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Kids do and say the darnedest things
I went to see a friend off at one of the lorry stations or parks in the capital. A young woman was carrying a toddler; definitely her own child. A young man, probably a student in one of the senior high schools was munching what looked like a candy. This toddler stretched her hand in demand of the candy and the mother slapped her arm so hard that the little tot screamed in agony.
It took a lot of coaxing for the girl to stop crying, and the student went to buy another candy for her. This mother’s action drew a lot of condemnation from those around. When she was questioned, all she could say was that she didn’t want to encourage her child asking things from strangers. How would a toddler, barely two years old, understand this?
Whatever catches a child’s fancy, they want to possess. Some are likely to throw tantrums if they don’t get it. In children’s estimation, they own everything around them. Some kids will naturally run away from strangers, even if that stranger has what looks like their favourite toy. But others accept strangers with open arms.
You might have noticed parents beating their little children in order to stop them from crying unnecessarily. My question is: which child keeps quiet just for being whipped? It never happens, because children are not immune to pain from beatings.
There are many children in my neighbourhood; very interesting children. Their ages range between 18 months and six or seven. It is difficult to determine their ages these days unless they live in your house. A few months ago, while some adults looked on as these children were playing, one four-year-old told her playmates that she had been seeing her parents wrestling in their bed with no clothes on. What do my readers make of this?
The child, in her innocence, was only reporting what she saw; nothing more. Whatever wrestling match she saw meant nothing to her, but parents must be mindful of the fact that children, no matter how young, have a very keen sense of observation even if they cannot and do not process what they see as adults are wont to do.
Another one told her mates that her mother grew beard on her genitals. I guess every mother has a particular name for the genitalia the children know. What the little tot was referring to was the mother’s tuft of pubic hair. And because the father had a beard on his chin, her mother’s was elsewhere and she wanted her mates to know that. That’s how simple and uncomplicated a child’s world is. Children have very little or no appreciation of anything that goes on around them.
My two-year-old grandson spills a malt drink on the cushion and his mother screams at him. He gets frightened alright and rushes to me to be cuddled. After a few moments he is back demanding to be given the rest of the malt drink from the mother. It is difficult for some parents to come to terms with the fact that children are just who they are; children.
A couple of years ago, my daughter called me one morning for our usual chat. During the conversation, she told me her eldest daughter wanted to talk to me. She gave her the phone and all my granddaughter asked was, “Grandpa, when will you die?” I heard my daughter shout at her not to ask just a silly question. She took the phone from the little girl and tried to apologise to me for her daughter’s effrontery.
Honestly, if I had asked my parents that question at that age back in the day I would have been accused of being a witch (or wizard) incarnate. Adzevi would have been the right description. Even majority of parents in our parts in this day and age will not take kindly to this question from an impetuous child. Who born dog? All hell would have broken loose. Born-again parents would have taken this child to their pastors for deliverance.Deliverance because of a simple, innocent and inquisitive child’s question?
I asked my daughter to give the phone back to her child. I asked her if she was present at her own birth. She said no. Did she know when she was born? She mentioned the date. How did she know? Her mother told her was her response. She gave very honest answers to my questions. I knew I got her attention, so I went on, “You see, you just said you were told those things by your Mom. What it means is that we never know when we are born until our parents tell us.
“That is how God works. We do not know when we are born, so we do not know when we will die. The decision is God’s as to when He calls us back to where we came from. Do you understand now?” She said she understood and I asked if she had any other question relating to dying. She had none, so I asked her to give the phone back to her mother. I reported our conversation to her and asked her not to dismiss questions children ask outright.
When my grandchildren came visiting on my birthday in January, I raised the issue but my granddaughter did not remember she had ever asked me that question. Children are naturally very inquisitive. Just after about five years, she had forgotten a question she had asked while younger.
Another child who referred to a cripple as an animal because he saw that the person was walking on all fours was so severely beaten that he fell asleep while still crying. How does a child understand these things, one may ask? And the little tot would not understand why he was beaten. Children must be allowed to express themselves freely. What parents must understand is that children say things they see. Therefore, it behoves parents to determine what is right or wrong for their children to be exposed to. Just do not do what your own child will report to her playmates that turns to embarrass you. What children say or do mirrors the way we live in our homes and the immediate environment.
More often than not, adults think children should understand what we understand. They must see what we see. we easily forget that we were once like them; perhaps behaved worse. A mother beats up a child for demanding food she doesn’t have money to afford. Children do not care whether we have the resources to take care of them. They should not, actually. All they want is to play and eat and sleep. Deprive a child of these and your ceiling will come down.
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All over the world, it has been recognised that nations who have developed, paid attention to education and continue to do so. If we pay lip service to the development of our educational system, we might as well forget about our development in the foreseeable future.
In order for effective teaching and learning to happen, the teacher who is the centre of it all, must be well motivated. Every person working in an office, every parliamentarian, every minister or deputy minister, all the way up to the first gentleman of the land, owes his or her status to a teacher.
Unfortunately, for some strange reason, our leaders who are the decision makers, do not seem to care very much about the welfare of teachers. The leadership of the various teacher unions, also appear not to be doing their job as is expected of them, leaving the teacher who had worked for over a year without being paid, frustrated.
The lack of seriousness that is attached to teachers’ issues is very worrying. My parents were teachers so I am very passionate about teachers’ issues. Gone are the days that we used to say that teachers will get their reward in Heaven.
Now those in the teaching profession are mostly youthful and they have a different mindset from that of our parents. They do not want their reward in Heaven, they want it here on this very earth.
