A TUTOR AND A HALF

  Imagine a scenario where we have Janet a child born to parents who don't have the means to put her in a good school so she ends up in a free public school because that is what her parents could afford. She comes to school without eating and doesn't seem to be getting enough food from home which means that she is constantly hungry. Janet is always either absent-minded, playing with other learners, distracting herself or she is yawning and sleeping in class. She hardly pays attention no matter what the teacher does or says in class. She comes to school with her almost completely turn uniform, without socks and half the number of books required for class Her parents cannot afford for her to even continue going to the public school because she would be better put to use if she hawks and is able to bring some money home for food, that way, she stands a chance of being fed instead of going to school hungry but her mother wants her to get a shot at education so she continues to allo...

The job of a teacher is by far one of the most tedious jobs there can be, at least it's the most tedious I have done and to say the truth, what you see on the outside does not even come close to what the real job of a teacher entails. On the outside, we see a teacher on the white/blackboard happily teaching students who are attentively listening right? In real life, it's a bit more complex than that. First of all, Every week a teacher is to write a lesson plan for everything she is going to teach, there are strict templates you have to follow and then you follow this template for every single subject you are going to teach for next week, if you teach nine subjects, you will have to write a lesson plan for your nine subjects one by one following the stipulated template, and you do it unfailingly every week, I promise you, this is not fun at all, I have seen many educators and one common thing about all of them is that they all had to come to accept that it is necessary and then ...

I heard something a few weeks ago and I was thrown into reflection on how valid it is. So we all know how bad the state of the public school system is, just discussing one of the numerous issues of the system with a colleague and then he mentioned that the public school system is the way it is because it is free and people don't have to pay for it. He went further to state that if people pay for things they are most likely to value them. He gave an example of how much he pays as school fees for his own children and then went on to say that, he is always trying to monitor what they do in school just to ensure his hard-earned money isn't going down the drain. When his kids get back from school he tries to check for assignments and even check their notes to see if their teachers are doing their jobs well. Agnes Onyekwere in Class Teaching He compared the private school system to the public schools where the parents don't care what happens in school in fact sometimes, the paren...

1.   You don't have to be perfect to start, you start to be perfect: This is something that I am learning afresh every day, especially with the fact I am the type of person who likes to get it to seat properly in my head before I feel ready. As a tutor, I am now understanding that it's not every time you feel ready and prepared, in fact, most of the time you have to do things because you've got to get things done and because you've made a commitment to be here and show up. So you never feel perfect before you start, you know when the perfect feeling comes, when you've defied the odds and smashed your goals, now that feeling is perfect, priceless! 2. Stepping up to responsibility is not for the weak : I find that it is quite easy to just sit down and just complain about all the wrong things going on with you and your job, pointing out the slip-ups and mess-ups is the easy part. But the power comes when you decide that you know what, I know this is going on and this ...

Today's the 25th of February and Nigerians are on the verge of voting in a new leadership. There's so much anticipation and hope in the air. Today we decide who runs the country for the next four years if we do it right? Of course, we know it's not magic but we expect huge changes and if we do it wrong then, we're either going to be stagnant as a nation or at worst retrogress more than we already have. Reflecting on the elections and all that, got me thinking of a child in my class who stood up one day in the middle of our discussion to say that all he wants to do is travel abroad and just leave the country because according to him Nigeria is "spoilt pkatapkata" this boy is 10 years old. When I asked him where he got the idea from, he said his parents and siblings are always saying it. Agnes Onyekwere and Reshi at the END SARS protest  Hearing that made me really sad because I too had the idea of traveling and living abroad some day but hearing this from this ...

The moment I started teaching my first lessons in my placement school, I knew from that moment that I was only going to be racing against time and the structures put in place to facilitate normal academic activities. Personally, I liked to access the situation of things with my learners before I go ahead to figure out what the best approach for a particular topic would be and since I was sure that most of my learners in primary 4 should be sent back to primary 1 I knew that there was a lot of work cut out for me. Before I start my class I try to research a topic online, I go on YouTube and try to find out very simple ways of teaching division to little kids. With this my kids are always surprised how simple Maths can be when I'm the one who is teaching it because the methods I use are at the level they understand and can relate to, this makes my learners feel like this school thing is not as hard as they thought. But the other side to it is the fact that my methods will usually tak...

  The first day, I arrived my placement school, I was shocked by what I saw, I mean I knew that I was coming to the core West for work but it didn't occur to me how much Yoruba (The main language spoken in the Western parts of Nigeria) would be used inside the classroom. I resumed a week later than I should due to the logistics of finding my way from Jos to Ogun and also finding someone to stay with in the meantime. So by the Monday, I was resuming, a lot had happened. Apparently, our government teachers find it easier to communicate with the children in Yoruba than in English, so, they teach and give instructions in Yoruba. Personally, I was even blown away with just the fact that the children at that age could speak their native dialects so well. In fact I told some of them to start teaching me some Yoruba words during break time and after school hours. Agnes Onyekwere in class One thing that was bothering me though, was the fact that, these learners at their age could not constr...

                                                                                                                                         THE SUBEB SAGA The fear of SUBEB officials-The Beginning of Confusion   One thing I find very appalling is the drama that happens when the SUBEB officials are within sight-that morning, we’ll have a long meeting after the assembly where we will all be warned to be in our very best behaviours because we have “visitors”. That day every teacher is supposed to make sure they are bringing their “A” game; their classrooms must be neat, and their learners must be quiet and learning Learners in a school programme ...

                                                                    Flog or Not to Flog A function of the learners' socioeconomic background I particularly find this subject very interesting because it is one that provokes so many emotions, for me, one of these emotions includes confusion. In Nigeria for example, there are three divides, let's call them body of thoughts for lack of a better word. The first believe that children if left to their devices, will over time become wayward and disrespectful if not cautioned properly and that cautioning involves using the cane and in the Bible parlance "the rod". The second group believes that children are innately wise and can find their own ways through life with as little as a guide and all that needs to be done is find ways to reinforce behaviors both positive and negative,...

The average public school teacher seems to have a million and one grudges against the government of the day and most of the times with very valid reasons. How can a public school teacher with a family of six not get paid for six months straight? and somehow he continues to find a way to go to work every morning even when all is not well back at home. How can the government sit back and watch the classroom infrastructures get so bad to the extent that teachers have to sit in a particular corner of the class to avoid the rain and sun considering the fact that the roof is in shreds, teachers sit on worm infested chairs and have to fake a smile to the children as they are made to go to the walls of the classroom when its about to rain because of the big hole right in the middle of the classroom through which the children can see the sky. How can you expect to have teachers buy instructional materials when they’ve not even g...

                                                       THE BIG APPLE REVEAL You know, after almost two years of working in an under-served community/school there’s one thing that stands out for me more than anything else, which is the fact that “ you have to give a child an apple before you can tell a child that A is for apple .” (I wish I could take credit for that quote but it stemmed from a conversation I had with my Teach for Nigeria Mentor -Mrs. Gift Godfrey). Agnes Onyekwere This apple analogy just goes to show that there are so many reasons why a child will not learn in class and almost all of these reasons have nothing to do with the teacher. I have come to realize that there are some back-end  issues that could jeopardize a child's chances of learning, if not handled properly and unfortunately, the most important of these issues stems ...