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Three Fredericksburg-area professors recently traveled to Ghana to train teachers to make their students better readers Date published: 8/12/2007
By KIM BAER The five primary schools the University of Mary Washington professors visited in Ghana were like nothing they'd seen before. The schools didn't have running water, said Suzanne Houff, an education professor with UMW's College of Graduate and Professional Studies. Because of power issues, the electricity was often off. There were few textbooks. The chalk boards were made of carbon from old batteries that had been rubbed onto the walls. "It was like being in National Geographic," Houff said. She was one of several reading professionals who traveled to the west African country this summer as part of the Virginia State Reading Association's Ghana project. Kavatus Newell, a fellow education professor at the Stafford County center, and Dale Wright, an education professor at UMW's Fredericksburg campus, were also part of the two-week trip. Their primary mission was to help schoolteachers learn how to better teach reading. But the local professors also brought school supplies, including books, cloth bags, paper, pencils and notebooks. The need in Ghana's schools is great. Fewer than 10 percent of the country's sixth-grade children are reading at grade level, according to reading.org, the Web site of the International Reading Association. The needs of the country's schools were obvious. But the visitors were also taken by the people's graciousness and the children's eagerness to learn. There's a respect for teachers not typically seen in this country. The children stand to address their teachers, for instance. The visiting professors were pleased to see many students walking through the streets, carrying the new books they had been given. "I don't think they have very much to call their own," Newell said. "That was a good possession for them." At an opening ceremony before the workshop, Houff recalled, a man said: "We don't have much, but what we do have we will share." "That summarized my whole experience there," Houff said. The visitors brought knowledge to share, and school supplies, and they received carved wooden elephants and Kente cloth. Houff also noticed that the lack of resources hadn't stopped the country's teachers from trying. Because they didn't have story books, for instance, teachers write stories on paper and read them out to their students. "They are very creative in their approach," she said.
Date published: 8/12/2007
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