The Science Club

I initiated an after school science club at an American school in Ghana. This school is the most expensive school in Ghana. Children are chauffeured in accompanied by their nannies. The parking lot is crammed with cars too big for the space and for Ghana’s streets. It could easily pass for an elite school in LA and other such cities where parents and children stroll about with eyes fixated on Blackberries or Ipads. This school is not a Ghanaian school and nor was it founded to provide education to Ghanaians. Its mission was to provide quality American education to children of American diplomats in Ghana.

Why did I initiate such a program in this school?  I wanted to see how the other half lived. I had an idea, but I wanted to be sure. I assumed that they were an elite school by definition. I assumed that the school had top notch and dedicated teachers. That labs, classrooms and libraries were stocked up with quality and updated materials. In fact, I had assumed that this school would provide its students the quality of education of Obama’s children school.  I further assumed that these children would be so exposed to quality education that they might surpass their peers in the US and of course those in Ghana. But boy to assume does make an “ass” of “u” and “me.”  

My colleagues assumed the same things that I did. That this “rich” school was rich in passion, access, materials, teachers, intelligent students and an active parent-teacher association. They assumed that the students have high end instruments to experiment with. They said I was lucky to be part of such a group of serious educators, unlike the Ghanaian schools where students don’t even know what science is let alone to get a science club. Ghanaian schools, do nothing they say. But then again some private schools are charging 20GHC per term. It’s understandable why those schools would provide nothing to their students, they agreed.

Another reason why I decided to do the science club was that I wanted my son to see the competition. As a homeschooler, he is not in class with other students. I wanted to see how he reacted and behaved around “those” students. Would he be shy? Feel awkward? Or automatically notice the class differences?

There was no problem. He was not shy. He was his usual outgoing self, introducing himself to everyone. He played freely with anyone who would play with him and in class his hand was always up. I had to tell him to give the other children a chance to answer. I wish I had not said that because we soon learned that unless my 7 year old answered a question, no one else knew the answers. What were some of those questions?

1.     Where does our food come from?

2.    What is a magnet?

3.    Why do we use peanut butter to make the bird feed?

4.    What makes volcanoes erupt?

I was looking for basic and general answers to see if any of this was familiar. It was not.

I learned that these children are no better off than their “lower class” peers in the US and in some degrees to those trained under trees in Ghana. They were not exposed to science.   

The class had 10 students and only 3 Africans…which is the norm in such schools in Africa. In fact, only the Ivorian boy had an idea of anything scientific.  He had ideas on concepts of science and would ask questions related to the topics or remember something he had read on his own. The other “elites” did not. I asked what makes volcanoes explode during our first week and the Ivorian boy mentioned pressure. One other boy raised his hand to ask if it would be safe to be in the class if a volcano would be exploding. I had to explain that it would be an experiment and not a real one.

Must rich people be intellects? Of course not. I’m only analyzing what students in a school that cost $20k/annum knows in comparison to students in the same country who pay 20GHC/semester/term. Somehow these students have more in common than most would like to believe.

A few weeks later after an experiment I asked everyone to clean up.  A white boy refused and asked if I was not his servant. I explained to him that although he lives in a country where his driver, nanny, housekeeper, gardener, cook, and garbage men look like me that this did not mean that I could ever be his servant. And that did not mean that everyone who looked like me could ever become servants to people who looked like him. I further explained that if I was in Sweden that my housekeeper and possible gardener would look like him, but that did not mean all white people are servants by mere fact of their skin color.

He did not get it. I discussed the matter with some other teachers at the school and other such schools. Here are the responses I got.

·         “As for white children, that is how they are. You cannot change it.”

·         “Oh, as for them, this is to be expected. Do not worry about it.”

·         “Oh yes, that is how it is.”

·         “If I tell you what they say to me. Do not worry.”

·         “This is what we are dealing with here.”

When I asked if something was done, everyone agreed there was nothing to be done. Luckily my supervisor was not one of those people. She made sure something was done. But I am more alarmed at how not much is done to correct children or train them on race politics by some African teachers who think “this is how they are.”

Unfortunately, the idea of how they are is not limited to race. Ghanaian children in expensive schools are often not corrected by teachers who think this is
“how they are.”  Because their parents are so and so, they are trained on how to mistreat others and because of that, we accept it “as it is.”

This idea of otherness does not end at one level. Poor children trained under trees are being “left to their whims” because that is how “they are.” They don’t deserve anything better because it’s a waste of time and energy and “as for those people” they don’t expect anything better.

These students have more in common than the way they are perceived. I realized that an American school which cost $20k is not really considered elite or expensive in America. And the standards for that school would not be high. I expected an expensive school to have enough resources and passion to permit its students to reach for the sky. And that means having science as part of the curriculum from day one, according to me and some other researchers.

But why is an expensive American school not providing anything better for its students? The answer lies in race once again.  American schools all over the continent realize that they don’t need to be more than the others, they just need to exist. They know that Americans would prefer to send their children to those schools as opposed to others. It has nothing to do with what they are learning but with whom they are learning. The other lesson I learned was that because these schools are in Africa, the parents are not expecting anything great from them anyways, regardless of American or not. As children of diplomats, these children will get ahead partly because of whom they know. They can also develop a narrative on their college applications to transform their difference into interesting. The non diplomat student can also get ahead by whom they know and the social capital of having attended that school.

To be continued.