The Teachers’ Reckoning

What time has come again this year, dear reader, when we take time off the disturbing business of Nigerian politics, which is even now beating the drums of ethnic wars, religious wars and other incredibly asinine wars, and foray into something more cheering. It is time once again to don our skirts and sneakers, brush our pompoms and shekere, take our stand by the edge of the playing field and get ready to shake it for that special group of people we celebrate come every October: the teacher. Today is teachers’ day. Huh! Come on, shake that shekere for all teachers!

What? I can’t hear you. What have they done to deserve it? Now wait a minute here, will you?! I’ll give you many reasons why they deserve it. Just last week, I found myself passing through a Nigerian city where I was shown a house under construction belonging to a senator or a House of representative member – don’t know which. I was told that the house had been under construction for the past one year, with workers working in and on it day and night. Along the way, I also saw many other houses whose architectural designs and constructions defied any particular explanation other than the fancy that says ‘so much money; so little sense’. I just thought: how many teachers can afford that kind of self-indulgence?

I have always considered that you can always know a politician’s house from every other. One: the typical politician’s house is often big and very obscene. They have things called wind breakers, visitor breakers and all kinds of breakers. Two: they are often impractical. Good thing we do have something called second value here. Many of the houses built now cannot be resold so easily should the need arise. Unfortunately, I’m sure we know those who have conked off as soon as they finished their elaborate edifices. Anyway, when I wondered where all the money could be coming from, I was told that the constituency allowances of our elected politicians meant for community development efforts are often used to develop personal monuments. Again I ask, how many teachers in this country have even those wind breakers to shield their heads?

At a later forum the same week, I heard a very disturbing story. An elected politician had visited a school where he found that the classrooms were windowless, sandy (because the flooring had scraped off), and bare of any furniture. Worse, the school pupils were in tattered uniforms. He then set off to do something about it: he installed windows, renovated the rooms and furnished them to his satisfaction. He then kitted the pupils properly in new uniforms.

As the story goes, he returned to a resumed house to face the consequences of his action. He was roundly upbraided by his colleagues for showing them up. Oh yes, said his colleagues, they had heard about his Good Samaritan job. Who sent him? What was he trying to do: make them look bad in the eyes of the public? Didn’t he know that the meaning of that constituency allowance? Constituency allowance, they patiently explained to him only because he was a first offender, is for you and your family. Come next time, they let him know, they would not be so easy on him. Now you know why classrooms are dreary here.

I am told that Nigeria has become so advanced that the rather advanced enjoyments we normally associate with the more technologically advanced western world, have been brought right to our doorstep. Previously, they said, politicians and other government functionaries used to be taken abroad and introduced to behaviours that signified change in levels. Now, there is no need to go that far. When a politician is elected, I am told, there are bars in nearly every Nigerian state capital where he can be taken to be introduced to the good life. There, he is waited on by all kinds of topless bar maids, in terms of clothing that is. You got it: if it’s in my city, it’s likely to be in yours too; and they are mostly patronized by politicians.

Now, this is the point. Our schools are suffering because our politicians are too busy acquiring and upping their tastes in buildings, acquisitions and good living to pay attention to state matters. I don’t know about you but I think one of the most tedious jobs in existence is looking after a roomful of two or so year-olds. When I had two-year-olds in my charge, I found myself perpetually holding a cane, my brows met permanently in the middle, and my teeth were bared all the time as I snarled ‘leave that alone,’ ‘get away from there’ from sun up till sun down. It was the classical tale of horror.

Yet, for this great job, many teachers hardly get paid enough. Even the little they are supposed to get hardly come to them. So, many teachers had to find other ways out to the detriment of their jobs. As I speak, there are states and local governments in this country that still owe their teachers many months in salary arrears. Yet, the politicians that man the posts of every school in Nigeria, right from and right through the governor, senator, representative, assembly man, councilor, etc, are taken care of or take care of themselves in extraordinary ways, even to the good stuff.

As a tribute to all teachers in this country, I want to tell this story of encouragement. Once, I attended a wedding where the chairman of the reception was the bride’s primary school teacher. The choice, I was told, had been the lovely bride’s. It had been that bride’s way of acknowledging all that the teacher had imparted in her life. The teacher probably earned no more than a pittance, and had no way of knowing that he would not even be forgotten by his charges as soon as they left him to go to secondary school. Yet he did his work well. To his surprise that day, he had not only been invited to the wedding (to show he was not forgotten), he was made the chairman of the reception (to show he was appreciated).

True, there are teachers who do not do their work well, and they are many. To these we say that there will be a day of reckoning. The teacher’s reward may be in heaven or earth, wherever; but the teacher’s reckoning is always here on earth I assure you. A judge once asked his teacher to sit in his courtroom and write five hundred lines for coming late to her hearing. It was in retaliation. There are some who do their work rather indifferently because they are ill-remunerated; if the children want, let them understand. To such we plead a change of heart. Every effort has its own reward. Believe me, days of chairmanship do come; but our day of reward should meet us worthy of the accolade. There are also teachers who, in spite of their circumstances, still strive to ensure that while their pupils are grasping the teachers’ skirts and their neighbours’ catapults, they also grasp some knowledge. To these we say carry on.

Today, we pay tribute to teachers the world over for the job they do. If we can pay politicians so much for mixing up and frothing the very air we breathe and turning it to noxious fumes, I think we need to do a rethink on how we remunerate our teachers. Many of them have anxieties about their tomorrow because they cannot feed well or even send their children to school. This is the time to assure them that the country cares. For now, let’s just bring out the shekere and shake it to the deserving ones

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