Story Telling
We return today to complete the story that CT Walker Magnet began. The P5 Prince of Peace students are excited to greet us and pass on their completed letters. Several of them have attached childhood photos, a rare possession here and indication of the connection they feel in giving away one of the few pictures they have to their friends in America. It takes us a bit to get them moving on the group completion of the story. We talk about the composition elements, and find most success by going row by row for input. They take turns sharing ideas, writing the story, and drawing colorful illustrations.
We move on to RC Mixed Primary to work in the Riverside Middle School project of books about themselves. We were last with this class on Thanksgiving Day when we shared the friendship bracelets. They are excited to see all of the drawings and get to learn more about the students’ lives in Augusta. Some of them had already begun writing letters, and were a little confused about putting them on the small papers that will fit as a collection in the book we’ll take back to America. But they got straight to work in re-working their messages and drawings enjoying the bags of “color” we delivered. We will return next week to complete this project.
We went to join the EP Cultural Dance Troupe in a lesson this afternoon but it was postponed. We are grateful for the peaceful after school discussion we are able to have with Vida, the Head Madame. She shares how impressed she was the children’s participation in the discussion about the environment yesterday. She also tells us how all teachers in the school are aware of our project, and that she is sending them a few at a time to observe our interactions in the classrooms here and the positive emotional and intellectual investment the students are exhibiting. As in true Ghanaian-style Vida weaves stories in and out of our impromptu meeting and we are reminded of all that there is to learn here from the joy in the children’s hearts to the wisdom of their teachers and the steady even-tempered pace at which they move every day.