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.