I am Back!

Hi everyone! I have been away for four whole months ( I hope someone noticed), due to technical, personal, and many other good reasons. Well, Laura is back and promises to make it up to you. While I was away, a lot happened which resulted to a lot of bottled up feelings. I do hope to finally gain some form of mental freedom as I share some of them with you. Here goes one of them.... I AM GETTING MARRIED TO THE MAN OF MY DREAMS. I literally screamed that out. I got engaged in September to the sweetest person ever. I was amazingly taken off guard in a restaurant while stuffing pie down my throat. Well, the rest is a long story that is for my heart only (sorry).

I chose to share that piece of  very personal information because I have learned a lot in a short period. In my subsequent post, I will share with you what I consider 'life changing' lessons.  Until then, please tell your friends that Laura has returned and don't forget to bookmark my blog.

Warmest Regards!
Laura

Who defines who you are?

I know that the title of this particular line of thought sounds sermon-ish and so a number of people may attempt to answer the question by quickly saying that we are spiritual beings having human experiences (which I must confess is an opinion I personally uphold as true).  Well, I do not desire to preach rather I hope to just candidly share something that has been on my mind for a while.

Through the years, I have discovered that I have been a victim of what I call 'identity loss'. It is a syndrome that masks who a person really is by replacing that information with other external views about the person. By external I mean, opinions sustained by friends, family, colleagues etc. This is how it works: you begin to tag yourself what certain people have called you and you don't believe otherwise. It sounds a bit like inferiority complex but its different actually. Let me share a vivid example: in my undergraduate days i hated skirts and also hated myself each time I had to wear one. Hmmmm..I wasn't born that way (lol). I just grew to hate them 'cause a close friend of mine told me repeatedly that my legs were too thin for skirts. So I stuck to trousers. In fact, I hated even the idea of wearing them and saw them as my reproach. Meanwhile, I didn't have any opinion of my own as to whether they looked good on me or not. During  my one year of mandatory service to my country, I received another shocker when a colleague told me that she wished she could look as amazing as I did in skirts( I had to wear them a couple of times). I didn't know what to believe anymore. I had to seek the opinions of many other people, with the hope of holding on to the majority party. Eventually, I ended up wishing I had bought more skirts before that time. For me, it was another case of putting other people's view about me before mine. I had to take some time to x-ray many things I believed about myself that weren't from the me inside, and to my amazement what I believed about myself was pale in comparison to the borrowed beliefs that I had sustained about my life.

I decided to share this with you 'cause i currently feel freer than I have ever done in a long time. This is because I began the journey of exposing myself to the truth of who I really am, by first asking God to reveal the me in me and help me enjoy that person. I also decided to cut myself some slack, enjoy the choices I make and stand by them. I made the choice of  being proud of the progress I make each day deliberately. It probably sounds silly but it is working for me. I ask myself questions, give myself time to answer and consciously do not allow worry steal the moments. If I do some of these same things for others, I should do same for me too. Its a whole new terrain and I am exploring it with subtlety and relish...

The Cry of a Dying Education System

Recently, I wrote an article which i kinda liked and i thought to share...enjoy the read!

In his summary of the first year of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (1996), Nelson is noted to have said that ‘there can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children’. If any credence is to be given to the above statement, then it would be right to say that the failing health of the Nigerian educational system is consequent upon the pervading ill-health of the nation. Like every sector of the Nigerian nation, the education system in the country cries for fresh air in the midst of the choking smoke of corruption. For the sake of clarity, corruption denotes the dishonest exploitation of power for personal gain. So to say that corruption is gradually gaining ascendency in the stream of consciousness of most Nigerians is to make a statement not devoid of truth.

Looking at the Nigerian education system in retrospect, one would realize that like our political system, we are yet to master the system we inherited from our colonial past. We seem to be fiddling and experimenting with it while interpreting its operation by our limited exposure to it. Education is beyond the school uniforms, weekly school assembly and the not so consistent appearance of teachers in class. It involves more complex details and requires more attention than we bestow to it. It is empowerment, transformation and impact. It can be likened to an extreme make-over show, where a person walks in to the show with many defects, a weak self esteem and a desire to be better, and is transformed by a series of rehabilitating programs. Such a person walks out of that place believing he can conquer the world because he believes he has been shown how to conquer himself and empowered to face the world. The kind of education we currently operate is one that is yet to do justice to youth empowerment.  When one listens to the undergraduates of these days, one is forced to wonder what the years in secondary school were spent achieving. So we ask the question: What exactly is wrong with our own system of education?

