It was worth doing

‘Be strong and courageous, for your work will be rewarded.’ 2Chronicles 15:7

Dedicated to my fellow colleagues and friends at Calvary Baptist Schools:

Ayanleye Seyi Joseph, Oladiti Samuel Olatunji, Falodi toyin (Aunty Toyib)  Fagbenro Oluwatoyin Elizabeth & Amao Busayo.

Emotions were defiled; tears rolled down tender cheeks, prayers rented the air. It was a tensed and sober atmosphere, last Thursday. Why? “Twenty friends cannot play for 20years.” Or so they say, simply because, there are bound to be regroupings and re-structuring for individual, and of course, collective progress.

It was an action sparkled and tensed atmosphere to bid a heavily painful farewell to the 6 student teachers, who have diligently served the students and staff of Calvary Baptist Schools. And, yesterday (Thursday), it also became more crystal clear to me that ‘6 student teachers cannot be student teachers for more than 6weeks.’

I intentionally opted for a private secondary school for my second teaching practice exercise. To me, I needed a place to be passionately committed and massively distilled and brewed in some personal area of my life. A school I believed my conventions will be rightly challenged under the excellent administration, acute leadership of the school and of course the brilliant, diligent mind of the beautiful students. And so, I found, after failed attempts to some other private schools, Calvary Baptist Schools, Ikoyi. CBS was a square peg for my square hole. Quite on the contrary, reverse was the case. The students will surely remember I don’t spare the school when it comes to critical comparison and rational criticism in relation to other schools, most especially, my own secondary school, Wesley College of Science, Ibadan. I, like other student teachers made the students realize an urgent need for change. We therefore mobilized ourselves to ensure we position the students aright for local, national and global change. And, our efforts were well appreciated. It was evident in the grand farewell given to us at the college assembly ground, Thursday morning.

In life we meet to part and we part to meet. Thursday formed a very important day in our life as student teachers. Completion of a 6weeks compulsory teaching practice means we are making headway into destiny fulfilments. We can’t but say glory to God who has been faithful ever before now.

Never in the history of the school has it had a set of diligent, smart and lovable student teachers like us. Really, I must commend my fellow student teachers who have grown to be my friends over the course of the last 6 weeks. You guys are the best. To me, success in measured in impact, the level of success made/achieved must have a direct correlation with the level of impact made. No gain saying, our impact at CBS was lofty, and that could be felt in the grand farewell by those proud kids. We all made substantial correlate of impact.

It was a collective effort to ensure that the students were not where we met them at the end of 6weeks. Hence, every one of us was diligent to the cause we have chosen. We formed a cooperative team that was really mutual and we loved ourselves, knowing full well that an injury to one is an injury to all.

To us at Calvary Baptist Schools, we were not just interested in teaching Economics, English language, Agricultural science and more of our respective subjects, we touched lives and impacted destiny, sowing seeds of light into students’ future. We knew it was not just to teach, but change lives, model lives and mentor lives. We help some of the student right on destiny track, knowing full well that when the ‘foundation is destroyed, the righteous is left with no option but a calamitous end.

Also, we instituted a new and functional press Club, named ‘the Calvary Baptist Press Club, to relay and keep the students and staff abreast of happenings within and outside the campus community. We also set up the Junior Engineer Technician Scientists (JETS) club to help science students read ahead of their peers and to know what is out of their syllabus in a bid to grounding them into core aspect of their courses.

A day to our final exist, I had a ‘destiny chat’ with a one of the students. At a point in the middle of our discussion, the flow and depth of our discussion forced tears out of her eyes. Sincerely, I never knew she was having a special case until that day, and then, it was really no time help her more than what I’ve done by and the with the help of the Lord. While we had the farewell programme the following day, I saw her bursting in joy and laughter. And that propagated some pint of satisfaction on the inside of me. Although, not with the hitting conscience of ‘you could have done more, if you’ve started earlier.’

Finally, one vital lesson I learnt from the last 6weeks is just in the lines of this quote: “whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your heart and with all your might.” The world is watching, and so is the creator. God in heaven will move people and things to bless you for whatever is diligently done. I’m quite content with the many gifts I received from those wonderful kids, (my first teaching practice wasn’t like that) but my colleague, who wept like a baby, because he was to leave the children he loved, taught, and mentored had a substantial equivalent of material and emotional rewards. His passion, commitment, involvements and zeal paid off a great deal. That teaches me that wherever we find ourselves committed to a responsibility or given tasks to perform we are not be diligent, as the popular dictum goes: “ what is worth doing at all is worth doing well.”

God bless you.

I valve and respect your future.