Letter To Teachers

By Emmanuel Ayegba. Emmanuel is from Ilorin, Nigeria. He is a final year student of biology at the University of Ilorin, in Nigeria. Please read his article and leave your thoughts and comments below

I’m so sorry Ms. Teacher. You’re a mother. And you have to accept it. Please be different and enduring! Not as the other many teachers who write-off their weak pupils out of frustration, and focus on the bright ones alone. Please, be patient too; patience can soften stones; it’s the most essential virtue in the teaching profession. It’s not a minor task, but please carry every child along; especially the willing ones. Many schoolchildren teachers often complain! This child is stubborn, that one is dull, another is difficult, the other one is a slow learner – on-and-on, the complains are endless. And I often ask them: “Do you expect all children to be perfect from home?”  Ms. Teacher, I’m sure you’re aware that “if all children are perfect from home, or if there’s no conflict, I mean no mental struggle resulting from incompatible or opposing needs, drives, wishes or external or internal demand amidst pupils, then teachers/teaching would be devoid of services and isn’t worth a profession.” As a mother that you truly are, you should have a large heart to accommodate a vomiting child, an incontinent child, an autistic child, the one that always reminds you you’d never rest in the class; and even the one that always reminds you that you have your own children to take care of. Teach each child the difficult path of peace, give them enough courage to beat such a path, even if conflict is predominant.

Try to understand that the class is a conflict room and that you are a conflict manager. Each child emits different shades of conflicting colours. One child calls ‘red’ blue; another says it’s pink; the other says it’s orange…isn’t that conflicting enough? Then you’re fed up! Almost like your effort isn’t yielding visible results. You deceive yourself if you think all of your effort is wasted. You’re all wrong, your effort shouldn’t compulsorily yield visible results every time. You’re human not a human-changer. Do you always see the foundation of a magnificent structure? But that is what holds it in place. Your effort should be foundational for pupils to build themselves upon; you’re not re-making them, they’re already made: adorable, full of flowers waiting for you to take them into their peculiar blossoming seasons. Please, Ms. Teacher, make sure to help each child realize how much bright he could be no matter how weak or dull he is–that’s your duty! You could change your method if needs be. But please, make sure to keep up the effort and laugh at the result when it appears funny. Well, you always laugh when you sometimes remember the conflicting opinions of your class children during weekends, don’t you?  Just recognise and benefit from your pupils’ differences/conflicting characters and views. It is those differences in those children that make teaching sweet! And the story worth telling. Yes, sweet. Perhaps you think I was going to say tedious. Of course teaching is tedious. Yeah, I know. I’m a teacher too, and so I know; yes, I know; I know that school sometimes is a seat of tension for teachers. It’s sometimes a seat of community conflicts because that’s where community problems are often manifested. So, you have the community posing many of its problems before you to solve. I know that you have to be a teacher first; then a lawyer when Nasir and Emmanuel bring erring reports; a builder with Lego blocks during playtime; a police when Victor and Samuel are brawling; a doctor to ailing Segun; a senator at the beginning of the term when it’s time to write class rules; a pastor when Bob behaves stupidly around Ashley; a nutritionist that suggests to Anita’s mother the food she needs at her age; a sport instructor on Wednesday during PE; a philosopher when’s it time to reason — isn’t that also conflicting? You’re everything to a child, Ms. Teacher–everything you are, and it’s difficult to be everything. That’s why you’ve to accept that you’re a mother.

In your class you can have some children crying, some laughing and making noise, and some dozing off simultaneously with each group needing your attention; that’s also conflicting. It’s very testing dealing with a crying child and another laughing child at the same time. Even though it is unrewarding, allow every child freedom of expression of self. In every feeling or every situation is a better explanation of life. If they want to smile, let them smile thoroughly. If they want to cry, allow them to cry thoroughly too; it’s not a shameful thing to cry. But please, don’t forget to sometimes pet them when they cry; and don’t be surprise they cry often. Both laughter and crying are just different shades of the same colour from the same heart trying to get relief. Sometimes we resist the urge to cry and force ourselves to laugh, only to realize that laughing can’t trigger the same relief as crying… Don’t avoid crying if you truly feel it’d help. Master Oogway said that one often meets his destiny on the path he takes to avoid.

Ms. Teacher, don’t repeat the mistake common in many schools. One of the greatest mistakes ever made by schools is when it celebrates winners and neglects the losers, not remembering that their failures were the reasons why success stories are worth telling. The school should be a place to not only discover academic success, but a place to administer medicines to the maladies of failure. They should not be neglected. That’s what makes hospitals more perfect. Unlike schools, test in hospitals is not always to create conflicts: to separate the bright from the unbright, or to create mental divides, but to make doctors not gamble with patients’ life by guess work (or guess-treatment); to enable doctors make informed decision that’ll help the patient heal fastest. How about if school-test serve this same purpose Ms. Teacher? Won’t it have reduced mental conflicts in schools? Are teachers sure of the learning method of each child? Or guessing that all children, even though conflicting, have similar learning method?

