“A sort of confusion! And what?” he asks, the class following every word.
The teacher explains: When key steps are skipped in something you’re trying to learn—whether it’s fishing or computer programming—you’re going to feel confusion and a reeling sensation. So just go back and fill in the missing steps.
“A poorly educated population limits productivity, innovation and employability.”
Richmond Atta-Williams is not talking to a class of youngsters, but to a class of teachers, here to improve their teaching by learning how to learn.
When Atta-Williams, Ghana’s National Project Officer for Education Technology Initiatives, discovered Applied Scholastics and Study Technology, developed by L. Ron Hubbard, he found the first step to defusing what he describes as “a time bomb” for his native Ghana, a nation plagued by a low standard of living, widespread corruption in both the private and public sectors, as well as high inflation, debt and unemployment rates.
“A poorly educated population limits productivity, innovation and employability,” he tells Freedom. “When 65 percent of young people don’t complete high school, the economy inevitably suffers.”
Atta-Williams knows the struggle. Growing up in a small, impoverished village, he saw how illiteracy kept families locked in poverty. He still remembers a close friend forced to abandon his dreams because he couldn’t read or understand his lessons.
It’s a needless tragedy—but one that still shuts the door on opportunity for too many young Ghanaians.
The situation tore at him. But upon encountering Study Technology, which identifies the three key study barriers and offers a precise method for recognizing and overcoming them, he realized that he had the solution and got to work.
Word spread, and soon the handful of teachers attending his training sessions grew to hundreds.
Then, on May 15, 2024, Study Technology was officially approved for adoption by Ghana’s central region.
As one teacher enthusiastically put it, now “my students can fly along with me.” That educator is one of 658 who, at this writing, have been trained with Study Technology and, across the nation, 28,000 students are now putting its applications to work.
“How do you feel when you have taught somebody and you see that person doing well?” Atta-Williams asks his classroom of teachers.
“You feel so proud, so good,” one answers.
Atta-Williams grins. “We are not just teaching, we want to help build lives,” he says.
Watch Richmond Atta-Williams teach a nation how to learn on Voices for Humanity, only on Scientology.TV.
