I thought I was done discussing the upbringing of a child for this season. I began with names we all bear and how we came about them. However, I cannot resist joining in the on-going conversation on the education of a child at what age does he do what. At what age does he enter school, when does he finish and at what age does he enter the university? Three weeks ago, I began discussing the upbringing of a child, stating that each person came to this world with his name and that he is, indeed, the name he bears.
It was an eye-opener revelation to many from reactions reaching this column. Of course we can dismiss this absolute truth revealed to mankind through the enlightenment of these times only if we believe that the spoken word out of which the name is formed carries no living current and tones and, therefore, lacks creative force under which influence swings the owner and bearer of the name. But can we, considering how we promptly and sharply react when our names are misspelt or wrongly pronounced?
I will skip the damage done to a child when he is denied the mother’s milk from her mammary gland. The most troublesome stage is what is at issue currently in the land. The Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, has hit us in the groin, old and the modern parent by reminding the nation of the step-by-step structure of our educational system. And he has directed examination bodies, the West African Examination Council and the National Examination Council not to allow pupils who are below 18 years to sit for their examinations. In other words, any candidate who is not 18 years and above cannot sit for WAEC and NECO examinations from next year, the examinations which are the gateway to university education.
The minister’s stance has been dismissed as backward-warding looking and retrogressive; Nigeria has passed that stage, go the missiles hurled at him. The model, 6-3-3-4 came into being in 1982 to replace the 8-6-2-3 that is, the Standard Six model which also required two years in Higher School Certificate (Lower and Upper Sixth Forms) brought from Britain.
That was also progressively reformed such that a school certificate holder could enter the university through what was then called Prelim. You sit for an entrance examination and if you pass you skip HSC, but would spend four years. If you had HSC/Advanced Level, you would spend three years except in medical studies.
The model that came into being pressed fervently by Professor Babs Fafunwa was as follows: A child’s first three years are to be spent in Pre-Nursery;
3-4 years—Nursery 1
4-5 years—Nursery 2
5-6 years—Nursery 3
6-7 years—Primary 1
7-8 years—Primary 2
8-9 years—Primary 3
9-10 years—Primary 4
10-11 years—Primary 5
11-12 years—Primary 6
12-13 years—JSS 1
13-14 years—JSS 2
14-15 years—JSS 3
15-16 years—SS 1
16-17 years—SS 2
17-18 years—SS 3
In a well articulated case in his accustomed well-informed and educative column in the Nigerian Tribune, Professor Farooq Kperogi who teaches in the United States has had this to say: “In most countries of the world, children don’t start primary school until they are 6, and young adults don’t start university until they are 18. That used to be true in Nigeria, too—until parents chose to skirt the law, upend time-tested tradition, and commit mass child abuse in the name of fast-tracking the education of their children.” In his argument the 1982 education policy is the global standard. “In the United States, students apply to enter universities between the ages of 18 and 19 (because if you don’t turn 6 in September of the year you want to start First Grade, you have to wait until the next year). In Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, South Africa, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Denmark etc., it is 18.
The age benchmark isn’t arbitrary. It is based on time-honoured insights from developmental psychology and educational research, which examined the cognitive, social, and emotional developments of children.”
Professor Kprerogi has touched on the fundamentals of a child’s development. Several years back, senior health officials mounted campaign for a return to naturalness, to feeding babies with the mother’s milk. This was after studies have shown that impairment to a child denied the mother’s milk could be long-term or permanent. We should hasten, therefore, to state that the most troublesome next stage of child abuse is in fact in the education of the child, even in cases where the right to education is touted as fundamental as child protection. It is not that child education is reprehensible. What the advocates do not pay attention to is the right kind of education.
It takes a little but serious observation to note that the human body evolves in stages and the moulding of the intellect has to be graduated accordingly. What, as a contrary principle, is prevalent among educators and educationists today is the ramming of the child through a one-sided; a one-phase intellectual nurturing even where they assume a phasing has been achieved.
It is not known by a great many that the body is a cloak or vessel in which the real man dwells. Among those who claim to know, if it is assumed they do from their talk of body, soul and spirit in that order, how many realise that the spirit, even though it glows through the soul to animate the body from infancy does not take full control of it until it has attained a certain degree of maturity? This is the crux of the matter which is hinted at by developmental psychology and research in the words of Kprerogi. Researchers try to unravel these but with the instrument inadequate for it– the intellect with its range of capability limited to only time and space. It is the crux of the matter in considering what kind of education is desirable at a particular stage.
Even then, there will not be two born in the same hour and circumstances who progress at the same pace and, therefore, reach the goal at the same pace, and therefore, at the same time.
To start with, this then suggests that each educator must adjust himself to the particular child and not the other way round. The careful educator will recognize that until they attain the stage of a certain maturity, children are more rooted in animism. Their love for Nature knows no bounds.