 

I know how hard it is to leave your own children in the hands of others who you don’t trust and who focus on other children. I know how hard and frustrating it is to handle a class of twenty-five different people. It’s also conflicting managing different people with different needs, different strength, different weaknesses, different aspirations, different opinions and shoes sizes at the same time is really conflicting — if not the greatest of all human conflicts. But believe you me, that’s what makes teachers’ and schools’ stories much more worth telling and reading than other professionals!’ Without the little differences in all of those adorable children, there can’t be real school stories for teachers to tell. I know how it feels for the noises and becks of different children to re-echo in your ears after class each day. Funnily, that’s the joy of motherhood or teacherhood. If classes were like heaven, then schoolchildren would be angels, and then no differences/challenges/conflicts/failures; no reporting of each other’s, no frustrating noises: then no story to tell. Because of perfection, angels always have blank biographies. If there is no conflict in school, I mean differences that prevent agreement, or disagreement between ideas and feelings, etc., then there can’t be opportunities for real teaching; for teachers to demonstrate their commitments and patient and empathy and love and professionalism. Please Ms. Teacher, do not forget to teach other teachers who might not be patient with difficult children that there is beauty in the uniqueness of each child. Please, don’t forget, don’t forget, Ms. Teacher, that you’re a mother first, and a mother would never throw any of her children away because of differences or conflicts and frustrations. Thanks. Thanks Ms. Teacher, for being a conflict manager.

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World Alert!

Where is the peace to sweeten our stories….? We’ll never see it when we put on prejudice lenses; when conflict is surreptitiously chipped into the modified versions of some of our religious books; when we treat others based on skin-colours or nose shapes or grades; when some governments train their children in expensive schools and leave the children of the  masses on the streets to learn to survive using mock-guns; when masses neglect saviours and vote-in brutes; when some journalists use their pen as a sword and microphone as a bomb; when some farmers poison the pastures for the herds and herdsmen destroy farmlands with their herds; when some of my country policemen sometimes enforce bullying and relax order; when some of our Black Brothers treat foreigners as sinners, leaving their relatives to count the holes left by those who didn’t survive xenophobic attacks. It’s hard for peace to grow, because we’re starving it with some of our actions. If we keep our prejudice lenses, conflict would remain the sugar of our stories; until we give peace enough-ways to sweeten all of life.

 

7 comments on “Letter To Teachers

  1. Emma Jones on

    A bit conflicted by this one. I am a teacher. I agree with your sentiments but am a little offended and am still deciding whether or not I should be.

    I am not just a teacher to my pupils. I am a parent, carer, social worker, counselor, provider and provider of opportunity.

    That is not arrogant – I have no choice. My pupils come to me from unstable homes, I have to make school their home. They come to me with the world on their shoulders – there is no mental health support for me to refer them to, that becomes part of my role. They come to me with completely different skill-sets and I have to help them find their talents independently because I cannot teach them all 1:1.

    I am under no illusions that I am a mother, and so much more, and, for some children, smiling is an achievement. I do not complain for my children, I love them. If I ever look to question where there are achievements are, that is not for me but for those who govern my profession and suppress my ability to teach and care.

    This article makes valid points but it also points far more on the teacher than we can be given blame or credit for: I cannot do what the government and national resources do not allow me to do.

    Reply
  2. Ayegba Emmanuel on

    Thanks Emma Jones, for taking your time to read the article. Your comment shows how well you must have read it. Of course you have the right to react to the views in the article, but I certainly don’t mean to offend you. I’m quite sure that you understand all what I mean….and I’m also sure that you are a good teacher! Please keep up the good work you have been doing on your pupils; or the “effort” as used in the essay. Let me also point out that the essay does not deputise the role of governments to teachers; neither do I claim that teachers are the absolute entity to a child’s mental development and self discovery; but I also strongly believe that if we wait all day for the government, we’ll over wait; and some of our pupils will grow out of our class while waiting. Simply, you don’t have to wait for the government to do the little you can. For instance, just like you have been showing love as you said and helping your pupils to discover themselves, that’s to do enough! I figure out that you are somewhat patient, and may not be complaining for having difficult pupils, but many teachers do… One of teachers, especially schoolchildren teachers need most is patience!

    Reply
  3. Barr. Akuebuka Anthony on

    This is a wonderful analysis of every teacher’s burden of care towards its pupils/students. The writer went as far as analyzing the various roles of a teacher towards his/her students in the school environment which is very apt to the nature of students in the school environment. I also appreciate the highest level of encouragement the writer gave every teacher.

    Reply
  4. Daniella Suleiman on

    This is a very compelling article to read. In my perspective, this article should not only be addressed to female teachers but male teachers as well. Because being a teacher is so much more than teaching rather it is a great privilege to be in the midst of future leaders and training them uniquely for their role. I love the write up because it happened in my kindergarten when i was very quiet and a bit lost. None of my teachers pays attention to my wellbeing, my school performance, social activities and so on and it got worse that my mum had to withdraw me from school. I believe teachers ought to do a better job in handling pupils/students.

    Reply
  5. Ayegba Emmanuel on

    Yeah, you are right. It should be addressed to both male and female teachers. Quite a lot of people might assume that it suffers from gender problem, which I also understand. I wrote it out to all teachers actually, but because I strongly want to imply that teachers are like mothers to schoolchildren during school hours when their real mothers are not present, I’d adopted the feminine gender as a representative. It’s not literal in that regard and I hope you’d understand it’s depth.

    Reply
  6. Joy on

    It’s takes a lot of carefulness and courage to understand the depth of this controversial essay. Just like the apocryphal letter of Abraham Lincoln to his child’s teacher. First, conflict may not be about violence alone as the essay points. Most writers have only based their thoughts on the violent meaning of conflict. Only a few could relate it to school/eduction as Ayegba has done. Opposing ideas, believe and background is also conflicting! And this is what we have in class! How about tension in class for teachers? I really wish this be seen by all discouraged teachers and caregivers. Or it could even be posted in schools! I’m just glad that the organizing platform is an education based NGO who wishes to hear people’s opinions on education; so, they should be able to treasure this gold… I’m glad I’m a teacher.

    Reply

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