Education Should Be Flexible

Some of us have got tough times in school, others have not, do not and will not. But until I see Education become what it ought to be, I will not be quite satisfied with our educational system, neither will I let any school teacher take the glory of having made me whom I am and will be as regards to career success. I say so because only a few teachers are doing a great job, and that is because they do not have all the power to change the system. Education is an all round thing. There is much more to it than what comes into our minds when we hear that word. Have you eaten chicken today? Now, take a sip of orange juice. It's not always sober and frowned faces when it has to do with 'Education'. I need you to follow me through this journey. While I write, please read, consider, relate, register and share your views. It is a beautiful part of education to share opinions, to unlearn and relearn.

We know that lots of people have written books on why students fail, and how to make a distinction in an examination. Students have read these books and they keep failing tests and examinations. But there is something that marvels me about some students who have tough time making good grades in examinations and class tests. I will site my examples with persons involved in this reality. It is something that I have taken my time to observe and I will not entertain any pride blowing their trumpet. You know, Sarah is young girl I met in my school. She is my junior, who spends lots of her time watching movies, especially Korean movies. Some people attribute her less grades to her watching movies, but I have seen Sarah read seriously during exams and I don't think so. One need not turn the head upside down before they can read and understand as much as they should for an examination. But you know what? she thrills me when it comes to being smart. I mean that she's good in tough games and current affairs that I'm far from. Sarah knows the Bible better than an average Christian should know and better than I do. I think she was exposed to lots of reading and watching that built her brain of information to an admirable level.

For me, she knows enough that compensates and advocates for her lack of A1 grade. A software company director had recruited employees and the best of his workers turned out to be the one with the least of school result. Being a man of experience and open minded fellow about life, he didn't fear to give her a trial, on seeing her CV and interviewing her. Oh! Don't start chewing me up yet. I am not saying that you, as a first class student is unappreciated or invaluable. If all the first class students in my class were the only students we had, class would have been boring beyond our imagination because right now, it is as bored as what you can imagine. I also have backbenchers sit like dummies! but most of the times, it is the low grade students who bring up innovative ideas and click a button of laughter and liveliness once in a while. Hope you're not planning on alighting from this first class train. The journey has just begun and I see you liking this last part of it. Everything that I have written up there boils down to saying that Education is not exactly what it ought to be!Here is a fact; we don't have dull students, we have inflexible teachers!All living things digest food; but in different processes. What exactly I want us to know and discuss is that most times, it is not the students being unable to learn, understand and reproduce; it is the teachers being unable to feed, or say, impact.

There is not one method to feed breast milk to a baby. If a baby isn't comfortable with having the mother's nipple in its mouth, it can have it from a feeding bottle. 'All na breast milk feeding'. My dear, take a sip of that orange juice again, otherwise, water is fine. What we expect today is; students should sit in a class and listen to boring speeches in the name of lectures everyday. It is worst in west Africa from my research and observations. Children are expected to be in school from morning till evening. There are no practical, intelligent and recreating extracurricular activities. People are so busy starting up academic institutions, not having innovative ideas of how to impact knowledge. There are so many forms of impacting knowledge, and a person cannot be expected to fit into a particular method. That is a height of ignorance on the part of teachers, as long as education is concerned. So let's go ahead to talk about this. Are you tired yet? Please don't be. Well, if you are, I cannot say that you are very lazy and not serious. You just might hate reading, and reading long stuff, maybe at a time. Maybe you prefer to come back and read this. You can as well drop your contact with us and we will remind you if you tell us to do so. When a person doesn't pass the test of a teacher who impacts by the help of a textbook/guideline verbatim, he or she is cursed and supposed unworthy to be a student. Gbam! it hits me hard and angry here, because we instead depreciate the learning power of a child by insisting that he or she should perfectly be able to learn in a particular way. A teacher be flexible. The younger generation need to be better than we are. They shouldn't be penalized for not being able to pass an exam and forget that they can do better in a system of not having to read a textbook and memorize it, remembering its pages and sub-headings, and reproducing it in a black sheet to be marked and graded. Everyone have different memory capacity. Anyone can understand a thing that she/he is meant to understand if they were taught in the different ways which they tend to understand better. But what happens? A particular way of teaching; a particular expected way of learning. I hate a system of education which forces students to do something that will not help them, however in life. I hate this system of education which makes a fish dwell on ground. I hate a system of education which confines her students in a classroom, that when they come out to the world, they are confused like a puberty stained with menstrual blood for the first time. I hate a system of education that confines students within the four walls of boredom. I hate a system of education that ignore values, etiquette of communication, etc. , and fail to encourage decency. Education is beyond a teacher pointing at the board. Education is beyond imparting.

For me, "EDUCATION IS DEVELOPING OR TRAINING THE MIND OF A PERSON TO THINK BIGGER AND BETTER, AND EMPOWERING THEIR HANDS TO ACT BIGGER AND INVENT SOLUTIONS". No one is perfect, definitely, but then, there is a level of perfection education should bring to us even we had a better system, starting from how we speak to people, to how we relate with them, even to being able to come up with solutions, both personal and societal. I feel like we have a system of education brings unnecessary excitement; excitement that "Oh, I got an admission", and after all, a graduate cannot make a simple CV to find a job. A graduate cannot critically analyse situations with. A graduate cannot speak in a way that attracts and keep attention. It is unfortunate where we are at. If I were to be given an opportunity to suggest a system, it will be practically one that gives every child a chance to discover themselves, to think wild and be criticised, to invent within the four walls of school and to be confident at the time of graduation that "I have arrived and I am ready to face the world!"This system of education that forces a fowl to live in the river; it shrinks creativity, liveliness, initiative, and should be discouraged.