Enough of the unionism

Enough Unionism

Every teacher in Ghana belongs to a teacher union. 

There are more unions in the education sector than any other sector of the Ghanaian economy.

But, is it worth joining these unions? Are they really fighting for the teacher's welfare?

Are the teachers committed to seeing that the unions succeed to champion their course?

Sometimes, I think teachers usually and on most occasions should blame their leaders not governments. Almost all the teacher unions have been in existence for sometime now. Some spaning over decades. But, what do we have to show?

Sometimes, it very pathetic when you see a colleague teacher on radio or television soliciting for funds to undergo some surgical operations. 

Common Hospital too we cannot build as teachers not to talk about the morgue. 

Teachers too deserve the best and not better. We cannot continue to blame governments for all our woes. 

Governments would begin to respect the teacher the day teacher unions begin to pay their members whose salaries have gone off for some months. Governments would begin to respect the teacher when the unions pay the salaries of striking teachers in situations when governments refuse to pay.

But, sometimes, we have to blame ourselves. Our leaders are too partisan that their true colours are not hidden when their party is either in government or in opposition. 

Some of our leaders use the position to champion the course of their political pay masters in order to be given juicy appointments when their party take up the mantle of leadership. We all know union leaders who have gotten juicy appointments in both NDC and NPP administrations. 

We cannot continue to create new teacher unions and expect different results. What we can do in the interim is to put pressure on leadership to fight for our course. 

We must begin to show interest in the activities of GNAT, NAGRAT, CCT, TEWU, UTAG, Innovative Teachers, etc. Politically induced leaders should be removed and replaced where necessary.

We must as a matter of urgency establish the Teacher's Bank, the Teacher's Hospital, the Teacher's Satellite TV, the Teacher's Morgue, etc.

Our accrued funds should be invested in high income but risk - free businesses to increase our revenue base.

All teacher unions must be seen to be speaking on one common voice. Our differences should be buried when we are at the negotiating table. 

We cannot continue to look on whiles some teachers graduate from our Universities only to sell dog chains, iced kenkey, bread and pure water, when we know there are lots of vacancies that can accommodate them.

We cannot sit unconcerned whiles teachers troop to the Controller and Accountant General's Department to resolve salary issues. Some teachers travel from Savelugu, Talensi, Bimbilla, Amedzope, Have, Buipe, etc to Accra just to have their salaries restored or corrected. 

Similarly, we cannot sit and watch schools without appropriate teaching and learning materials to teach our future generations. Teachers should not be party to the destruction of our future generations. We must make our voices heard loud and clear. Our silence is far too long.

We as teachers and our unions must have and push for a permanent interest - to see to the welfare of the Ghanaian teacher. The time for divisiveness, selfishness, and hypocrisy is over. 

The teacher should enjoy whiles on Earth, for whether he or she goes to heaven or hell, lies in the bossom of the Almighty. 

The teacher also deserve their reward on Earth!

Aluta Continual!

By AminuWrites,

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Contact: 0244299706

Email: aminuwrites@gmail.com

Blog: https://AminuWrites.Blogspot.Com

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The Centre Cannot Hold

The Centre Cannot Hold....

Education should not be seen as the opium of the masses. It should not create, build and nurture mediocrity, laziness, and uncreative individuals.

Our education system should not force all children to think a certain way. We are all not the same. Common Core Program should not be equated common thinking or Common idealogy.

What we have ended up creating is a bunch of unemployed and uninspired graduates who do not fit for the job market. 

Our education system has not been synchronized with industry. We are currently running a parallel education system. 

We must not move away from the core values of education, which is to make the individual fit to live and be lived with. 

We, must begin to engage captains of industry to help us in Designing our curriculum. These experts should include but not limited to artisans, engineers, architects, manufacturers, etc. 

We must begin to liase with industry so that whiles teachers teach the theoritical bits of the curriculum the industry would train the learners on the practical aspect of the curriculum.

Our assessment system should not be a one stop event. It should be a process. Continuous Assessment should be part and parcel of our education system. Examinations, instead of it been used for promotion and grading, should be used to promote and modernize learning. Assessment should be design purposely to improve learning. 

Repetitive and meaningless knowledge should be discareded from the curriculum. Knowledge should be meaningful both in the present and in the future. We should design learning in such a way that it would improve teaching and learning. 

