Meeting and Planning with Our Co-tutors

Wednesday July 9^th.

Up and off by 8:30. Arrived at the GNAT offices and where we were measured for some clothing that they will make for us, a dress for the women and a shirt for the men, probably with the GNAT logo on it. Then we gathered in a large meeting room with all of the co-tutors and the union execs told us about the project and what they were hoping to accomplish. After that there were introductions all around.

Lyle started us off by announcing in a loud voice: 
"Off your bums and on your feet, 
Out of the shade and into the heat".

We separated into our two project groups, Youth Group (new teachers) and Kaboom (addressing subject specific topics for all teachers but focusing on really needy rural schools with no resources). Lyle talked to our group and we met our individual co-tutors for the first time. We each have three, one for each of the three weeks we will deliver our workshops (one week for each of Takoradi, Cape Coast and Accra). Mine are all men, Gershon, Patrick and Julius. We broke off into our subject areas, mine is mathematics, and got started. My three co-tutors had met a month or so ago and preplanned the workshops. They have identified the understanding and teaching of fractions as the major area of focus as it is apparently an area of need. They already had a series ideas which we easily molded into the two goals each with two objectives that Lyle asked us to produce for each of our groups. The second half of our workshop will be giving the participants two activities that they can prepare and take with them.

These workshops are run by GNAT with CTF funding and are delivered by Ghana teachers, our co-tutors with our help and expertise. They are working at training a series of instructional leaders for their various regions of the country.

Lunch was in the GNAT cafeteria and consisted of rice, whole fried fish or fried chicken and various sauces. Most of the participants eat with their fingers and ball up the foo foo with sauce. Most of us ate with knife and fork.

When we finished in the afternoon (5:00) we headed back to the hotel. A group of us sat outside by the bar and worked on our computers preparing for the workshops and enjoying a large Club beer.

We had dinner together outside. Cameron and a few of us joined a group of locals at the bar and watched the Argentina – Netherlands soccer match, which Argentina won, securing the place in the final.