Having garnered some level of experience from teaching in both private and federal academic institutions and my own schooling experience, I have noted one major cause of our debilitating academic standards: The dwarfed, underdeveloped nature of the system itself. We all agree that the world is a global village but the most interesting unsaid part of that statement is the fact that the world wasn’t always global but it grew to its current status. I have noticed with keen interest how we struggle to develop other spheres of life but have given little attention to education. These days, development in the education sector is synonymous to more blocks of classroom, free education and more educational materials. These things are good but are nothing in comparison to the cutting edge academic achievements of other countries. In my opinion, our educational system is yet to take giant strides towards growth and its attendant development. Our approach has been one that displays mediocrity rather than a determination to liberate our society from the shackles of poverty and educational backwardness. For instance, only a handful of secondary schools in Nigeria organize tutorial classes for students who are ‘slow’ in learning and need extra attention. We rather have afternoon/evening classes organized by schools, aimed at helping teachers complete their syllabuses and make more money; and tutorial institutes which basically prepare students for WAEC, NECO and JAMB examinations. But that is not the case in more developed countries. In the United States for instance, schools organize tutorial programs, where the most brilliant students in class volunteer to help their colleagues who need academic help. These special sessions are supervised by the school authority but handled by students. These sessions end up achieving two things: the student tutors are given the opportunity to read wider and assimilate more, while the tutees also have the chance to gain what they missed and ask questions they couldn’t ask their teachers. This whole program creates a challenging atmosphere necessary for students to achieve.

 Another issue is the use of computers with internet connections. Many schools do not have computers not to talk of internet connections and some others have but either commercialize or prohibit students from using them. Only few schools allow students access to the internet. It is a necessity which students and even their teachers need to improve upon their textbook-acquired knowledge. Things are changing rapidly around us and only the information from the internet can keep us abreast of the changes taking place. For instance, we were taught a couple of years ago that we had nine planets, but the planets are currently not nine anymore. A lot of text books still reflect nine planets, so, many students still think the planets are nine. Exposure to the internet makes up for the lapses of our outmoded textbooks. Although, it cannot be denied that the internet can pollute the minds of students when used for the wrong reason, but should we throw the baby with the bath water? Measures can be put in place to ensure that students utilize the internet with discretion.

One other area of concern is the training of teachers. Our method of training is yet to fully incorporate the study of psychoanalysis and mild mental challenges. Some children have certain mental or genetic challenges that impede their learning process, for example dyslexia, autism etc. Our education system should acknowledge these challenges and accommodate them by training teachers to recognize them while doing their best to help these students. In the same vein, our system can improve in its promptness in identifying students with outstanding potentials in oratory, art works, writing, mathematics, invention etc, by providing platforms where their gifts can be effectively harnessed and developed. Need I say more?  I have taken to heart a fundamental fact in biology that, one major characteristic of all living things is growth, and I do hope that we experience the kind of growth we need, else we all will be plagued by the stench of our dead academic system.

It is worthy of note that the nation’s educational system is bereft of individuals who have made up their minds to take up the noble vocation of empowering young minds. It used to be so in the palmy days of our fathers, now we are left with people who are tired of waiting for office jobs or people who just want to breeze in and breeze out of the system until they get pastures that are financially greener. This is not to imply that we do not have people who genuinely want to teach but they are just a handful. When our schools become laced with selfless minds with a mission to empower young people to be leaders, patriots and champions in their diverse fields of interest, our academic system will, to a large extent, get rid of truancy and examination malpractice which have eaten deep into the fabric of our school systems.

In conclusion, there is hope for a tree that is cut because at the scent of rain it will grow again. Our education system can experience the change it cries for, but we must first believe in the possibility of change; shake off the stigma of mediocrity and begin rebuilding our society. If our education system can be revived again, there is hope that Nigeria can be reborn. After all, empowering a child is empowering a nation.

                                                                                                          

                                                                                                                

                                                                                       

 

 

 

 

The Purpose...

A great man once said, "when the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable". I guess it is expedient for me to boldly say why i chose to have a blog. Well, here goes my purpose:
I belong to the class of people who use every medium possible to express their views about everything, from fashion to movies to sports( not one of my favourites) to books, love, God..the list is endless. So rather than continuing in the habit of writing to myself, i decided to share them with people who may be interested in listening to my thoughts, following my deeds and sharing my world. I do not promise to say the best words, or be the best company...but i promise to just be me, Laura. So enjoy the journey of rhetoric and tell your friends about me.