CHIOMA ERUOTOR
The Classroom is a Country
EachdayasIstepintomyclassroom,Ifeellikethepresident himself. A classroom to me often feels like a country with different children from different backgrounds, with different experiences, all with their own unique style of learning as no child will be like the other. It’s amazing what I’ve learnt from children over the years in this teaching journey of mine. One of the values I cherish is patience, putting yourself in the child’s mind and understanding that his/ her challenges are not of his/her own making and not expecting the child to meet your standard just because it’s a standard you have set. Another value is that of discovery, as a teacher you are constantly searching for a thousand ways of doing one thing to meet the needs of the diverse classroom which youfindyourself.EachtimeIgetaskedthisquestion“how manychildrendoyouhave?”Withouteventhinkingabout it I blurt out “25”. But in reality I’m actually being asked of my own biological children. I see my class children as my own as I carry their joy, their challenges, their fears, their confusion all home with me. There are times I just burst into laughter as a flash back goes through my mind of an event of that day or days before, but the sweetest joy that money can’t buy is when my citizens accomplish a set task with a complete understanding of it, weather I’m there or not. (I consider those days the best days ever). IcanstillrecallwhenIgotanappointmenttoheadaschool in Lagos. As I resumed the first day, I was introduced to a lady who happened to be my namesake. It was going to be her first school year as a teacher, as I spoke to her behind her white blouse and long flowing skirt and her smile, I could sense her nervousness. I looked at her and said, you will be fine, before you know it, you would have completed your first school year as a teacher. As her journey began, she often made fun of my comments to my class children as I often spoke to them as if we were mates, one of my most popular comments till date would have to be “if you think I’m going to let you have a break time without completing your task then you must be a joker.” One would wonder if the four-year-olds under my care could decode the meaning of my comments, but in a strange and funny way they did as they would look at me in the eye and focus on the task given as no one wanted to be a joker. Asateacher,Iknowinmyheartthatthechildreninmycareare lookinguptome,thateverywordIsay,everybodylanguage andeyecontactmeanssomethingtothem,asthechildrenare expectant,soarethefamilies, the school and the country as well.