We have just witnessed a tumultuous and important moment in Nigeria. For the first time in a long time, youth all over the nation kept aside religious and tribal differences and were united in their outcry over police brutality and bad governance. Some of us have seen and participated in the protests. We have cried, we have walked, we have shared words on social media. It is now up to us to be more deliberate with our teaching. It is time we engaged in reflective pedagogical practices that force our young ones to think and ask questions.
Regardless of the subject you teach, remember to introduce/refer to this powerful movement organised and sustained by young people. You are not forcing ideologies on your students, you are throwing the subject out there and watching them form opinions, guiding them in expressing these opinions, correcting what needs to be corrected. Teach students that their voices are powerful, that these voices can build or destroy. Teach them that they matter and definitely have a role in making the society a better place.
Do not go back to the classroom and pretend like all of these did not happen. Do not pull out that textbook and start talking assessments and quizzes like people did not just lose their lives, properties, get wounded, walked for days, etc. Teachers, it is up to us to engage our students critically in the happening around us.
Let us carry this awakeness to the classrooms. You can do this through whole class discussion, small group discussions, poetry performances, panel conversations, poster designs, illustrations and comics, drama and songs, etc. Use whatever is within your reach to teach your students that they too have a place in creating change. That they can ask questions, they can dare to challenge the status quo.
These are skills the national curriculum will not specify because the powers that be do not want our students to think and care deeply about social issues to the point of causing a disruption. The curriculum want our students to pass examinations, to be money-yearning machines that can be controlled. It took us so long to wake up, it does not have to be the same with our students.
Dear teachers, the onus is on us to change this. Let us take the revolution to the classroom. One student at a time.
