Great Expectations

This morning we had a meeting with all the teachers to find out our teaching positions for the upcoming school year. I don't know why I still expect to know what's going to happen...you'd think I'd have learned by now that things never go quite as planned! :) It turns out they are moving to subject teaching this year, instead of having one teacher assigned to every class. Because of this, we will be able to start the JSS (Junior Secondary School) at Haven of Hope this year. The new school building to house the JSS is currently being built and is a huge task, so Naa Naeraoh said, "The chicken coop only has one foul, so we will convert that to the JSS." So, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen...the "7th graders" will be meeting in the chicken coop! :) Never a dull moment here... I love it!

I will be teaching 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade math and hope to also continue doing some acceleration of students who are far behind their grade level-- depending on how it all works into the schedule. All in all, we seem to be off to a good start and I'm really excited to see how the year (or semester) goes. I'm very excited to actually be teaching and really looking forward to pushing the kids to excel in math....I know, I'm a nerd, but I see the importance of an education soooo strongly here in Ghana. It can really make or break the course of their life. I do have to admit, though, that I'm also a little nervous about the teaching part, because classrooms are operated so differently here. I'm hoping the students catch on to the expectations and procedures and classes start up smoothly on Monday. :)