Ghana,
Lead on!
Dialogue Education at Work in Universities
by
Jeanette Romkema
GLP Senior Associate
Daring to challenge systems
that have been in place for centuries, takes strength.
Taking time to question the way one has been doing things for
years and the way others expect things to be done, takes courage.
Being willing to re-think, re-design and re-work countless hours
of course material, takes determination. These are three
qualities displayed by the 18 participants of the Learning
to Listen, Learning to Teach course taught at The Catholic
University of Ghana. The professors who took 5 days out of their
summer holiday to take a good hard look at teaching and learning
are to be commended and celebrated. Teaching the Dialogue Approach
is critical at the university level; however, it is not easy
by any stretch of the imagination.
Difficult questions were ask: What can
we do when we have 50-100 students? What role does culture play
in the application of the principles and practices? How do we
have our grading system reflect our teaching methodology when
we are expected to let the final exam represent 50%+ of the
final grade and class participation has never been valued? How
do we teach the mandated content? These and other questions
became generative themes for the group and reflect the challenges
that are particular to academia. One does not have to be in
Ghana to be asking these questions; the same struggles would
be shared when using the Dialogue Approach in Canada, Belgium,
Japan, and the United States. The remarkable thing is this:
this is a newly founded university taking the time, energy and
resources to learn how to teach for meaningful quality education.
This takes strength, courage, and determination…
Ghana, lead on!
This course was taught
by Jeanette Romkema and Jan Disselkoen
August 16th-20th, 2005.
