By
Obododimma Oha
From the perspective of my paternal grandfather, school and schooling were great foolishness. "What have those that have been to school learnt? Is it not to speak as if they don't go to toilet and to listen to music on their expensive mobile phones?" He would have asked these bitterly.
My paternal grandfather did not allow my father to go to school. My father had to escape to Cameroon where he taught himself how to read and write. For grandfather, school was foolishness. If he were to see the shallow-mindedness of some people who have been to school today, he would have said : "You see that. I told you. School makes somebody who is stupid very stupid."
School is designed to do good and to help us become better human beings. But grandfather must have seen something he did not like which was done by people associated with school. For instance, they lived false lives and were fond of using bad language. Grandfather, therefore, thought that it was school that made them that way and would hardly think of other variables ( such as peer pressure) and would not want his own son to be ruined by school. We would conclude that he was wrong. And why wouldn't I argue against the view of grandfather when I have been to school and earn monthly salaries for teaching?
Yes, my argument. First, school generally teaches one to be refined, to be decent in thought, speech, and action. These were what many people saw and decided to send their children to school. If they can't be refined and would become wild and worse, what was the point having anything to do with school?
There was also knowledge. In fact, this could be primary. We are going to school to learn. But is it to be able to write our names and speak or write European languages correctly? No. We are not asked to discard the training by parents or the village, neither are we asked to discard all indigenous learning because of school. We are to add to the local knowledge or see how school can help local knowledge work for us.
It is embarrassing that any boy cannot climb trees in Igbo culture, because he has been to school. Or, that a lady can no longer touch the soil because always schooling that has taught her to keep long fingernails.
School has not taught anyone to discard good training from culture, neither is it an excuse for not learning how to do what is expected of one. In fact, school wants us to want to know more and to learn throughout life.
It means that schooling is not foolishness but some have made it appear so.
It is, in fact, important that we stop making going to school lose value but always look for ways of making it stronger and desirable.
Another thing is school and employment. There was an erroneous notion that if one goes to school and gets a certificate, then, one's chance of getting a paying job, "ọrụ oyibo" , is assured. How could one go to school and not secure "ọrụ oyibo" at the end? No one should even talk of self-employment.
This is where what the person who has gone to school can do comes up. Skills! Is it just to be able to read or write names, read and write letters, and use a European language? Is just to be able to use social media and comment on their updates? Is it just to carry a big phone and listen to recent tunes?
Maybe there is a decline in the desire for school. I know that some are not attending school because they like it. In fact, they are doing so in order to escape from home! They think that being at the playground at school is still better than parents watching and scolding one at home.
Being at home when one's mates were at school in those days could be risky. Once in a while, the teacher would mobilize school pupils and come to carry the classmate who failed to come to school! It was very much embarrassing. They would carry the classmate on the head and head for school. They would be singing satirically:
Onye ụjọ akwụkwọ
Ori nke mmadụ
Ebe ị jekwuru ị rie
Ị ma na ị na-aghọka
Onye ụjọ akwụkwọ
(X (Name inserted) , one afraid of school
Consumer of another person's stuff
Wherever you meet you consume
Do you know you are a trickster?
One afraid of school)
That was in those days when school meant something and being at school was seen essential for one's future.
Today, some children may behave as if they are going to school for parents and would not mind if they fail. Is failure not meant for someone?
And what of some parents who want to make sure their children are taken as successful, fraudulently even? So, grandfather would have cursed even parents. For him, schooling is a lot foolishness and it is getting worse.
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