Peter Rutkoff (back row, right) and Felecia Hamilton '22 (second row, second from right) with faculty at a junior high school in Ghana. (Photo by Samantha Robbins)
Hours from the capital of Ghana, deep in the coffee bean-filled hills of the Volta region, Professor Emeritus of American Studies Peter Rutkoff is helping to build a network of educators.
This summer, he and his spouse led a group of 10 educators and health workers — many connected with the College — to the city of Ho to meet with area school teachers, discuss best practices, improve classroom technology and engage in meaningful cultural exchange. Some assisted with issues related to women’s health as well.
Among those making the trip that began in June and lasted more than two weeks were Kenyon faculty, alumni and high school teachers who have been part of the early college program known as the Kenyon Academic Partnership.
“It was really life-changing in terms of how I approach teaching, but also in terms of how I approach connection-making and meeting people,” said Felecia Hamilton ’22, a high school social studies teacher in suburban Cleveland who took part.
This was the third year in a row that Rutkoff has traveled to the West African nation as part of the nonprofit Ghana Beyond Subsistence. He serves on the board of the group that was co-founded by his wife, D. Elder, an associate professor at The Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster who spent years visiting Ghana with students and arranging microfinancing projects for women farmers there.
The group’s current focus took root a few years ago. “We sat under trees and talked to the teachers and discovered one amazing thing: There was not an internet connection to be found in any of the schools, and only one small laptop that one teacher had,” Rutkoff said.
So Ghana Beyond Subsistence raised $50,000 to improve internet access and brought 10 laptops donated by Library and Information Services at Kenyon to create computer labs. That set the table for discussions with visiting educators about how to use the internet to support project-based learning efforts, which Rutkoff said are at the heart of the American studies program he founded at the College.
“Project-based learning, in a sense, says: take a concept or an object and figure out the components you want to use to understand it and develop a student-directed project that would deal with it,” Rutkoff said. “It takes the control of the material out of the hands of the teacher. The teacher’s not the center of the universe. The kids are part of the process of learning.”
Hamilton said she enjoyed the discussions with her counterparts in Ghana about not just the physical tools needed for this sort of learning — including supplies and technology — but also broader conversations about pedagogy and how to increase student engagement. She looks forward to staying connected to them and their classrooms virtually.
The fact that Hamilton made the visit alongside Rutkoff and Francis Gourrier ’08, associate professor of American studies and history — both of whom she had in class at Kenyon and now counts as colleagues and friends — made the experience even more special.
“They totally introduced me to this world of education and how to be a passionate educator, and so to take what they have personally taught me and then apply it to the same trip that we’re all on and learn with them and teach with them, I’m really grateful for that experience,” she said.
Gourrier — who, like Hamilton, had Rutkoff as an advisor as a Kenyon student — was joined on the trip by his wife, Laurel Gourrier ’10, an elementary school teacher. He said they had organic conversations with local teachers about everything from best practices for using technology in the classroom to the importance of and strategies for self-care. He looks forward to sharing global perspectives on education gleaned from the trip with his own students, especially those in his class “Sankofa Project: Theory and Practice of Urban Education.”
“We made connections with teachers — what kinds of things they do in the classroom, what kinds of things we do in the classroom,” he said. “My intention is to use those connections to help my students who want to be teachers, or my students who think critically about education, to benefit from those relationships.”
And that was part of the point, too, according to Rutkoff.
“It’s a true exchange,” he said.
But classroom discussions were only part of the learning opportunities afforded by the trip.
Participants took part in drumming and dancing sessions and listened to presentations from local cultural and religious leaders, farmers and others. They learned about Ghana’s political history as well as the transatlantic slave trade. As an American of African descent, Gourrier found a visit to the country’s “slave castles” to be particularly moving.
These opportunities to meet area residents and learn about their history, way of life, beliefs and values were among the most meaningful to participants like Hamilton.
"The best part was really just the people," she said.