inspires and humbles.

Leaving for Ghana Tomorrow!

My bags aren't quite packed yet, but I'm getting there!  Twenty-four hours from now I'll be heading toward Ghana for a 10-day trip.

I'm there for multiple purposes, mainly delivering a paper on the tension between how Ghanaian textbooks and intellectuals treat its history and going to a variety of schools to maintain or establish links between them and schools in the Pacific Northwest, where I live.  But I also go for more personal reasons.

Ghana, as one person wrote of Africa more generally, makes me believe in God.  Happiness and suffering alike seem much closer to the surface there, and human relationships seem to count for more.

Westerners are treated like celebrities in Ghana, especially if they are white.  When I speak to students there, I try to emphasize how much I respect how hard they work and how considerate they are with each other.  Maybe it's hard to remember that when you are reading letters from students in the U.S. talking about their games and their pets and their vacations.  But Ghanaians have a lot of very impressive virtues that are hard to put a price tag on

Going to Ghana also reminds me of how bizarre my life is--the material goods, the solitude, the comfort.  Only a small sliver of people in the history of the world have lived the way I do, the way that most people in the West now live.  Of course that doesn't make our lives bad or wrong.  But it's exhilerating to realize how little I know about the human experience and prospect--and sobering to realize what incredible resources I have at my disposal and the responsibilities that come with those unmerited privileges.

Hanna Rosin on Gender in the New Economy

Hanna Rosin, whose much-anticipated book on modern gender roles is about to appear, had another fine piece, this in The New York Times Magazine.

Here she looks at the changing roles of women and men in a small, conservative town in Alabama.  As in so many other places in the U.S., good-paying jobs for men have been disappearing, and their wives are earning a greater and greater share of the family income--this in a place where men are generally understood to be the head of the house.

Rosin does a fine job of pointing out that some of the wounds suffered by men are self-inflicted, as they are reluctant to train for and fill jobs that appear feminine.  But it precisely these jobs--some of which pay quite well, such as health administration or nursing--that are proliferating as high-paying manufacturing jobs dry up.

Traditional ideas about men's roles (and, I would argue, male privilege) are keeping men from being able to jump into the new economy.  As women's economic power grows, much of the rationale for male privilege should be crumbling.