When a teacher cannot read

EVIDENTLY, we are not listening enough
to Albert Einstein (1879-1955): “Life is
like a bicycle. To keep your balance, you
must keep moving”. We keep increasing
the level of rationalisation in our society,
in the process of which we get fixated at
offering excuses for our failure.
At the mention of the poor performance of
our children in English Language tests,
we quickly point at the direction of the
Short Massage Service, SMS, as a major
distraction, whereas the SMS has always
been with us. In the past, they were called
telegrams and we used them quite often.
The fact that a student sent a telegram
home, “CONDITION CRITICAL X SEND
MONEY” did not prevent him from writing
the best letter in his English language
class the following day.
Oshiomhole and one of the state’s teacher
The Holy Books make it clear that there is
nobody that God did not endow with
particular talents. The only difference is
that while some discover their God-given
talents early enough; those who do not
discover theirs force themselves into
areas where they do not belong.
That teacher who could not read her own
affidavit of age declaration could as well
have been a huge success in some
aspects of merchandising.
Elsewhere, assisting people to discover
their talents is a major function of the
education system, starting from very early
in life.
We all make mistakes sometimes. In an
unplanned society like ours, luck plays a
role in straightening us out. I have
sometimes strayed into areas where I did
not belong but I did not wait to be
disgraced out. In our secondary school
days, I once found myself in a dance club
but I quickly bounced out after cutting
some shoes of my dance partners. I was
clumsy. In fact, I had two left legs. But by
the time I moved into the literary and
debating society, I became the one to
beat.
That was how I found myself in a tennis
club. I quickly got out when it became
clear that the only direction I could play
was aiming at the sky.
Rather than mitigate the problem, society
helps to aggravate it. You can imagine if I
had forced myself into becoming the one
to teach our young ones to dance or
better still, if I had bought my way into
becoming the one to prepare our tennis
players for the next Olympics. That would
be a total disaster and that’s exactly what
we are doing to ourselves and our nation
in virtually every field.
We are largely a bunch of sadists, even to
ourselves. We entertain ourselves with
ludicrous events, the amount of venom
we release into society, notwithstanding.
In this Edo State, we once had a
Commissioner who couldn’t spell
“Commissioner”. For her, the word must
shed weight by force and the only way to
do so was to eliminate the double letters
and she came up with “Comisioner” as
her own version of the word.
We were pleasantly entertained on
television but that did not prevent her
from being picked as a Commissioner,
even where some Senior Advocates of
Nigeria, SAN, and other seemingly more
qualified nominees had to be screened
out to make way for her. In other climes,
some citizen action groups would have
stopped that appointment! You can
imagine what type of Commissioner we
had in “Mrs Comisioner”.
Let no one be deceived. That teacher who
could not read is not alone in that
category. They are many. Whereas our
system is still relatively able to sift the
“Commissioners” from the “Comisioners”;
and whereas the teachers who can read
and those who cannot are not in short
supply here, the differentiation should be
made by sound personnel practice at that
point of recruitment. But where is that
entry point?
When a chief executive wants to engage
any particular person, even a stubborn
legislature can hardly stop him. For
example, Prof. Borisade Babalola holds
the clear record of being tossed between
the Executive and the Legislature close to
five times before his nomination was
finally confirmed. Again, the initial
rejections of that ebullient Professor were
not because he was found wanting but
the murky politics of Ondo State had an
axe to grind with him.
Our Education Boards have always
paraded some of the best and most
experienced brains. But while a Board
may spend its entire tenure without
officially appointing a single teacher,
letters of appointment of teachers are
“hawked” progressively at the market
place, under the candle light, with
perhaps some insider collaboration.
Between Boards, such illicit appointments
get regularised.
True, Rome was not built in a day. We
have now arrived at that dangerous point
where there are teachers who cannot read
and these are the people in whose hands
the fate of our future leaders lies. These
people did not suddenly find themselves
unable to read.
Once blocking starts, it never ends. They
even block their way through the PhD.
Sadly, the loudest critics of any system
are to be found in this category. But
luckily, too, even where the thief has
every day, the owner still has his single
day.
That woman also got her share of infamy:
had she fallen into a pit toilet, a sachet of
N20 detergent would have cleaned her up;
had she been diagnosed for some serious
ailment, by now she would have been
completing her medication; but in split
seconds, her inability to read had
incurably destroyed her for life,
particularly when she involuntarily
relinquished her “Ekiadolor papers” to
Oshiomhole – “Who is now the teacher?”
“You are the one, Sir”.
Shall we return to Tai Solarin who once
opined that the only way to sanitise Lagos
was to bomb down the entire place and
begin to rearrange it? More than four
decades after, Solarin is still waiting to
happen, but it has taken some extra-
radical steps to begin to turn Lagos
around. Essentially, Nigeria is still
possible. Just pray and hope!