The ‘them’ in this piece refers to the children in our primary and secondary schools in Nigeria. However, the reader may want to expand the coverage of the ‘them’ after reading the piece.
Few days ago, I had been invited to partake in a brainstorming session to discuss the solutions to the myriad of problems facing quality education delivery in a particular state in Nigeria. It was a gathering of brilliant, serious minded people in education practice in Nigeria. These people were not interested in talking about theories; they were more involved with pinpointing problems and proffering workable solutions.
We had been in the meeting for about two hours when a fairly elderly lady, obviously not younger than 60 years spoke for the first time at the meeting. She lives in the US and she comes into the country once in a while to do some education related work. She appreciated the brilliant contributions from the participants so far and quietly dropped the bombshell. She explained that she had visited some primary schools in the past weeks and she consistently found out the majority of the children were sort of mentally sick. According to her, these behaviorally maladjusted children need help if they will benefit at all from a school setting. She argued further that the children across the schools she visited were not learning; they were just spending time at school. She advised that as a country, we need to engage the services of psychiatrists, psychologists and doctors if we want to achieve any meaningful results. The whole room burst into rapturous laughter when the next speaker said that majority of us in Nigeria are actually mentally sick and he’s probably going to be in the top list if a census of the mentally sick people is properly conducted in Nigeria.
Issues around Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have always been something of interest to me since when I was in classroom practice. This disorder definitely has a direct impact on the cognitive, emotional and social development of the child. The child suffering from ADHD is always fidgeting, negatively self-centred, interrupting and having negative interactions with peers, lacks concentration and focus among other manifestations. It is normal for every child to once in a while, behave in a way that could point to any of the identified symptomsbut that is not enough to label the child as suffering from ADHD. A teacher may be unlucky to have one or two of such children that suffer from the neurodevelopmental disorder in his/her class. The teacher will understandably be frustrated especially if his/ her training has not prepared him/her for the special needs of the child.
I face more serious challenges now that I am out of the regular classroom practice and now working with teachers for empowered performance in order to reduce the risks of the child not benefitting optimally at school. I was facilitating training about a week ago and the issue of behaviour management came up. A young brilliant teacher challenged me that if I was a teacher in the community where he teaches, I would flog the children because the only “language” they understand is the cane. The young teacher described how virtually all the children he teaches are always in emotional turmoil and ready to fight at the slightest provocation. I always feel some empathy for the teachers whenever issues like this come up in my training workshops. The teachers are really frustrated with the enormity of the challenges. It could be somehow understandable when you have just one child suffering from ADHD in your classroom once in a while. But how do you handle the problem when almost all the children in your classroom are exhibiting serious maladjusted behaviours?
Asides the professional training I hadreceived and what I am gaining from life experiences, I am getting some more interesting random facts on why the children in our schools are now going manically out of control. I found out that we can’t safely ascribe genetic reasons as the only cause of this problem.
I had put a call through to my former employer who is now my very good friend and she spoke extensively on how puzzled she is concerning the way children presently in her school behave differently from the children she had in her school some twenty years ago. For example, she said that for no obvious reason, a child would just deal a hot slap on another child and a serious fight would start from five year—old children! My former employer who studied child psychology in the UK thinks the Nigerian child is defying all psychology theories on why they behave the way they do. She’s dealing with the situation very pragmatically. She strongly believes that the food which the parents give the children contribute a great deal to their hyperactive nature. She has made it a rule in her school that no parent must give a fizzy drink or noodles to the children when coming to school. An apparently confused parent requested that the school should suggest other foods that they could give to the children. The parents were advised that the traditional foods we have are great! Some children now bring amala and ewedu for lunch at school!
James Allen had written in one of his Classics that the Hebrew prophets of old didn’t have the kind of supernatural powers ascribed to them as such. As a matter of fact, anyone could do what they did if only they were observant like the prophets. The prophets simply observed the choices that the people were making at the present and they were able to predict the future based on their observations!
The behaviours of the children in our schools are just a reflection of the larger society. The risk for the future generation is that we cannot expect beautiful outcomes from what these vulnerable young people have been exposed to.
The next logical question should be: what have we as a society exposed our children to that is affecting the way they behave?
Today’s child lacks attention especially at home. Parents give their mobile phones to their children so that they can have ‘peace’ from a naturally voracious inquirer that the child is. The parent thinks the child asks too many questions and they disturb a lot. The child naturally wants attention and he’s getting it through some funny behaviours. The parent gives the child his/her mobile phone and the child plays games that raise his/her adrenaline continuously. This is one of the causes of the hyperactivity behaviours that have been stored in the child’s subconscious mind. Being a digital native, the child swifts from games and delves into the social media that is designed to capture the user’s attention mostly negatively and when the child is tired of using the phone, he/she joins the parents to watch adult films which undoubtedly has many adverse effects on the child! The children listen to adult music and dance to the music in a very disturbing manner.
Obviously, parenting style is a serious contributing factor to the insanity of the child as we witness in different manifestations today.
Another contributing factor is the belief systems we live out today. We have them manifested in the way we practice religion. The Nigerian child right from the formative years is exposed to the erroneous thinking that enemies abound everywhere. The child is raised to fear people and circumstances and he/she is being programmed to fight imaginary enemies. The theme of religious gathering is about people and forces preventing you from realizing your potential and you must fight them. Because of the malleable nature of the developing child, this fight is real and physical and the child transfers this aggression to peers and teachers at school. You rarely experience solitude and serenity at religious gatherings.It’s all about noise. The biblical injunction that “For the Lord is in His holy temple, let the whole world keep silent before Him” is nonsense to them and is not addressing the reality of how big the enemy is.
So what’s the solution? If I ran the world. And I didn’t say if I was in charge of education in Nigeria because I know that the challenge of this imminent insanity is faced by all the children of the world. I would make THE POWER OF CHOICE as a compulsory course in the school curriculum from the primary school up to tertiary institutions. If people understand that the choices they make have infinite consequences, then they would think before they choose no matter how small or big the choices are. People will selectively choose what they eat, what they watch, what they read, what they say and every other choice they make in the course of their lives.
My advice to the educator and the parent is that you cannot flog insanity out of the head of the child that is suffering from neurodevelopmental disorder. The child needs help and I know you need help too.
Akin Alamu,
Educational Risk and Pedagogy Consultant writes from Lagos, Nigeria
