Mr. Steven Amoako’s journey as a teacher began when he was in his 2nd year in university. His financial constraints were a big challenge while in school and when things got worse, he decided to start applying for jobs. This was how he got lucky and started teaching chemistry to make some money to support himself. Prior to getting these teaching jobs, Steven had not liked the idea or practice of teaching but later grew very passionate about it.
Now, Steven is a STEM educator with six years of working experience and teaches a hundred and sixty students at the Integrity Keepers School. He is also a member of the Ghana Chemistry Society, and this makes it possible for him to meet fellow STEM and chemistry teachers to brainstorm on challenges as well as share new ideas.
Steven draws his inspiration from the fact that the advancement of STEM has an impact on economic and social development. He is therefore motivated to teach his students to the best of his abilities. He especially likes that STEM enables students to think critically and apply STEM concepts to everyday life. One of the highlights in his career as a STEM educator is when he helped a female student who was repeated in class due to her poor performance in Science and Math. The student subsequently become one of the best students in STEM.
Steven was introduced to the JUNEOS Challenge by the proprietor of Integrity Keepers School who thought it was a great project to be a part of. Mr. Amoako also liked the idea and proceeded to involve his students. The students took up the project to educate the public on the concept of using simple materials like metals and lemon to produce electricity. For Steven, the JUNEOS Challenge has exposed him to more practical ways of teaching and how to make use of limited resources.
Mr. Amoako is of the view that the JUNEOS Challenge will have more impact if the project runs more than once a year and has more schools involved. He also hopes that the government can support the project as it is a good way to get STEM educators to learn new ways of teaching. He would definitely join the challenge again if given the chance but would believes that there should be more time for the whole project.
When he isn’t teaching, Mr. Amoako enjoys listening to music by Daddy Lumba and Diana Asamoah and watching Sci-fi movies. He lives with his grandmother and aspires to be a lecturer teaching a specialized area of STEM in the near future.
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Article by Elizabeth Johnson.
Elizabeth Johnson works as a researcher and project manager with Dr Monk and volunteers the rest of her time with the Writers Project of Ghana where she takes up various roles such as radio show production, social media management and administrator for their annual literary festival. She is a published writer who writes both fiction and non fiction and has won awards for her work.
Gd work done, the sky is the limit for this innovative idea of helping the weak ones in the society.