*Jack Knows No Jack About Teaching*

Every Hassan, Uche, and Ade out there thinks they know what teachers do. Teachers talk. Teachers write. Teachers teach. Nothing more or less.


You think you know what teachers do. After all you sat in classes for a number of years. Thirteen straight years perhaps. You had your nursery teachers. Primary teachers. Secondary teachers. Social Studies teachers. Agric teachers. Maths teachers....


You know which teachers are good. Which teachers are bad. Which teachers change life for good. Which teachers change life for worse. Which teachers unchange life. And which teachers suck.


The teaching profession has no mystery. It has no mystique. No abracadabra. No hide-and-seek. It has no respect.


No! You are wrong. You don't know teachers. You just don't know that you don't know.


You need to honour teachers. You need to respect them. Listen to them. Praise them. You need to stop thinking you know what teaching is all about just by mere virtue of having once stayed in the class.


Simbi sat in class for years. Moved a bit higher. Got an NCE, a B.A. and an M.A. in Education. Those 20 years didn't make her a teacher. Not even her Masters in Education. Until she became an expert. Until she was a professional. Until she knew how to inspire students, how to make a difference. Until she taught in the class. She never knew she didn't know what teachers do. She wasn't a teacher until she was a teacher.


But Ms Simbi still stays in her one-room apartment. Her 11 years in teaching cannot afford her a decent flat. She is paid. Poorly paid. And she commands no respect. Except the 'yes ma' she gets in class. And not beyond. Ms Simbi gets no dignity from anybody. Because everybody thinks they know what she does. Because she is a teacher.


Barrister Ali is a prestigious lawyer. He has practised law for 5 years. Six years as a law student had no more prepared him for the practice of law than 20 years of experience as a student had prepared Ms Simbi to teach. He doesn't work as hard as Ms Simbi. She works ten times harder. Maybe he works pretty much less.


But he earns big. Ten times bigger than Ms Simbi. And he lives big. Gets more cash. More mansions. More cars. And much more respect. Because law is a profession. Because law is a practice. Because nobody knows what practising law means. Because defending cases is a mystery to you.


But teaching is no mystery. Any Aisha, Chioma, and Lola can do teaching.


You. Are. Wrong!


All of you former students have no more idea of what it is to teach than you do of what it is to practice law. You did not design curricula, plan lessons, write lesson objectives, attend staff meetings, create exams, assess papers, mark registers. You did not write on the chalkboard and simultaneously peeped at the naughty students who tried to sneak out the window.


You did not plan lessons that succeeded.
You did not plan lessons that failed.


You did not laugh --because you so desperately wanted to cry -- when you read the unmentionables on students' exams papers. You did not weep helplessly because some faceless terrors had slaughtered a favorite student in Borno. Or faint because some of your students were kidnapped.


You did not. And you don't know. Maybe you learned. And perhaps you tutored. But you did not teach. No, you didn't!


The problem with the teaching profession is that every Jack out there thinks they know what teachers do. So they prescribe. And condemn. And criticize. And theorize. And politicize.


They. Do. Not. Know!


They do not listen to those who know. The Teachers!

(Happy Teachers Day)