The human spirit, when driven by purpose, can bloom even in drought. My life as a private school teacher in Nigeria has been a long communion with pain and perseverance—a theatre where dignity wrestles with deprivation, and faith becomes the only uniform one can afford.
I have stood at the front of classrooms as both a scholar and a beggar of mercy. My pockets were often empty, and even in debt but my heart overflowed with lessons. I taught more than seven subjects—Government, Civic Education, English, Literature, History, CRS, CCA, RNV— each one a cross I bore with quiet defiance. The owners of the schools where I laboured often saw teachers not as builders of minds but as dispensable tools.
Dearth wages nicknamed as Salaries came with deductions that mocked arithmetic; respect was rationed, and humiliation was freely given. We worked like elephants and ate like ants.
There was a time my entire wardrobe could be summarized in one sentence: one good trouser and a few torn ones with holes at the buttocks. My shoes were a public testimony of my suffering—patched, weary, and begging for rest. Even my motorcyle was an object of mockery and laughter amongst my students. One day, a youth corps member named Moses looked at me with pity that cut deep. Without words, he handed me his own black shoes. That silent exchange was more than charity—it was a sermon in leather, a reminder that grace still walks among men.
Yet, even in that valley of indignity, I refused to let my calling rot. Teaching, to me, was never a profession—it was priesthood. The classroom became my altar, the chalk my incense, and every student a living scripture. I poured myself into them until I had nothing left. Many times, I left the school compound under the shadow of mockery, but I consoled myself with one conviction: the teacher’s tears water the future.
In recent times, seems destiny has began to pay my quiet debts. I started meeting some of my ex-students—now graduates, professionals, and dreamers fulfilled. They would run to me in marketplaces and bus parks, calling my name with joy that eclipsed my old sorrows. “Sir, you made me believe in myself,” they’d say. And in their gratitude, I found a healing deeper than wealth. Few months ago, when my mother was in dire need, God sent an unexpected deliverer—an ex-student of Government Secondary School, Aloma, Ofu LGA, who once studied Geography under my late father. He met her need at a point she never expected. That act struck me like lightning on a dark night—the seed we plant in secret always finds the wind that brings it home.
To every teacher despised, underpaid, and ridiculed—rise again. You are not a casualty of a broken system; you are the spine of civilization. The world may insult your simplicity, but heaven measures your worth in generations. You are the unsung poet of destiny, the invisible architect of tomorrow’s empires. Your chalk lines are the veins of nations, and your sweat is the ink of posterity.
I have learned through hunger, rejection, and humiliation that no good act vanishes into the void. Life has its own sacred mathematics—what you give in love returns in multiplication. Today, I wear my scars as medals of grace, for they remind me that I did not give up when it would have been easier to die inside.
And so, I leave this testimony for every weary soul who teaches, serves, or sacrifices in silence: all the kindness you put out in the world has a way of coming back to you.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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