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PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS TEACHING MULTIPLE SUBJECTS. YEH/NEH

If you are a primary school teacher and you teach more than one subject raise your hand. 

Do you have subjects you know you have to do more research on before you feel confident teaching them?

Do you sometimes feel the need to recheck and double-check things in one or more subjects compared to others?

Are there subjects you have outright joy and confidence teaching compared to others?

Are there times you wish you just stick to some of these subjects instead of having to pack up everything?

To be honest, I understand that most school facilities cannot afford to pay individual teachers to handle each subject, I understand that they expect primary school teachers to know and understand the basic subjects well enough to teach them at preliminary levels, BUT!

Are we experimenting with the next generation of Nigerians or are we giving them the best that there is?

Our pupils deserve to have the best from every teacher and a teacher can only be his best self if he is teaching what he feels confident about, that confidence is passed down to the students whether we like it or not.

Growing up some teachers ended up confusing me and my classmates in a bid to try and teach subjects they were not very familiar with, in fact, some went all the way to know all they needed to know about a subject/topic but transferring information to students alone is not enough.

Funsho, Agnes and Edikan at Emmanuel Anglican primary school 1 Italupe Ijebu Ode
Anytime I teach phonics to my students, I communicate my love for the subject matter as I find a way to make them know what they need to know because I love the subject, it is easy for me to be creative with it so that we can all have fun while we learn. This is not the case with Mathematics, I cannot do without checking things properly and solving ahead of time, if not I can mix things up sometimes (this seldom happens) or leave out vital information.

Sometimes I cannot help but ask myself what life would look like if I was left to just handle the areas I love to teach and the other areas are left to experts in those fields too, won't the world be a better place if that happens?

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