By
Obododimma
Oha
The education
of children involves various media and those that particularly engage or target
their memorability is excellent. It is a good thing to be able to remember;
what more, to be able to remember childhood days, particularly its education.
That sage was a bit right in saying: "Train children in the way they should go
and when they are old, they won’t depart from it.” I know that some eventually
depart from it when they have come under stronger influences, but there is
always that little voice of training ringing
in our heads. Also, a child may be trained early to pick pockets, to steal, but
is eventually made to see that this kind of life is bad. So, that child changes
and even preaches against the bad life, as an authority on it (you would say)! That noted, one
would observe that those media used by intelligent teachers and minders, like
drawings and songs, could carry long-lasting ideological power. As I go down
memory lane now to remember my primary school education, my adult mind goes to
those simple but powerful means my teachers taught long-lasting lessons. I am
thinking of Assembly Ground or marching songs, wall murals, and other
interesting illustrations from local culture.
Yes, the
Assembly Ground. One had to run to school to be part of it. What the punishment
for late-comers could not accomplish for our teachers, the strong desire to
join in singing those songs every morning did. It was a thing of joy to line up in the school
uniform, one with the crowd, to sing a song that spoke about an important
aspect of what our teachers wanted for us. The songs were our teachers’ voices.
And who was that fellow to stand against what a “mansa” dictated? Our mansas (masters) meant well and one could see it. Some even had to enter the soccer pitch
brandishing a cane. Kick the ball anyhow and his cane would deal with your back
right there in the filed! So, we learnt to kick the ball with all our heart and
to play with the intention of winning. What said it more eloquently was one
lovely marching song:
When you have
anything to do,
Anything to
do,
Anything to do,
Anything to do?
(Repeated; X 2)
Do it,
Do it well!
Do it,
Do it well!
There were two features of the song one would
like to focus on. One was the crescendo (at the end of the first stanza), the rising pitch before the repetition.
The second, naturally, is the repetition. But generally, one found such school
folklore highly captivating and very complementary to our learning.
The crescendo
coincided with one’s rising involvement and ecstasy in singing the song. The
crescendo was the climax from which
point you hammered home your point for remembrance sake. “When you have anything
to do, do it well.” No; it did not say when you are doing wrong or following
the wrong way, you should swear not to listen to good advice, to perish. It did
not say that if you are hired and given an AK-47 rifle and asked to go from
community to community massacring citizens, that you should kill people as if it meant nothing and
beat your chest! It did not say that if you are perpetuating injustice in
government, that you should do it with the hope of entering the Guinness Book of
Records.
But it leaves
one with the tenacity in pursuing a noble task and being excellent. Yes, it is
like that soccer match or any competition. Play it according to the rules of
the game, putting your heart in it and hoping that your team would win at the
end! It is a beautiful hope, a good hope.
Is it not
interesting that it was sung by school children dressed as ONE and in motion?
Yes; they were marching forwards, to the future, their future. They were not
collectively going backwards. To go back would amount to apologizing to our
ancestors who saw formal education as nonsense and kicked against it. Does our
formal education now involve marching backwards?
It was also
something placed on our lips. Something placed on one’s lips would go down in
some way into one’s system and colour one’s thinking. In a sense, the marching
song dispensed an ideology one had to live by later. When one had anything
(noble) to do, one should do it well. Did you notice what I inserted in the
trace?
There was
also the interesting repetition. Repetition has always helped emphasis and memorability.
It was important to begin to create a foundation for remembering. We should be
able to remember as rational humans. Actually, what one chooses to remember is
crucial. In that case, why can’t the thing worth remembering be made a song and
placed on the lips of children? Children remember a lot. Yes; these one’s
formative years and one should be caught young. Sorry for those who are lost
early! It is a great tragedy.
The
repetition had a great psychological effect on the singer and everyone that
sang submitted to it. We were one in proclaiming a sense of seriousness in
wrestling with the future, and with the world.
Another media
of our early learning one remember was the wall mural. Well, every one of our
teachers had to be a good artist of a kind. Our teachers had a lot to
illustrate in their lessons, to aid comprehension, especially those themes central to their teaching. There were, of
course, wall murals drawn by accomplished artists hired to illustrate our walls.
Our “mansa’” decided what was painted. Again, what was drawn was either in oil
or form that would not easily disappear! Anyway, who had the guts to erase
them?
One wall
mural done in oil paint and facing our class said in Igbo: “ị ga-adị ndụ ma ị
rachaba” (You would be healthy if you eat fruits). The mural had squirrels
eating fruits and looking healthy. The message was clear. Any of us that wanted
to be healthy, should learn from the animals and eat (good) fruits. I am sure
those is Nutrition and Food Sciences are excited! That Nature Study lesson started long ago
from our primary school, Holy Cross Central School, and our teachers were
professors pointing to healthy living. Who says knowledge is not cumulative
and that what a child is taught by a wall mural is useless. Now that I remember
the important topic the wall mural taught decades ago, I embrace the memory of
great teachers! ị ga-adị ndụ ma ị rachaba!
Is it not
interesting that the wall mural faced our class, faced us while we learnt? The
wall mural is ever before us, teaching loudly. The wall mural also had a
linguistic text in Igbo. The text was not in English, a colonial language and
so it was culturally near us. Also, the
squirrels were culturally near us. We could relate with the drawing, for we
hunted for squirrels everyday or saw the fruits illustrated. The fruits were
not apple or some foreign thing. They were the fruits we knew and took for
granted or overlooked as unimportant. Is it not true that banana or udala
(wrongly called star apple and which for me is just udala) would got ripe and one can’t touch it because it has been
sold? The banana is not for the family table, except, maybe somebody led by the
spirit buys it on the way home. So, sorry for those who sell these fruits
instead of learning from our elementary school wall mural and harvesting them
to eat and be healthy first. Ha ga-adị ndụ ma ha rachaba (They would be healthy if they ate fruits) and not hope to get
health from multivitamin capsules.
One is still
remembering the lessons taught by the eloquent media at school. Those were the
days when knowledge has not been put on trial, when teachers loved what they
did, teaching us with their lives, hoping that as we marched into the future
and replaced them, things would get better, not worse.
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