Teacher Training for Teachers in Ghana

at the Ananda Marga Neohumanist Academy

by Didi Ananda Madhupurna

We had a great opportunity during the last few months to be able to offer training to our teachers in Ghana. We had around 8 educators that received the training. The training focused on Neohumanist Education (NHE). There were a few topics that we presented to the group of teachers. First, Mahajyoti Glassman gave a class on the Five Steps of Yoga Ethics. Her topic has helped the teachers to understand deeper. During her training she emphasized the importance of Love to All Beings. Teachers stage opportunities to support children to: 1) be kind to themselves, 2) be kind to others, and 3) be kind to other living beings INCLUDING furniture, rocks, the air, etc. One of the keys to understanding kindness is feeling gentleness. Children are presented with opportunities to experience what being ‘gentle’ is by caring for plants and animals.

Before introducing new topics, we reviewed and discussed what they learned previously. They were enthusiastic to learn and implement what they learned in their teaching. After the 5 steps of Yoga Ethics, we gave five weeks of training on the principles of NHE. We discussed: Why are these principles important? How do we implement them in teaching children daily? What are my challenges in implementing them? We agreed that the principles of NHE are fundamental and that all educators need to understand them deeply. Understanding the principles provides us with an understanding of the world around us, among us, and within us, as well as an understanding of how things happen and why they happen the way they do. Therefore, NHE principles are the most important content for us to address in the majority of our instruction. The principles of NHE that we discussed during training were as follows:

• Principle of universalism
• Principle of child-centered education
• Principle of positive thinking
• Principle of active learning
• Principle of holistic development
• Principle of social equality and inclusivity
• Principle of true human culture
• Principle of intrinsic motivation
• Principle or reciprocal relationship between the child and environment
• Principle of applied knowledge

At the end of every session, we had inspiring discussions and QA, and the classes always closed with Ghana’s kirtan tunes. We had five weeks training on NHE principles. In between I introduced neohumanist songs for teachers to learn and sing together with children. Song and singing are important aspects and tools for children in NHE schools.

After the principles of NHE training were completed, the training was continued by Rekha on “Classroom Issues and Challenging Behaviors”. The topic was selected because it was requested by teachers. They had been struggling with challenging behaviors that they had encountered during their teaching. Rekha gave them tools to deal with challenging behavior based on the foundations of NHE. One of the foundations that was discussed was as follows.

All children require an emotionally secure environment that supports their developing self-knowledge, self-control and self-esteem and at the same time encourages respect for the feelings and rights of others. Young children experience many conflicting feelings and ideas: independence and dependence, confidence and doubt, fear and power, hostility and love, anger and tenderness, aggression and passivity. They require a reliable environment and secure relationships with teachers as they process these feelings and learn more about themselves. An emotionally safe climate permits children to acknowledge all feelings, both pleasant and unpleasant. Free and open expressions of feelings enable the teacher to formulate positive strategies for assisting children in channeling those expressions more positively and enlisting further support where needed.

Our teachers in Ghana still need to refresh and deepen their knowledge of NHE. They have a strong desire to provide the best teaching methods for students at their school. Next, the desire of the teachers in Ghana is to have more understanding of how to provide lessons to their students about literacy and mathematics based on NHE methods. We planned that the next training for teachers in Ghana will be given by Ellen Landau on ‘Mathematics for Children’.

We are inviting additional trainers who are interested to provide training to our teachers in Ghana.