Here's How I chose To Celebrate My Teachers On World Teacher's Day

Today is World Teacher’s Day. So, as a way to celebrate those who have helped to make me what I am today (my teachers), I decided to sit down and look back at time and draw up a list of all the teachers who taught and impacted me (positively and otherwise).

Celebrating World Teachers Day

Nursery School – Aunty Pat, through her I learnt the two times table.

Primary School -Ajegunle Nursery and Primary School (P.s Not the popular Ajegunle) –

Pry 1 – Mrs Akande

Pry 2 – Mrs Omojugbagbe

Pry 3 – Mr. Alli fondly called baba Ade, he was also a photographer and had an okada (a motor cycle)

Pry No – nope, I got double promoted from 3 to 5.

Pry 5 Mrs. Akinremi

PRY 6 – Mrs Ndukwe. She gave her lunch to me whenever I had no money for food. A very wonderful woman she was.

Head Teacher – Mrs V.O Ogunremi.

Other important teacher I had in primary school included Mrs. Dada. It was her who began calling me Dr. Jude. Funny, back then I only knew doctors to be those who treated sick people, and i never really liked the idea of treating people. Today i realise that academicians can also become doctors – by that I mean Thought Leaders, something I’m working towards.

Then there was Mrs Jayeola, the very social and talkative teacher whose presence always carried life. There was Mrs. Ihebinike and Master. I also had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Ihenmadu at the Local Government Education Authority. Under her watchful eye, I was able to win laurel for myself and school and state.

Junior Scondary School – Ogba Junior Grammar the School.

After primary school, we got split into different groups. All the girls were shipped to one school while the boys went to another. I was pissed off back then but looking back, I think it did more good than bad. So here is the list.

JSSI

Maths – Mrs Oloruntowoju. Her gentle and slim frame was always reassuring. Although I never had real issues with math, her lessons were very encouraging. She is the only teacher who also gave, a book. Something I still cherish till date.

Business Studies – Mr Ajayi. This left handed man gave cane lashes sent you to trouble shooting mode. Funny enough, I never liked his class.

Some Corpers : Here’s the only thing I remember about them. They came in batches. The first set had one funny girl like that. She said she was bleeding and I was like bleeding keh? I checked her all over oh! Including the other bleeding that couldn’t be seen by face value. Only when she corrected herself by saying I’m PLEADING’ did I understand what she was trying to communicate.

JSS 2 –

Math – Mr. Adekunle. I remember his well pressed trouser with gator clearing showing. The trousers used to shine. I envied him so much io had to begin to put razor sharp gators on my own shorts.

Yoruba – Mrs Bolarin. Okay! When you say you have a beautiful teacher, Mrs Bolarin epitomised it. This dark skinned tall, sleek and pretty Yoruba diva happened to teach me Yoruba. Just staring at her face was enough for this Edo indigene youngster to turn from a Yoruba dullard to become best in class. Mrs Bolarin also had a nice black Kia Rio back then. I won’t as forget the day she asked me to help her clean her office. As she watched me clean, she gently said to a colleague close to her ‘omo yi gbe ko’ Yoruba for this child is well trained or culture. Aka he has home training. Just hearing that was something so special for me.

Business Studies – Mrs Nkemjika; this funny Delta Ibo woman was awesome. She was beautiful and had this dimple on her cheeks that made her smile exciting. Again, although i was never good in business studies, just seeing her face was a consolation. Dhe also taught the same subject in JSS 3.

Other JSS2 teachers were the Igbo Language teacher whose near Deeper Life/Lords Chosen nature – calm, and focused was nice. She won me over by her smile, soprano voice and gentle nature. I also actually developed a fondness for those to the east of the Niger at that point.

My JSS 2 Social Studies teacher and class teacher. We called him master. That’s all I can remember of him.

Then my JSS 2 Home Economics teacher. I remember scoring 100 in the second term and I really felt nice. There was Mrs, Opurum who drove a Kia Optima too. The Home Econs lab was a place I never enjoyed going to. I also did make a table mat during my JKSS 2 class.

JSS 3

It’s funny that I can’t remember any of my JSS 3 teachers. Not my fault sha!

Again after the JSS section, the entire set got split into four different secondary schools. Mine was BFMSS.

Senior School – Babs Fafunwa Millennium Senior Secondary School.

S S 1

Maths  - Can’t remember

Biology – Mrs Kehinde

English – Mrs Kehinde

Geography – Mrs John

Chemistry – Mrs Bamidele

Further Maths – Mr Obi

Physics – Mrs Opeolu

My Economics teacher was war. Okay, you see, she was heavily endowed in the front. So all I saw whenever she was around was the endowment. And she didn’t package it well.. Don’t get me wrong, she dressed well but her bust just always gather our attention. Then she had issue with English, An example was saying SCARED instead of SQUARED.

SS 2

Maths – Mrs Daramola

English – Mrs Kehinde

Biology – Mrs Olorunfunmi

Chemistry – God knows I will never remember her name sef!

Geography – Mr Adeosun

Physics – Mr Adeyemi aka Agama

Further Maths – Mrs Obi

Economics – one old woman whose name I know I won’t be remembering at all. She was the opposite of my SS 1 Economics teacher, I vividly remember her coming to class and just because the class wasn’t that clean she asked everyone to pace their heads ob the desk only for her two dish two painful twaks of the cane on our back. Well, trust me after that experience, I dropped the subject. Till I left school, I never got above 65 in the course. I replaced it with Further maths while I dropped Agric for Technical Drawing (Mr Udoh).

Oh yeah! The chemistry teacher, like seriously, some teachers just make you hate a subject f rife. That’s exactly what this teacher did to me. She was so fast – wanted to finish the curriculum. She had a hard face and was nearly inaccessible (though I was also not the question asking type of student) but I dropped so much in her class. I had text books but it didn’t make sense. THAT was when Organic Chemistry knew it would shoe its face. Organic Chemistry was the end of Chemistry for me. Funny, though, while I dropped in Chemistry, I ROSE IN Physics. All in a way due to the kind of teacher I had. You see Mr Adeyemi was the teacher to fear. It wasn’t that he was a flogger, it’s just that reputation he had. Everyone feared him and ran whenever he was on the corridor. The first day he taught my class physics, seeing his playfulness, and unbelievable ability to simplify the hard stuffs in physics. The whole physics just dissolved into my head. However, he died before the second term began so Mrs. Opeolu had to help out even in SS 3.

SS 3 – Best class.

Maths – Mrs Daramola – she was a regular teacher. She usually carried her hair short hair but her teaching was always wonderful. She would pay attention to her students and give corrections to assignments. Her classes were awesome. It was through her I learnt how to use a broom to draw the curve when drawing a graph.

English – Mrs Odigwe – This woman goes down in my Teacher Hall of fame. The way she taught phonetics was different. The day we had to read the story of one eyed Sunday in Intensive English in class, my eyes got open. Others were her class on Summary writing and Intonation. All these so much impacted on me that I just developed a love for reading and the arts. Till date, her influence is much appreciated.

Biology – Mrs Olorunfunmi

Physics – Mrs Opeolu

Che,istry – Mrs Bamidele.

Geography – I remember she drove a Toyota Prado jeep. She was fair to behold and probably had a rich husband. But she was fine sha! - which helped to make the class nice.

Technical Drawing – Mr Udoh

Further Maths – Mr Obi

Others were Mr. Alo who became my school Daddy just because he had the same body built as me.