Mr. Teacher and his trauma as another suffers broken limbs in a student’s vicious attack
Femi OGUNLANA
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Being a public school teacher is not one to be envied. Because he is at the receiving end in various scenarios. No one really cares for him. Everyone wants to persecute him. It is only his “head” that saves him.
If his student exhibits behavioural pattern bordering on acts that breach morality termed indiscipline, he is chastised for lacking in uprightness and effectiveness and is chided for laid-back approach; if he upholds high level discipline as a standard he is deemed as too harsh. Let a student get injured or pays the supreme price while being made to toe the path of rectitude, Mr. Teacher faces severe consequences.
Nobody cares for his feelings, for his delicate position. In external exams his student must pull off remarkable successes, nobody cares for how conducive the environment he is made to impart knowledge is or consider the predisposition of his student to learning. He is stereotyped as a superhero. The student is not willing to learn or study but wants to be paddled to pass. Mr. Teacher must not allow that. If he does, he is subjected to unsavoury punishment. His student therefore seeks salvation elsewhere, in the ubiquitous private miracle harbours, which isn’t under the beam of scrutiny. The student refuses to register in his school for the ultimate exams, thus Mr. Teacher’s reward is reaped by someone else. He strives to retain his student as candidate though an unwilling accomplice. The contention to secure his student’s retention overwhelms him, what his student craves he abhors. Such infraction he must not condone though overlooked elsewhere, perpetrated without much ado. That deprives him of his student in the ultimate transition exam. It is a serious quandary.
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His student is propelled to run riot, if he wields the big stick and something untoward happens to his wayward student he is treated like a common felon, likewise, if he hesitates in wielding the big stick and his student in his exuberance falls into accident or makes another of his ilk meets with unfortunate occurrence the teacher they want to make the scapegoat shouting he is incompetent.
When he inflicts injury on his student while trying to instil decorum in him, a public outcry ensues, they bay for his blood; but if he is the one at the receiving end of his student’s brutality he is abandoned, he is ignored, he is made to fend for himself. He suffers in solitude, he bears his cross alone.
As it happened last week in Ogbomoso, a public secondary school teacher was advertently and cruelly shoved to the ground by a vicious student, he brutally fell on the wrong side, he suffers broken limbs, he now bears the pain and agony alone, crumpled prostrate in a convalescent home, crushed by enormous financial burden (this particular one already exceeding over half a million naira), such is never an issue either to the public or government. He must bear his cross alone. Were it to be a student that suffers such calamity from Mr. Teacher, an uproar will break forth, the society will bear the cudgels to skin the teacher and his colleagues, government will be in frenzy to mete out punishment.
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The traumas of being a teacher, many are they. But he bears them with equanimity. He is ringed, he is in the middle of the ocean all alone. He is envied. He is mocked. He is bullied. He is victim of circumstances. His only bulwark however is the omnipotent who perpetually fights for him. Because he is a light that illuminates the world. He is the torch bearer. The purveyor of knowledge. The mother of all professions. The core of civilization. The moulder of the individuals changing the world for greater greatness and comfortability. The teacher, he is the one laying the foundation of the breathtaking technological breakthroughs we are witnessing. The builder of leaders. The basic leader of leaders. The first inspiration, the first role model. He deserves greater respect. The teacher, he must be respected. He must be protected. He needs to be pampered to extract his greatest passion, his maximum dedication, to unleash his turbo engine. Hold him in disdain and you hold the society’s future in disdain. Respect Mr. Teacher.
