A visiting Professor at the Department of Educational Foundations, Prof. Joshua Adebisi Omotosho, has called on teachers to use songs as part of their pedagogy. According to him, songs have unique qualities which make content stick in the brain more than other form of delivery and therefore asked for the conversion of critical areas of learning into songs for easy recollection. Using himself as an example, he said he tried to unravel the mystery behind why songs, learned more than 55 years ago, were still vividly remembered with relative ease. Consequently, he sang and danced to songs (in Twi) he learnt about five-and-a-half decades ago to illustrate this point. The visiting don was speaking at an Occasional Lecture at the SMS Auditorium on the theme “That Songs are the Most Enduring Memoirs of My Childhood has Implications for Counselling, Research and Some Feeding Habits.” Professor Omototsho,who left Ghana in his youthful days in December 1961 to Nigeria and resurfaced in Ghana in 1996, effortlessly sang some of the songs he learnt at Apinamang in the Eastern Region during his elementary school days, which included “Teacher pon yɛn tɛn”, “Anoma ketewa”, “Apinamang mmofra”, “influenza yɛ yadeɛ bone”, “Yesu medefo”, amongst others. The Guidance and Counselling Professor also did a rendition of the seven steps in counselling, which he has personally composed, and urged counsellors to employ such methods in the discharge of their duties. He commended Ghanaians for their commitment to fight the destruction of the environment and water bodies as a result of the devasting effects of illegal mining (popularly known as “galamsey”). The visiting lecturer said the pollution of rivers in Ghana had affected the quality of the rivers, including River Subrane, which according to him was the cleanest river in Ghana in the 60s. He commended Ghana for its academic promotion methods, dissemination of information through Public Address System, healthy national debates, speed ramps and the cost-effective traditional mourning clothes. He suggested to the University to embark upon an interdisciplinary research into “Asoa”, a local fruit, adding that “Asoa” has good medicinal benefits. Professor Omototsho advised Ghanaians to stay away from starchy foods, food enhancers, fast foods and urged them to eat healthy foods like cocoyam and plantain. In his remarks, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Ghartey Ampiah, said the occasional lecture series was open to all faculty members to share their experiences with their colleagues in the University. He said through pedagogy and learning, “we can use songs to remember things and put them in our long term memory and it will be there forever.” He said most of the times when we learn and put them in our short term memory, it vanishes within a twinkling of an eye. He, therefore, lauded Prof. Omotosho for advocating the use of songs as a means of impacting. The Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Prof. K.T. Oduro; the Registrar, Mr. John Kofi Nyan, and some childhood friends of Prof. Omotosho during his elementary school days at Apinamang were part of the audience.
