Oladapo Omitogun's Blog

I teach in a low-income farming community called Joga Orile, a small village in the part of Yewa North Ogun state, Nigeria. When I got to this community, I realize that the community only has one public primary school among many private schools. But when checking the private schools here, the numbers of pupils are not many compare to my school but there is this challenge of limited resources to satisfy the large pool of pupils that most times can't afford to buy learning materials like notebooks, textbooks, rulers, etc. At some times in my fellowship here as a Teach For Nigeria fellow I am glad to have received support from friends and some civil society organizations to come to help curb this challenge. I know there is more work to be done and I will never stop until I drive for better innovation and policies to be designed and implemented to battle this problem. I'm almost getting to the end of my fellowship here in this community and I will like to share 5 things I lear...

The Teacher and Learner Paradox. At times the roles of teacher and learner are not always clearly defined or mutually exclusive. In many situations, the teacher is also a learner, and the learner is also a teacher. As a teacher is okay to feel pride in the subject matter we teach. But it is wrong to believe that our job is only to impart knowledge to our pupils. On one hand, a teacher is expected to have expertise in a particular subject area and to impart that knowledge to their pupils. However, in the process of teaching, the teacher often gains new insights and learns new things about the subject matter or from the learner He/She teaches.  At the start of my career as a Teach For Nigeria  fellow teaching in a public primary school. I was somehow drawn back to the opportunity of teaching in a primary class, as I wanted a secondary class, thinking the primary class will not be a challenging experience for me.  So far if I must say the experience has humbled m...