Life skills for survival

My nine-year old niece, who is in Primary Four, came home last week with homework that floored me completely. She was to find answers to two questions in Citizenship Education: What is Critical Thinking? and, Define the Process of Critical Thinking. I read the words in her exercise book slowly, first silently and then out loud and then I read it fast and I took a deep breath.

I couldn’t help her or maybe I couldn’t believe that Primary four children could be asked to define the process of critical thinking and I was mightily relieved when she was able to deal with the questions herself with the aid of the notes she had brought from school.

Like many other elderly people, I had toyed with the idea that many of the ills that plague Ghana today could be blamed on our schools not teaching what we old-fashioned people call CIVICS. But I had learnt from the time I had spent as a Minister of State at the Education Ministry that the curriculum has simply been modernised and the old subjects have been given new and fancy names. In other words, Civics is still being taught, it simply has a new name. 

Life skills

For example, I like the idea of children going to a class that teaches a subject called Life Skills. Of course, I have wondered how different the old subjects were from this new definition. I wondered whether mathematics wasn’t part of the skills one needed in life, or language, or economics or cookery or architecture. 

I decided to subject one day in my life to the process of critical thinking and work out the skills I needed to cope with life. I had to cook, I needed a plumber, I had to clean the house, I had to drive, I had to type, navigate my way on the internet, I had to read, I had to shop, and I was nowhere near the end of the things I needed to do to go through life that day. It was a brave person I thought that would be teaching a lesson called Life Skills. I am quite sure I had to do a lot of Critical Thinking along the way but to define it and the process of Critical Thinking….. that seemed far-fetched.  

I have been thinking of some of the things that currently raise my blood pressure and I have been asking myself if the problem lies in my inability to subject these things to the process of Critical Thinking.  Take the Accra-Tema Motorway for example, there are a lot of things wrong with it that probably need a lot of money to fix. We do not have the money yet and the loan is probably working its way through Parliament. 

Rubbish tricycles on motorway

But why are three-wheeled vehicles, (motorised tricycles) that seem to carry rubbish allowed on the motorway? Often these slow moving vehicles are in what is supposed to be the fast lane and they cause holdups and have indeed caused some accidents already. There are currently mounds of rubbish developing along the sides of the motorway, and it does not take much imagination to work out it is the rubbish from these three-wheeled vehicles that are being dumped there. 

Is it the definition of the process of Critical Thinking we need to work out that the three-wheeled vehicles should not be allowed on the motorway? Is it Critical Thinking we need to recognise that they are a danger to all of us? If people are contracted or licensed to collect rubbish and nobody bothers to find out where they dump such rubbish, do we require Critical Thinking to work out that the authorities are perpetrating a fraud on all of us? 

I remember when this motorway first opened, there were clear signs on it that said no L-drivers, no trailers, no bicycles, no tricycles were allowed. I am sure the laws have never been changed. How many more accidents will it take before we realise that tricycles, motorised or pedal powered, should not be allowed on the motorway? And how high will the rubbish mounds get before someone tells us there is a danger and we are sourcing loans to deal with the problem? 

Human beings now cross the motorway, sometimes leisurely, sometimes at running pace. Should drivers really be expected to cope with pedestrians crossing them on the motorway? 

I notice that the lights along the motorway have all gone; some of the poles have been burnt down by a recent fire, some of the poles have been knocked down by vehicles and some others have been stolen. The Accra-Tema Motorway is again in darkness and we will most probably have to find a facility, aka, a loan, to replace the lights. 

Should we be teaching the proper use of motorways in Life Skills classes or would the problem be solved by defining Critical Thinking? 

King Tackie Highway

One of the very convenient roads in Accra is the Kanda Highway, or to call it by its official name, the King Tackie Highway. It is now extremely stressful to drive along the bit of the road that passes along Nima on the one side and Kanda on the other. 

There are clear signs that delineates the space where and when vehicles can be parked. Now vehicles are parked along the roadside all the time; mounds of sand and stone chippings are dumped along this road and young men ride their motorbikes on the wrong side of the road with an aura of entitlement that is a wonder to behold. 

There are clear markings for pedestrian crossings but you can never tell when someone will dart across a moving vehicle anywhere along the road. Most of the iron railings along the road have been removed and pedestrians feel free to stroll along in the path of moving vehicles and glare at drivers. 

I cite the Accra-Tema Motorway and the King Tackie Highway only to demonstrate the state of affairs on most of our roads and highways. I wonder if things will be any better because nine-year olds can define the process of Critical Thinking.