Reverse the Trend

A few weeks ago, there was a video trending online about a teacher arrested for assaulting a pupil in her class. The assault was caught on camera and it caused a huge stir on social media. I couldn't watch the video but I was glad it was captured. I thought to myself...how long would this woman have been abusing these children? How many more children had she abused before her time was finally up this time? Would there be more like her in the school? How many more like her do we have in all the various schools across the state and across the country?

It is scary to think that many children face this form (and many other forms) of abuse without anybody to fight for them or call these abusers to order. But when you really think about it, some of these teachers (who sometimes happen to be parents themselves) believe in their hearts that they need to be "strict" to bring up little children in the "right" way. The way some parents brutalize their children in the name of discipline, it makes you wonder if they gave birth to those children. If they can treat their own kids like slaves, how difficult would it be to treat the children of others the same way or even worse?

In many cases, they also experienced the same treatment so they feel it is an essential element of training a child or a ward - and so the cycle of abuse propagates itself through the generations. They were scarred as children so they either feel the need to pass it on or they do not see anything wrong in replicating the treatment they endured themselves while they were growing up.

I remember the time I used to hate mathematics. It was in my first year of Senior Secondary School. I hated it so much that I failed it every term. My father then was confused because he did not understand why his son, the son of a mathematician, would be flunking mathematics every term. But then when I got to the next class, things changed. My grades improved and I started to do well in mathematics. In these two classes, the only thing that changed was the person teaching the subject to us. By some twist of fate, the school swapped Ms. Ogunsola with Mr. Ogunsola (no - they were not a couple, not even related).

Ms. Ogunsola (my teacher in SSS 1) was a terror. Even the thought of having to see her in class sent shivers down my spine every morning as I got ready for school. I remember one time she gave us an impromptu test and the punishment for those of us who did not do well was to flog us ON THE BACK OF OUR HANDS; and the number of strokes each person got was the number of questions the person got wrongly. Imagine getting only 15 questions correctly out of 30...it meant you had to take 15 strokes of the cane on the back of your hand. I still have a lump at the back of one of my fingers from the beating I received that day.

Mr. Ogunsola, on the other hand, happened to be heaven-sent - literally. He broke teaching down to the basics and would not move on from a point until he was satisfied that everyone was on the same page. Sometimes, he even explained to us in the local language...just to make sure we understood him. Other times, he would make jokes with us and let us enjoy the lung-bursting laughter from it…just to ease the tension that mathematics usually builds in the minds of those struggling to understand. I had never looked forward to a class the way I looked forward to Mr. Ogunsola's class. He made almost everyone in the class fall in love with the subject. Not only with how he taught and explained in class, but with how his examinations went. He always told us to ensure not to skip any step while solving the equations; and that was because each step carried its own mark. The result was that people paid more attention to his explanations as he solved the examples in class, and by extension, the grades improved generally.

One can only imagine what would have become of my mathematics if the school had not changed our teacher when they did. I most likely would have continued to hate the subject and most likely would have continued to fail it.

I have not seen Mr. Ogunsola since I left secondary school and I doubt that he knew the wonders that his teaching approach did to my life. It not only made me better at mathematics, it made me more open minded to learning. The relationship he had with the class transcended the regular teacher-student relationship, he was like a father to us in class. For many of us in that class, we experienced first hand what it meant to teach in love; and most likely a number of the students in Mr. Ogunsola’s class would have left school with the love and affection that he shared with the class. If any student from his class had ended up as a teacher somewhere else, the person would likely have adopted the method that teaches love along with the subject. I experienced two methods, and each time I have had the opportunity, I always chose the method that made me a better mathematics student.

What would the multiplier effect be if we had more of the Mr. and less of the Ms.? How many more children would have grown up to proliferate and instill the nature of care and empathy? Many more adults today would have been brought up with love and the only thing they would have to transfer to the ones coming after them would be the warmth and affection they were brought up with themselves. If you are reading this, you may not have had the luck that I had with the changing of my teacher but you can still help the future of many children that are likely to come across difficult upbringing disguised as parenting or teaching. One thing I would like to say to you is this: do not transfer the hate…reverse the trend and spread the love.