Changing the Game: Dela’s Story

A large group students gather at the front of a classroom in Ghana’s Volta region. Their teacher calls out rhythmically, “Are you ready?”

“Super ready!,” they reply in unison, dancing to the call-and-answer chant.

The game they’re playing is called Border, Border. The floor is scattered with multi-coloured training cones. The students must work in pairs to navigate the obstacles on the floor, which represent different environmental challenges facing their communities. The student who is navigating the course is blindfolded; their partner’s job is to direct them safely and quickly through the course. The first one to the other side wins.

The goal of the game is to help the students build communication skills. After the game, Dela engages students in talking together about the environmental challenges that have come up through the game and how they can work together overcome them.

At the end of the discussion, Dela looks up at the camera with a smile and says, “Thank you so much for watching Dela’s Corner once again.” The game is one of many on Dela’s Corner, the YouTube channel Dela started to inspire fellow teachers to support their students’ learning and development through play. Dela’s enthusiasm and motivation vibrates through every video she posts. It’s a far cry from the energy she brought into the classroom a few years ago, before she participated in Right To Play-led teacher training.

The Challenges of Traditional Teaching Methods in Ghana

Dela started teaching in 2011 after graduating from teachers’ college. She’s been teaching Grade 6 at this school since 2020. The demands of teaching the standardized curriculum to 40-plus students can be overwhelming. For many years, Dela used common teaching methods like lecturing, writing notes on the blackboard, and repetition and memorization. When students were disruptive, she sometimes used corporal punishment, a disciplinary measure that’s common in many classrooms in Ghana.  But her students didn’t respond.

“I thought corporal punishment could help my students understand what I was telling them,” she says. “I didn’t know I was causing harm and driving some of them away from school.”

Dela knew something was wrong. She loved teaching, but rote repetition and harsh discipline didn’t seem like the best ways to support learning. Using them made her dislike her job – and even sometimes herself.

Despite improved access to education, nearly 80% of children in Ghana do not acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills by the end of primary school. Overcrowded classrooms, poor infrastructure, a lack of school supplies, and a lack of teacher training and professional development opportunities contribute to high absenteeism rates and poor student engagement.

Poverty is another challenge that keep children from school. Close to two million children are involved in some kind of child labour in Ghana. Dela lives in a fishing community where many children leave school at a young age to go to work. When school is not engaging, the reasons to stay in class are few.

Building Inclusive Classrooms

In 2020, Dela joined a teacher training offered by Right To Play as part of the Partners in Play (P3) project, which supports the training and professional development of teachers so they can provide enriched educational experiences to more than three million learners between the ages of four and 12 nationwide. Teachers learn how to create positive, inclusive learning environments and make learning engaging by using playful approaches in the classroom. Funded by the LEGO Foundation and offered in partnership with Ghana’s Ministry of Education and other stakeholders, the project had supported more than 2,000 schools in 55 districts and trained over 16,000 teachers as of June 2024.

Dela says she was skeptical at first of the idea of play-based learning at first. She questioned how play could help in the serious work of learning. But she decided to keep an open mind. The first time she used play in her classroom, she saw a change in the students: instead of being bored and distracted, they were happy and relaxed. Even those who usually sat quietly on their own were laughing with others. So she kept going. As her students became more engaged, she stopped needing to turn to harsh disciplinary measures. She started to feel happier and more relaxed.

Transforming Learning Through Play

Dela now brings playful, active learning approaches to all the subjects she teaches. For example, she’s created a Division Machine, a cardboard poster that helps students break down division problems in math class by placing sticks in numbered pockets according to the equation. It’s simple and experiential, and it helps students understand the concept of division instead of just memorizing answers.

“Math is something I used to find difficult, but the activities make me love the class,” says 15-year-old Sena. “I started coming to school regularly, and I became a lover of mathematics. I play the games that Madame Dela teaches us, and I am so proud. Now, I am one of the best students in my class.”

Sena is not the only one who’s experiencing better results. Dela says levels of student absenteeism have dropped, and test scores have risen. She adds that her students’ test scores reflect the broader trend observed across the P3 program, where literacy scores have improved by 10% and numeracy scores by 20% since the program began.

“Since starting playful lessons, enrollment has increased, and children who left school are coming back because it’s so full of joy. They are relaxed, and the performance level is high,” she says.

Championing Play-Based Learning for Teachers and Students

Dela’s commitment to her students is matched only by her commitment to her fellow teachers. She knows how hard it is to teach well and to make changes in her teaching approach that stick. She wants to share what she’s learned with her fellow teachers to help them in their own learning journeys.

Dela is now a Teacher Champion in her school. In her role, she shares her knowledge and expertise with teachers in her school and others in the district, including her colleague Sylvester. A young teacher keen to improve his students’ futures, Sylvester turned to Dela for mentorship. “Madame Dela has been so helpful,” he says. “I sometimes invite her to my class to take charge so I can learn from her.”

But there are skeptics. “Many teachers still feel that play-based learning wastes time,” Dela says. “They don’t understand it.” Some teachers also fear that it will take up a lot of their time and keep them from other tasks. But she stresses that once teachers integrate play-based learning into their lessons and lives, it becomes second nature.

But she’s not letting that stop her. In 2023, she started her YouTube channel, Dela’s Corner: A Play Space for All. She posts videos aimed at teachers, parents, and caregivers in which she demonstrates play-based activities that help children learn specific subjects and shows how to adapt the lessons for different group sizes and types. She also shares classroom management strategies grounded in positive discipline, shows how to make learning materials from everyday objects like bottles and cans, and explores topics affecting education and learner experiences in Ghana.

“Play doesn’t mean running and jumping around in class. It means making lessons active and learner-centred, so students enjoy them. The play is not separated from what you are trying to teach.”

Dela’s Corner has more than 1,300 subscribers and nearly 9,000 views. Dela says she has found confidence in the success of Dela’s Corner. The response is so positive that she intends to keep up the channel, and she has Facebook and Instagram accounts, too. It’s all an extension of the remarkable impact that Dela has created in her classroom.

“Play-based learning is the only way,” she says. “It gives children so many skills. It brings them out of their shells, so they communicate more and ask questions. If they don’t do that, how will they learn? The more they realize their capacities and talents, the more they appreciate themselves and the more they can do.”

Stay connected to Kids in Ghana

The Partners in Play (P3) program is made possible thanks to the support of the LEGO Foundation. Active in Ghana since 2020, P3 aims to improve the quality of education for children from kindergarten to 6th grade.