Our teachers and educational authorities should avoid measuring knowledge but should rather exert all efforts at measuring knowledge application. 

The time is now more than ever to champion for a radical change in our educational system. We should not allow our intuition and upbringing to cloud and influence our curriculum design. 

Ours should be to move with time. We should aim at improving lives and reducing unemployment in our society. We should not dedicate most of our time towards learning language when our focus should have been on Technology, Agriculture and Health.

No nation develops by learning and improving the speaking of a foreign language. Learning a foreign language's main purpose should be for communication but not to measure intelligence. 

We should not boast about improving enrolment but should be about improving lives, increasing employment, improving the use of technology, etc. It is only when this is done that we can boast about improving education at any given time.

Ghana deserves best and not better. Better is too small for us. The time to do that is now.

By AminuWrites,

Contact: 0244299706

Email: aminuwrites@gmail.com

Blog: https://AminuWrites.Blogspot.Com

Facebook: https://fb.com/Pages/AminuWrites AW.

How to turn your Home into a Learning Centre?

How to turn your Home into a Learning Centre?

Your child's ability to read any materials sometimes and most of the time depends on the parents and the teacher. 

The availability of books, reading materials, pictures, in our homes would help enhance reading among our children. It helps make our homes reader or learner friendly.

There are simple ways we can help our children learn. 

Getting a secured place at home to help our children sit and learn is an added advantage. 

Purchase a table and chair and place it at a secured place in the room and label it appropriately, example "Study Corner" or "Reading Corner"

Materials you can keep at Home to Improve Reading.

1. Holy Bible 

2. Holy Qur'an

3. Magazines 

4. Newspapers

5. Story Books

6. Pictures 

7. Documentaries 

8. Teaching Learning Materials 

9. Writing Materials ( Books, pens, pencils, erasers, markers,chalkboard, whiteboard, etc)

10. Electronic devices

11. Computers (Radio, Calculator, Tablets, Phones, iPad, etc )

12. Adventure Movies 

13. Animated - Children Films.

14. Toys 

Materials Needed To Prepare Teaching & Learning Materials:

1. Cardboards

2. Manila Cards

3. Glue/Starch

4. Markers 

5. Pencils 

6. A4 Sheets

7. Old Calendars/Magazine

8. Crayons, Colour Pencils, Paints etc. 

What to Do?

1. Cut the Manila Cards into several rectangular shapes and use same to label appropriately everything in the room. 

2.You can also use it to prepare word cards or sentence cards. 

3.Use the Glue or Starch to paste all the labels and cards appropriately.

Planning Your Classroom Settings

Planning your Classroom.

Learning is a conscious effort from an individual to acquire new skills and concepts to improve his or her current condition.

Learning is not an event. It is a process. It is the by - products of a process by two people, one instructs whiles the other performs. 

But, for a meaningful learning, the instructor must make all the conditions favourable to enhance understanding. 

Educators creates the necessary environment through a conscious effort to help the learner learn unconsciously. 

Most of us can reduce our daily schedules as teachers by making a conscious effort to help your learners learn directly from why immediate environment. 

Our environment play significant role during the teaching and learning process. 

This simply means our classroom or learning environment should themselves be friendly, well ventilated, academically rich, etc

You can make the school  environment learner friendly by just practicing the following simple but practical steps.

1. Write down all the topics you will teaching for the academic year. This should include but not limited to Special Skills you would want your children to learn, physical activities, basic computer skills, interpersonal skills, etc. 

2. Divide them into three. Make sure to remove all bias in the division.

3. Begin looking for Materials associated with each topic.

4. Group all topics into Themes. For those the primary school, the Standard Based Curriculum has been arranged in themes. 

5. You have to be in school at least a week or two before school resumes. Begin Designing your classroom too reflect the  selected themes for the term or year. 

6. Schools with huge resources may invite the services of a Graphic Designer to create a 3D Design for their classrooms based on the theme(s) selected for the term or year. 

Why should you Design your Classroom?

1. It makes teaching and learning very easy.

2. It reduces stress on the teacher. 

3. The teacher can easily find the appropriate teaching and learning material at any given time.

4. Children learn from the  design unconsciously.

5. It makes the teacher effective and professional.