MY STUDENTS REFUSED TO BE MENTORED

I am serving in a Government Secondary School in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State located in the Northwestern part of the country. I have been allocated to teach SS1 classes. Because of my discipline, I was given economics as a subject to teach.

Ever since my first day in the school, I have been observing the general activities of the school. I discovered that the future of the students is none of the concern of the staffs. Once a corper has been given a subject to teach, there is no supervision to know may be such corper is capable of taking the subject or not.

As we all know, not all the corps members were
trained to be teachers. There is no way we corps
members can teach the students perfectly
without little guidance from permanent teachers
in the school who are more experienced than us.
As a potential mentor that believe in a mentoring
the younger generation, my favourite quote is “if
a young person is mentored, he stands a better
chance to succeed” and that is why I am
passionate about mentoring.

I always use like 15 minutes after the time
allocated for my period to give my students
words of encouragement. I always encourage
them to be determined and focus on their
education. I told them my story. How I moved
from the second to the last position in my class
when I was in JSS1 and later graduated as the
best student in my class in SS3. But there is
something that is common to these students,
their environment is deceiving them, they rarely
see beyond Birnin Kebbi. Majority of them won’t
pay attention to the message I am always trying
to pass across. Instead they will be chorusing
“Uncle we are tired, your time is up”. I will keep
trying my best because I will like to leave a good
legacy behind before my real time is up

–Gbadegesin Kazeem ARTIX MENTOR
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