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MY FIRST SOURCE OF TEARS AS AN EDUCATOR SENT TO A PUBLIC SCHOOL

 MY FIRST SOURCE OF TEARS AS AN EDUCATOR SENT TO A PUBLIC SCHOOL

Right now, I look at those days and I smile but to be honest, at the beginning of my journey I did a lot of crying. I was that fellow that left the training institute with a lot of anticipation and passion, I couldn’t wait to meet my pupils and start the transformation journey. I went all the way to ask questions and document what the expectations of Teach for Nigeria were and I was ready to stick to them with everything I had.

Ah! Trust me nah! First week of resumption, I was already bringing my laptop, tablet, and all the other gadgets I had for classroom illustration, taking my pupils outside the class for some natural engagements, changing my class sitting arrangement, and having special greeting styles with my pupils which were not the usual “kneel down to greet” approach I met there. One thing I didn’t know was that my assistant head teacher wasn’t happy about most of the changes that came about when I joined the school. To her, using a laptop in class could mean that you’re not doing your job but just playing around with the kids, on the other hand, having the pupils greet you in a fancy way could mean that you’re teaching the children to forsake the traditional ways of the Yoruba people, consequently, I got a lot of setbacks from her.

Agnes Onyekwere, Patris Radio 2020
At the point when I realized my pupils had serious literacy issues and around 90% of them could not read, I came up with strategies and methods that would help me increase the literacy quotient and informed my class teacher that since we had an academically unique issue we’ll need to fashion the timetable in such a way that would favour subjects that teach literacy and so we agreed on the forward.

On one particular day, I was in class and as usual using my gadgets to teach and my assistant head teacher walked in and told me that I was wasting valuable time and that I should leave what I was doing and move on to the next subject for the day, to cut the long story short she ended up collecting the chalk from my hand and took over my class and started teaching the children, I stood there embarrassed and had to leave the front and go back to my seat at the back of the class to know what exactly I would do next -I don’t think I have ever been that embarrassed before in my life, to think that I was still reported to the headteacher after reworking my lesson plan a million times because she refused to accept it even after I told her it was the template approved for fellows by TFN, (all thanks to people like Frankcess who were able to help me maneuver those moments). After the meeting with the headteacher that didn’t go in my favour, I started asking myself if it was worth it spending all my free time researching and waking up by 3am in the morning to get my animations for children done just so that I could add value to this pupils but then I am treated like I didn’t know what I was doing. I  remember going to the back of the school to cry on days when í couldn’t hold it any longer. I’d cry, wipe my tears, go back to class, and assume nothing happened because I knew it was too late for me to pack my bags and leave, I had made sacrifices to be here and I knew better than to let a few people make me leave.

Today, my assistant head teacher and I are in very good terms, we speak and smile and over time she realized that I wasn’t there to cause any trouble but just do my job.

Comments

  1. Anonymous5 May 2023 at 09:54

    Wow!!!

    Can't imagine how it has been for you.

    Thank you for been resilient.

    Thank you for believing in your gift.


    Thank you very much for sharing this.

    ReplyDelete

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