The Worrrrrrld Mahp!

I traveled back to Ghana in November 2009 with a huge world map rolled up in a plastic tube sticking several feet out of the top of my backpack.

Matthew Colling (who was at the time performing a social impact analysis) and I went to the rural school of Koni Kablu, where one of the merry-go-rounds is. We brought the map to give to the school, and it was the first time they had ever seen one!

Only one of the three teachers had come to the school that day. We rolled out the map in front of about 40 wide-eyed kids, and invited the teacher to help us teach. However, we soon became aware that the teacher didn't know where Ghana, Africa, or the US was. He told us to continue with teaching.

We take so much for granted! The kids didn't know the difference between a country and a continent. They didn't know Ghana was part of Africa. They knew that they lived in Ghana and that they lived in Africa, but having never seen a representation of it, they didn't know how Ghana fit into Africa. Since most of them have never left their village, there was no understanding of the size of Ghana, or Africa, or the world.

We showed them where Ghana was, and then Africa, circling it with our fingers. Then we had them circle it with their fingers. We showed them where we came from in the US. They thought we were from Ghana at first. They caught on quickly to locating those places.

We soon realized they didn't know that the colors represented different countries while the blue represented the ocean. Then, we discovered that they didn't know what the ocean WAS! They had never seen pictures, and they lived a dry, savanna area with no lakes.

My lesson to them about oceans went something like this:

Me: The ocean is made of water. What is the ocean made of?
Kids: Water.
Me: The ocean is made of water. The land is made of dirt. Yes or no... the ocean is made of dirt.
Kids: Yes.
Me: No. The land made of dirt. The ocean is made of water. Yes or no... the ocean is made of water?
Kids: Yes.
Me: Yes or no. The ocean is made of dirt.
Kids: Yes.

I think English was the main barrier to our lesson. So instead I wrote out on the chalkboard "Ocean" with "Water" and "Blue" and "Fish" under it. Then I wrote "Land" with "Dirt" and "Grass" and "Cows" under it.

We went through a series of questions like: Do fish live in the ocean? Yes. Do cows live in the ocean? Yes. Basically the answer to everything was yes. Eventually, we got to the point that they understood what was associated with ocean and what was associated with water.

Now it was time to associate it with the map. I said "the BLUE parts are the ocean." What part is the ocean? Then it seemed they didn't understand what the word blue meant. Matthew and I pointed to different things that were blue, and the kids caught on fast. Then we pointed to different blue things, asking, "what color is this book?" "Blue!" "What color is his shirt?" "Blue!"

Then we said, "What color is the sky?"

"White!" They all yelled in union. I looked out the hole in the plaster that was the window. They were right. The sky was bright white.

Then we had the kids come forward one at a time to point to different parts of the ocean. The first pointed somewhere in the Pacific. The next pointed to somewhere in the Indian. The third pointed to DR Congo. Which was, in fact, a different shade of blue.

Overall, I think the English lesson disguised as a geography lesson turned out fairly well. I learned a lot of things... next time I will bring photos of fish, the ocean, grass, different parts of Africa, and different parts of other countries including the US. When I was their age, I loved maps, and dreaming about going to Africa and traveling to other exotic places. I wanted to travel the world. I really want the kids to know about interesting things that exist in the world that they haven't seen, like snow and castles and kangaroos. Just like I dreamed about giraffes and elephants in Africa as I was growing up.