I Am Because We Are: Increasing Educational Opportunity for Early Childhood Education in Ghana, West Africa

Explorations of secondary education globally are influenced deeply by the larger developmental, cultural, social, historical, and political contexts within which these formal learning environments are created. However, such explorations too often ignore two issues. The first is the way that access to formal and informal preschool and primary education provides the sheer possibility of access and entrance to upper levels, including secondary education. Second is the way that transformative power that involvements in education and (re)membering between African Americans and Africans on the continent can be manifestations of Freire’s (1970) notion of praxis—the purposeful coming together of thought and action to address educational access and opportunity. I explore both—as a teacher, researcher, and human being— through the work of building and administering a preschool and currently building an elementary school in Ghana, West Africa.