They do not like to be for long in the jungle of concrete arising as the ultimate everywhere; concrete enclosure we call homes in modern times. Once in the open or fields, children are in their elements. They chase the lizards and the goats. They call on Mummy, “come and see snake, it is my friend, I want to play with it.” An alarmed Mummy rushes out and shouts, “Daddy, come out quickly, snake, snake!” Children love to play with pussy cats or puppy. Dogs are their inseparable friends.
They love the world of fantasy. They brim with animistic intuitive perception. Their eyes, at this time are expected to be opened to the wonders and beauty of Nature. The wise old ones imbued with ancient knowledge that recognized this and the generous flow of animistic energy within the bodies of children tapped and utilized this energy in nursing sick adults back to normal health.
It cannot be for nothing that women get drawn to their grand children, filled with warmth and buoyancy as they relish the inexplicable bond! After all, it has always been known that the bodies of women generate seemingly inexplicable warmth as evidenced in the story of Solomon and the maiden.
The point being made is that while children are still rooted in the animistic world, it is harmful to overtax their frontal brain as educators do in the present time, edged on by parents who want their children to be precocious and to show them off.
Scholars have produced many works on why children resent school or their teachers. All over the place conferences are held today on why education has failed the adolescent, but no one traces the roots to the forcible tearing away of children from the world in which they naturally belong at that time, planted as it were, in a world they are as yet had the capacity to successfully live and swing. Who has heard of a plant which was uprooted from its natural soil and yet did well on ill-suited ground?
We could say, “Yes, the plant would die in that case, but the child did not die.” That would be true looking at it from the surface. A deeper understanding would recognize that the child in that case is the spirit inhabiting the young body whose tool, the body, has been deranged through ill-handling by the educator and who, like the driver of an immobile vehicle, finds himself in a very tight situation.
For spirit, the disarrangement could cause a whole earthlife to become wasted thereby, since it would not be able to use the sickened body to achieve the purpose of its existence on earth which is self-improvement, the development of the spirit.
It is wrong, therefore, for parents to send their children to school too early for whatever reasons, either for convenience, self-esteem or public acknowledgement or praise in which case children are reduced to no more than playthings merely to satisfy desires or to feed ego. When it is said that children are still rooted in the world of animism or in the animistic, it means that their spirits have not taken over their bodies.
At this time only those things they need to learn of the world in which they live need be taught them. In the second stage of education when the spirits have stepped out into the world, indeed gotten connected as it were, the time has come to teach the spirit to take over control of the whole body. This period is easy to recognize as puberty is associated with it. It is the period the spirit steps out into the world and finds that everything around it is upside down and so would want to move mountains, and if need be, straighten things out and put everything right.
This stage often manifests in youth restiveness, protests and disobedience to parents and authority, especially by students. Driven by what is called melancholic temperament, the youths hit the air with their fists, shouting “Aluta continua! We no go gree!!”
Generally, it is about this time the child is further most abused. Through cunning girls are lured into marriage under the wrong notion that motherhood is the crown of the vocation of a woman’s life. Thus, a girl almost always misses that wonderful opportunity for strength-building and focus-sharpening which comes with the spirit gaining strong connections with the environment through deep experiencing.
Locked away in motherhood, such a girl hardly appreciates the beauty of life. She thus becomes a mother without first becoming a true human being. The field of experiencing is curtailed. The fate of the young man is no better. The brain is overtaxed by today’s education which drains the body of the vital powers without which, as in the case of girls, it cannot be an effective tool of the spirit. Having therefore been unable to be true children on account of these diversions, any wonder they cannot give full value as adults? They cannot recognize beauty as exemplified by Nature: they will cut down trees; they will destroy flowers; they will drive on the lawns. Their cognitive faculty is impaired. As scholars have found out, any wonder education has failed the youth!
The dimensions of child abuse are wide and as expansive as the diversions from naturalness. In all human conduct! Only a subjection of every matter to the prescriptions of Nature can determine how correct or how wrong any particular conduct is.
Unfortunately, today, many people are far removed from Nature or do not even believe in it. However, for the latter, events accumulating everywhere will soon come to their aid. Professor Tahir Mamman, the Education Minister deserves our support. On the model of our educational structure he is on the right track.
We have Professor Farooq Kprerogi to thank for refreshing our memory about what Prof. Fafunwa said: “That was why the Late Professor Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa was famous for saying any education of children before the age of five is a waste of time and even child abuse.
From ages one through five, children should be allowed to be children: sleep, play, laugh and grow. Of course, I recognize that because most mothers now work, enrolling children in schools earlier than is ideal is a necessity. But the busy schedule of parents is no excuse to buck science, ignore the requirements of a well-integrated childhood, and contribute to the mass production of maladjusted adults.”
Professor Fafunwa sensed right and pushed in the right direction for an educational model structure that takes account of naturalness. Of course, there are prodigies. They are exceptions and I have explained their phenomenon before in these pages. Nature can never be wrong for it is of the Most High, the expression of His Will in activity, the Laws of Nature in which we are to read the way we are to go and should sojourn in this vale of matter.
