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A citizenship lesson from the Ghana book

The Year of Return

Grades 2 to 5 · K-1 with an adult reading aloud (hold the case study for older children) · one 60 minute session or two 30 minute sessions

Why this lesson

The story children most often receive about Africa begins with hardship. This lesson begins with a welcome instead. In 2019 Ghana invited the descendants of people taken from West Africa to come home, and hundreds of thousands answered. Ghana is not a place of loss in this lesson: it is a place that opened its arms, and the child learns what it takes to make someone feel they belong, starting with their own classroom.

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What the class makes: A class welcome plan: the things this class will always do when a new student arrives, decided and adopted by vote, posted by the door.

1

Title and welcome

Where do you belong? Children name one place where they feel they truly belong. List the kinds of places that come up: homes, kitchens, teams, grandparents’ houses, this classroom.

2

The greeting from the book

In Accra, Alexandria’s friend and her family welcome her the way many families in Ghana welcome guests: “Akwaaba.” It means welcome.

The cover of the Accra, Ghana book: Alexandria and her friend
3

The wish inside the words

“Akwaaba” is a Twi word, one of the languages spoken in Ghana, and its heart is “you have come.” The wish inside it: your arrival is a gift, and you belong here.

Ask the class: how is “you have come” different from just “hello”? It notices the journey a person made to reach you.

4

Personal reflection

Three questions, written or drawn:

5

Something real to read, and discussion

Read aloud from real coverage of the Year of Return: the Ghana Tourism Authority’s official pages, and 2019 photo essays and reports from outlets such as BBC News and NPR, with celebrations at Black Star Square and visitors describing what it felt like to be welcomed. Choose the passages; children hear a real event in real words.

Talk it through together. Open each question when you are ready for the teacher notes:

What was the Year of Return? Who was invited, and why?
What children might sayChildren might say: Ghana invited people whose families came from Africa long ago to come back and visit; it was a giant welcome home. You can add: Ghana was one of the first African countries to win its independence, in 1957, and it chose to lead again by opening its arms.
Why do you think the celebrations happened at Black Star Square?
What children might sayChildren might connect the black star on Ghana’s flag to freedom and pride; the square is where Ghana celebrates its independence every year, so it is the place where Ghana’s biggest feelings live.
What did visitors say it felt like to arrive in Ghana?
What children might sayFrom the coverage, children might hear words like family, home, joy, crying happy tears. Ask: why would a place you have never been still feel like home?
What would you share from your culture to welcome a visitor?
What children might sayEvery child’s answer is right. Food, music, games, words, family customs all count.
If a child asks about the harder history: If a child asks why families were separated from Africa in the first place, answer honestly and briefly, at this level: long ago, people were taken from West Africa across the ocean against their will, and it was deeply wrong; the Year of Return invited their children’s children’s children to come home as honored family. Then return to the welcome.
6

The six actions

How to build belonging, one action at a time.

🌍Learn about the world around you

Find Accra and Black Star Square on the map. Then children map their own journeys: places their families come from or have lived, shared with the class only, and only what each child wants to share.

👂Learn how to listen

Welcome stories: at home, each child asks a family member about a time they were welcomed somewhere new, and listens to the whole story. Children retell one detail to the class.

🗳Be involved in the decisions being made for you

Write the class welcome plan together: what we will do on a new student’s first day, first week, first month. Propose, vote, adopt, post it by the door.

💡Learn about different ways of thinking

What does “home” mean? Children compare answers: the place you were born, the people you love, a feeling you carry. More than one answer is true, and the differences are the interesting part.

🪞Learn about yourself

“I belong” portrait: each child draws or writes the places and people where they belong, with themselves at the center.

🤝Learn how to solve problems peacefully

When someone feels left out: the class builds a fix-it plan of exact words and actions to use when they see it happen, and practices the words out loud.

7

Before and now, then the close

Show photographs of Black Star Square and the Independence Arch newly built in the early 1960s, and Black Star Square filled with celebration during the Year of Return in 2019. Ask: What changed? What stayed? What did people choose to keep?

Freedom was celebrated there first, and then family was welcomed home there, two generations later, in the same place.

Close with each child naming one line of the welcome plan they are ready to use.

Alexandria smiling and waving

Thank you for exploring with us.

With thanks to the Ghana Tourism Authority and the news coverage used in your reading.

alexandriasworld.com · Welcome home.