I have had many good teachers that have affected my life tremendously. Mr. Innocent, my undergrad project supervisor, whose unwavering support of me and my dreams was the nitro boost that kept me going during my extra year in school. Mrs. Ebubeze, my primary two homeroom teacher, who treated me like I was her daughter and always gently asked what the problem was whenever I wrote “X uncountable” next to someone’s name on the noisemakers’ list. My lecturers during my M.A. program, who further renewed my faith in pedagogy and encouraged me to reach higher heights. However, amid this sea of outstanding teachers I have had, two remain the crispest in my mind: Aunt Vero and Mr. Victor.
Aunt Vero was my homeroom teacher at May Blossom Nursery School. She treated my younger brother and me like we were her children. I remember periods when my then three-year-old younger brother would abandon his lunchbox and the snacks in there to eat okpa with Aunt Vero and randomly tell her, “Aunt Vero, I love you.” Sure, she would scold us when we erred, but her scolds were kind and never aimed at abrading our fledgling self-esteem.
As my parents always wanted the best for us, they employed Aunt Vero to give my brother and me extra lessons at home. It felt like celebrating Christmas multiple times a year. Aunt Vero was not just an excellent teacher, she was positive energy. Whenever we got perfect scores on a test, she would celebrate it like we had won scholarships, give us little gifts and ask us to show our parents. This excitement was so infectious that our parents caught it too. I vividly remember my dad cheering because I had labeled all the parts of the human body correctly—and my dad was not someone who got excited carelessly!
Maybe it was because she was my first formal contact with education, but Aunt Vero made me love school so much that my acceptance form into Primary School read: eager to learn. That was the first time I had heard that word—and as I progressed with school, I would have that eagerness bludgeoned out of me.
Mr. Victor was a walking miracle, a mosaic of novel experiences and a compendium of knowledge. He was my private chemistry teacher and a great one, too. But that was not what made Mr. Victor special. Unlike most teachers who treated their students like pesky disturbances, Mr. Victor was kind, attentive, and treated me like a person, not a side job he had to sludge every weekend. He taught me the first 20 elements of the periodic table using mnemonics—and to this day, I can recall the first 20 elements in their correct order just by chanting the “He Has Light Brain But…” mantra.
He would change the topic whenever he noticed my eyes glazing over from learning about stoichiometry and azimuthal quantum numbers. We talked about all the places he’d been and all the books he’d read. We talked about Mario Puzo’s books, and although I would read my first Puzo book nearly six years later, I listened attentively. He’d tell me about his students in HRC and their exploits, Dan Brown, and ongoing experiments to recreate the big bang. When the lights were back in my eyes, we’d go back to learning Boyle’s law. After graduating from uni, I learned this was a technique in teaching called stimulus variation. He knew I loved writing and would often ask me about the little writing projects I dabbled in back then. While I loved Chemistry thoroughly, I feel the learning environment he created provided a fertile ground for that love to bloom.
For each amazing teacher I had, I have had many terrible ones. However, I will always be grateful for the good ones. The magic of good and kind teachers is something every child should experience.
And I am happy that the children at Essence International School have this in the person of Mr. Namse Udosen.
Teaching is first a vocation before it is a profession. Unfortunately, many people see it as a gap year profession, something you do till you figure out what you are passionate about. It is seldom about passion or the kids. But with Namse, this love for teaching and watering the internal worlds of his pupils shines through. To celebrate Christmas, I asked Namse to tell his students to write about a. what happiness means to them or b. the happiest days in their lives. As a child’s love is an unbridled thing, it is not surprising that Mr. Namse features in most of these essays. Below are some of the top essays:
Like what you read? Check out Like the Mind of a Child and In Numbness, I Contain Myself.
