Insomnia means you were not able to sleep during the night and hence got drowsy in the day rendering you slightly unproductive.
Before leaving for home last semester, I recall telling you guys in an earlier post about a call that prompted me to depart Winneba after my paper. That call was from my mother who was taking my younger sister to the senior high school. Juliana had always wanted to school in Koforidua hence I was less surprised and happy for her when she got admitted to Ghana Senior High School in Effiduase. After 1 and a half hours, I got to Odorkor and then to Lomnava. Upon my arrival, I met an empty house which meant, they were both on their way to the school leaving me alone at home.
I began to do some fun stuff while waiting for her to arrive. In no time, night crept up on me and I was awakened by my dad who had come back from work and work and was looking for my mom. This vacation was once again a relaxing one because I was exhausted from the regular studies on campus. I strongly believe that I was stressed a lot hence it was beginning to take a toll on me medically. As tired as I was, I noticed that sleep was becoming difficult for me just one week into my stay. I was very drowsy in the daytime and felt very strong in the evenings. This was pretty of an “on and off” situation, however, when school resumed I realized I was in a medical emergency. An illness I later got to know as “insomnia”.
I was very desperate at this point because I was struggling to sleep for weeks now. My eyes became red and they got swollen as the weeks progressed. I had enough when I was experiencing mild fevers throughout the night. Upon further consultation with an on-the-counter drug seller, I bought some blood tonics and stress syrups to manage my condition. To be honest this made my vacation experience a bad one. For once I was dying to go back to the school and begin the 300 semester. After taking the drugs religiously I saw progress even though I was sleeping less at night. My brother who was equally a game freak advised me to reduce my screen time because that seemed to be the cause of this medical dilemma I was facing.
Upon reopening school, I decided to get a new hostel in Winneba however due to the limited time given to us by our lecturers, I decided to do that in my final year. Also, since the final year will be more of teaching and will involve the preparation of our thesis, I solidified my decision after a long discussion with my dad on the phone. Lectures in the first semester of the 300 level were more relaxed and interesting. Most lecturers who handled my EID (Education for the Intellectually Disabled) class were mostly interested in what plans we had after school. Regular exercises or quizzes were mostly done in classrooms especially when they were not present.
So after settling down and getting cozy with what was ahead of me for the academic year. We were updated on a series of trips lined up in the year by the Special Education. Due to my condition, I was not thrilled at all but as luck will have it, I got stronger as the days on campus progressed. Now the trips were going to be made to the Dzorwulu Special School, the Akropong School for the blind, and finally at the Pantang Hospital in Adenta. This was not supposed to be a fun but a learning situation for me and my colleague. Someway somehow it became more of an excursion for everyone due to the stress-filled activities on campus. These trips were scheduled in the latter parts of the semester making everyone pretty excited.
Teaching and learning materials are vital tools when educating children with special needs specifically in the area of intellectually disabled ones. This was well communicated by all of my lecturers hence on one of our numerous presentations, we were asked to present a unique and relevant teaching material that would suit a child with a “mental disorder”. At this point, we were all aware of the various levels of an intellectually unstable learner. This ranged from mild, moderate, severe, and even extremely severe conditions known globally as the profound. Some of the conditions I was exposed to at the time were Down syndrome, fetal alcohol syndrome, genetic conditions, birth defects, fragile X syndrome, and also infections.
Anyway back to the tale, I was unable to design a teaching material on my own hence I sought the services of an artiste just a few miles off the Winneba station who was well-known by past students due to his timely services. I recall asking him to create a painting of some shapes on a wooden board and emphasized that it should be visually appealing to catch and sustain the attention span of the students for a given amount of time. This was our agreement as I left his place. These teaching materials were to be presented next semester which was the second semester of level 300. Normal lectures continued till we got closer to the exam period for the first semester as well. During the revision period, a whole week was set aside for the 3 trips I had hinted at earlier. This came at no charge as we had already paid for it in our school fees.
We left at dawn and made our way to the Dzorwulu Special School For The Intellectually Challenged. Upon arrival, I was amazed at how organized things were done in the school. The students had all manner of disorders ranging from autism, hyperactivity, Down’s syndrome, etc. Noticeable symptoms like drooling were one of the things that caught my attention immediately. We had been studying about this for almost 3 years and now everything was unfolding before our eyes. Most of my colleagues were terrified of the situation mainly because reality hit them finally. I remained calm and even got friendly with some learners who got closer to me.
We stayed for some hours and after donating some items to the learners we said our goodbyes and gave hugs and et off to Akrongpong School of the Blind in the Eastern Region of Ghana. This school to me had a more serene environment for learners. I first felt this was so because of the condition the students found themselves in. However, upon further scrutiny, I realized the behavior of the visually impaired was much more manageable than we had been exposed to by the lecturers. Okay so let’s be clear on this, they talked and made lots of noise like any other regular student but with them, they had no attention deficits and hence could react to instructions like “less noise in the class” better than all three disabilities know to man.
The Patang Hospital was our final stop on this educational trip however due to the time on our hands. It was a swift stop. After getting briefed on the activities at the medical center. We had a long walk around its premises and even got a chance to experience some first-hand treatment sessions from some nurses. We concluded the whole exercise at a pretty late time hence we rushed back to campus using the school’s bus. Everyone was relaxed after everything we had just seen. A few of my colleagues talked about this throughout our journey back to campus which indicated that they have been well impacted.
There was no class the following day thus we all took a break since the examination period was lurking around studied well and once again put myself in a better position to to impact my GPA as a whole. After the papers, I was thrilled because I was bringing everything to a steady end in UEW. I forgot to make this clear, that the next semester was going to an internship at a Special school of one’s choice whereby students will be graded by the supervisor or head teacher of the school. I was fortunate to choose the Reverend Father John School for my internship which was to begin right after our vacation.
Continue reading in the next post.