Which mentor or teacher contributed most to your academic
success? It is difficult to choose without diminishing all those teachers who
formally and informally contributed towards making me what I am today. After
reflecting on this question for a while, I recently called my Form 4 History
teacher at Awgu High School, Nenwe, in Nigeria to thank him for being the best
mentor that I ever had and for sharing the skills that I continue to pass on to
younger scholars. He instantly told me that another student of his who is now a
Professor of Medicine paid similar compliments to him recently. Good to know
that I am in good company.
Mr. Simon Okolo was then a young ex-Seminarian who came to
us in the middle of the year when we had no History teacher. In the one term
that he spent with us, he instantly departed from the tradition of dictating or
copying verbose notes on the blackboard for us to take down and memorize, then
regurgitate in the exams. The young Auxiliary Teacher, who was probably younger
than some of his students, chose to give us bullet-points, or what would pass
for Powerpoint slides today, as notes and assured us that once we can remember
the key points and explain them in our own words with illustrations, we would
pass any examination with flying colors.
We were incredulous and thought that either the young man,
who had just completed the equivalent of High School himself, did not know how
to teach or he was a lazy teacher. In our Senior year, again we had no History
teacher but since history was my best subject (a shame that Nigeria has banned
the teaching of history probably out of paranoia that the history of Biafra
will creep up sooner or later), I registered for history in the O’Level
examination for West African School Certificate. This is not as daring as it
sounds because I also registered for Igbo language without any teacher in the
subject and I also registered for Commerce, a subject that I was never taught
formally.
Thanks to the skills that Mr. Okolo taught us, I aced
History with A1 and I must have applied similar skills to Economics where I got
A3, same as English where I had a good ear for grammar but never learned the
formal rules. In all, I passed my nine subjects and made First Division in WASC
but I was still hooked on cramming large chunks of information that took a lot
of efforts to memorize and remember.
It was not until my Freshman year at the University of
Calabar that I was formally introduced to study skills as part of the Use of
English 101 compulsory course. The memory aids and note-taking skills vaguely
reminded me of the note-giving methods of Mr. Okolo but I continued to cram for
decent grades.
Then in my Sophormore year, Mr. Okolo gained admission as a
Freshman in the same university and since we hail from the same Awgu Local
Government Area, we became like family in our small association for the handful
of students from Awgu. He is now called Simon Okolochukwu but we called him
Brother Si. The day he matriculated, we contributed money to buy drinks and have
a small party for him and other freshmen from Awgu who also matriculated that
day.
When we returned to Hall 4 where we all resided, in Malabo,
the name given to the residence halls by the students in recognition of what we
saw as harsh living conditions with eight students per room, I asked one of the
brothers to take a picture that I had been composing in my head. I told him to
wait until I had posed on the balcony in a contemplative mood before he took
the picture from the ground floor. While I was posing, ‘denge pause’, I did not
know that Bro Si had contrived with the photographer to wait for him to bomb my
picture. After the negative was developed and the picture printed, I was a
little pissed off but looking at the picture again recently, I realized that Bro
Si was trying to tell me something. With his academic gown, he stood like an
angel behind me and the window of Hall 4 appeared to be smiling upon us like a
gigantic Calabar mask.
When I shared this impression about the picture with Bro Si,
he told me that it is a calling of his since childhood when he had an encounter
with Our Lady of Fatima. He sees his mission as that of a peer mentor. Then I
reminded him that he was the one who convinced me that I was a First Class
student. He had seen my results and immediately exclaimed that I was a straight
A student. ‘Na lie’, I told him, I only got a few As and lots of Bs. ‘Surely’,
he insisted, ‘if you repeat what you did to get the As systematically, you will
get straight As’. I did so in my Junior year and my grades shot through the
roofs because I stopped cramming and started applying the mnemonics and
note-taking skills across all my courses. Just as he said, I ended up with
First Class Honors in Sociology.
When I shared this testimony with him over the phone, he
said that he wished that I had told him earlier so that he too could try for a
First Class Hons despite our shared condition of skipping subsidized meals to
make ends meet as poor students. But I thought that he already knew since he
was the one who taught me the successful study skills.
He is now retired as a High School teacher with a Master’s Degree and
he has published two books on English composition to continue doing what he
does best, mentoring his students and peers. Anyone with funding for a
deserving doctoral student in English composition should contact this exceptional
young man. Thank you Bro Si for your mentorship. May someone else mentor you
too.
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