The Bullying Teacher and the Bullied School Toddler
It is sad again that we have in our midst a quack teacher who thinks a toddler must write figure “6” by fire or by force. Haba! Wetin na? A three year old pupil? Wetin im go fit write? I can agree that there are exceptional toddlers. But how many tens of such toddlers can we count in a billion?
What I am saying is this: what, in the first place, is a three year old pupil looking for in school? Who is that mother or father that enrolled the kid? Is the owner of the school a trained educationist? What about the teachers? I cannot pretend that I don’t know that parents nowadays enroll their wards in schools even at age two.
Even if many parents and so-called teachers think formal school enrollment of toddlers is not intrinsically wrong at age three, it is absolutely nonsensical to think such kids ought to be taught how to read and write at that age. Three years old falls within the age bracket where kids are supposed to play to their maximum satisfaction. They are supposed to sing and to dance. To eat and to poo poo and to wee-wee. Enough of this premature school enrollment of kids.
At the end of the day, many of these kids would still grow up and their parents would have to struggle to look for miracle centers where success in WAEC and JAMB is guaranteed. What have we not seen! Let’s stop deceiving ourselves. Our kids are not ripe for formal school enrollment until they are ripe.
Abdulkadir Salaudeen
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com