They are caregivers; lovers. They are mourners; and are victims of different unpleasant circumstances. Whether new or veterans, they find out, everyday, that this journey is a very HARD ENDEAVOUR. The very many roles and responsibilities they have to initiate, perform and maintain are quite challenging, as they are, but this is the life they have chosen.

Many may care less once they know your sufferings are from the choices you have made but not when the victims are these special breeds of world builders. You and I, like the rest of the world, call them TEACHERS, the sources of what we have learned to this point; both formal and informal. Each is a bulb, saving every child from the total darkness life would have been without their light.

In the course of proper imparting knowledge to the students, teachers are psychologically traumatized. The common wish of virtually all the teachers is to produce outstanding students, students that can stand the test of time, students that can confidently defend their academic endowments wherever they go, students that can contribute positively with tenacity to the growth and development of Nigeria and the entire nation and students that can be the best of themselves. Therefore, teachers are emotionally disturbed whenever they realize that their students are not living up to the aforementioned expectations. They suffer insomnia in order to strategize and re-strategize just to put their students on the right academic tracks.

Furthermore, teachers are made to be accountable for more than they should account for. Accountability is not shared equally among the teachers, parents and students. Teachers are always at the receiving end of all the critiques; teachers are blamed for the amoral characters that the students inherited or learnt from their parents or guardians in their respective homes, teachers are blamed for the students’ inability to learn the essential things they need because of low intelligent quotients, teachers are even blamed for the students’ inability to eat (get acclimatized with) certain food.

Although teachers are meant to oversee to the holistic formation of the students, the parents and the students have pertinent roles to play in the actualization of the holistic formation. Therefore, blame should be apportioned appropriately whenever the need arises.

Most importantly, teachers are archetypes of sacrificial lambs. Teachers virtually lay down their lives for the proper formation of their students. They deprive themselves of so many things just to ensure that they are positive role models to their students; they don’t have adequate time for themselves, they forego their desired dress codes and dress corporately, they forego their alcoholic lifestyle, nocturnal hanging out with friends, playing of computer games, raucous discussions with peer groups, etc.

In fact, teachers give up a lot of things just to ensure that credible students are produced yet the students are never contented with the various sacrifices of the teachers, they lament, lament and re-lament on any slightest provocation.

Unfortunately, teachers are objects of molestations. Although teachers are character builders, they are neither gods nor demigods; they are fallible. Some students take advantage of the teachers’ fallible states to lure them into illicit acts; they expose their cleavages within and outside the school environment, they wear skimpy dresses that usually expose their bodily contours whenever they are outside the confines of their hostels, they derive pleasure in meeting with teachers at endangering strategic positions and at odd times, in fact, they are not the sexual best of themselves. The aforementioned antics lead to molestation of the teachers in an academic context and since teachers are humans, and humans are fallible, care should be taken in order to avoid molesting advances towards the sexual demeaning of our teachers.

In conclusion, amidst all the challenges herein, teachers are the best of their kind because they surmount and will continue to surmount all the challenges in the course of producing students that can be good crusaders of decency in the midst of corrupt and polluted demeanors.

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Valentine Onyebuchi Mbanusi

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