Keith Hawkins

Teaching Students in Ghana

Most OU students’ fall quarters entail autumn leaves and the usual barrage of academic work and extra-curricular activities. But Keith Hawkins, a sophomore astrophysics student, had a substantially different experience: teaching students in Ghana.

Hawkins participated in a program called “Teaching Ghana,” where he taught middle school mathematics and integrated science.

“It’s a very different experience,” he said. “Personally I like being a teacher because I don’t have to take an exam.”

Hawkins said that when he arrived, his students couldn’t multiply small numbers, so he instituted daily multiplication quizzes. By the end of the term, almost all of them could recite the entire multiplication table perfectly.

“To be able to do that was just an amazing feeling for me as a teacher,” he said.

On his first day of school, Hawkins had an interesting encounter with Ghana’s perception of time. He arrived to school ten minutes early at 7:20 a.m., only to discover that the students don’t arrive until 8:30 or 9 a.m.

“In Ghana, people just take their time,” he said.

Another trying cultural difference for Hawkins included not being able to use his left hand for many things—especially because he’s left-handed. He said that he wasn’t allowed to eat or give people things with his left hand, and he had to consciously make sure that he remembered that.

Besides learning about some cultural differences, Hawkins’ teaching experience in Ghana has taught him to reevaluate his own habits, as he said he is now very conscious of the things Americans waste.

“You learn how little you can live on when you’re in a developing country,” he said. “I’ve slowly cut down on things, taking shorter showers, that sort of thing.”

And as an African studies minor, Hawkins thinks that his fall quarter outside of the Athens bubble will enhance his academic life.

“I’ll be able to give an interesting perspective about my experience in Ghana and what I’ve experienced as African culture.”