A teacher sees his colleague who he was academically better than in school, from the same background socially, becomes a Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), an Member of Parliament (MP) or a Government Appointee and overnight, this guy becomes wealthy and you say he the teacher, should wait for his reward in Heaven?
His going there is not guaranteed anyway, so if he or she does not make it to Heaven, then what? Promises of government after government to teachers, remain unfulfilled and so they become disillusioned and demotivated to ensure effective teaching and learning.
I read a story of a lady, who as a child was suffering from Dyslexia but her teacher gave her the needed attention to help her and this even led her teacher to run into problems with the school authorities, resulting in the loss of her job. This lady grew up and became a famous actress and won an Oscar.
She then gave the prize money attached to the award, which was three million dollars, to her teacher who put her career on the line to help her out of her dyslexia challenge as a child.
There are many such teachers in our educational system because teaching is a calling, like medicine, like nursing etc. and therefore teachers who are the first point of call before we can climb the ladder to become the engineers, the lawyers, accountants and the rest, deserve special attention.
What is even important is the crucial role they play in shaping the moral character of future leaders which is invaluable.
Let us all, especially our leaders, place a high premium on the teacher who is at the centre of our educational system and who can make or unmake our future as a nation. How do you ask a teacher to go to a place, far removed from his or her parents and for a year and above not pay any salary to him or her?
How is the teacher to survive? If the same thing was done to any of our leaders, especially the leaders of the various teacher unions, will they be happy? How do they expect the teachers to survive and also be motivated to deliver quality teaching? Funds must be found to immediately resolve their unpaid salaries do they can be in the right frame of mind to do their very precious job. The teaching profession, in my view, is number one, when ranking professions because as an advert displays “If you can read this, thank a teacher”. Let us give our teachers their due. God bless.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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GREETINGS from Korkorti and from Kofi Owuo, alias Death-By-Poverty. When this column took a short break, the two friends summoned me. They wanted to know whether the column had gone on pension or was just on strike. I explained that the column was not on retirement and neither was it on a hunger strike. Rather, the column was of the habit of falling into coma for four weeks or thereabout every year.
Kwame Korkorti and Kofi Owuo (who is addicted to poverty and has sworn not to prosper) are two of my former classmates I cherish so much. And it was great fun to be a Nino in those days. In fact, on the first day on campus, Korkorti was bold enough to bully his own mates who tragically mistook him for a senior.
In fact, when the first-years arrived, Korkorti was one of them but quickly pretended he was in Form 2. So he began pulling the noses of his mates and brushing their faces when the real seniors were not quite in sight. It was when classes began that his victims realised the so-called nose-pulling senior was in fact their own classmate.
So Korkorti got famous for that gimmick. But his English was poor.
The English master was a tall, bombastic young man who claimed he was a former soccer star. In fact, he swore he had a magical left foot that was comparable to that of the legendary Pele. And his grandiloquence par excellence clearly distinguished him from other members of staff.
He did not quite like Korkorti because although the boy was stubborn and his head did not have a nice shape, the girls adored him. Moreover he never did his English Language assignments.
Stand up, you tall fool, the English master often ordered. Korkorti wouldn’t stand up but would just smile broadly.
“I say stand up” the teacher would bark now like a dog suffering from rabies “Get up and let me measure your stupidity.”
Korkorti would stand up this time round and yawn.
Certainly, lunchtime has been long in coming and a good yawn often relieved the young student’s stomach of gastronomic stress.
Invariably, the English guru did not like it when Korkorti yawned. For one thing, the boy opened his mouth too widely. For another, he yawned a bit too audibly and that caused laughter among his mates.
Certainly, the master must have figured out that the boy’s height was proportional to his stupidity. But there were no school rules against yawning
Merari Alomele’s
• A female student walking away from some male students
or wide mouth. In fact, there was freedom of yawning and snoring and Korkorti exercised both freedoms judiciously and democratically.
“Do you know when you yawn you look like a hungry crocodile,” the master once asked him.
“Yes sir, I am aware sir,” Korkorti confirmed and yawned again. This time he nearly swallowed the whole class. There was an uproar and the whole class reverberated in good laughter.
The English master shook his head and then nodded it like an agama lizard. This Korkorti boy was a real character, a phenomenon, a one-man thousand. Meanwhile lessons had to continue.
It was in those days when school was exciting and we often gathered and talked about girls. I had often dreamt of having a girl from Holy Child School because I had heard very saintly and curious things about them, I had learnt from a guy from Saint Augustine’s College that Holy Child girls were of a special breed, in fact a hybrid between the cultured home-bred variety and those of inner holiness. They were born of the Holy Spirit. The only thing was that they didn’t suffer under Pontius Pilate.
In short, they were angels in human form, spoke in a special way, walked with a unique and danced with heavenly steps. They were taught by Holy Nuns and so were quite different from us who had no hope of making any spirito-culturo-scholastic progress.
I confessed to Korkorti that I wanted a girl from Holy Child, not for immoral purposes but to partake of their saintly ways so that when it was time for going to heaven, Kwame Alomele could also be considered.
During vacations we met girls from Mawuli, Ola, Accra Girls, St. Roses, Wesley Girls but none from Holy Child. Then one day, Kwame Korkorti whispered into my ear that a Holy Child babe was in town and that he was sure my dreams had come true.
Korkorti organised it and we positioned at a spot, knowing the girl would traverse en route to the library or the market. After a boring period of waiting, Korkorti suddenly espied the child coming. I looked at her face and saw of an angel. What! This was the kind I always wanted. God bless my soul! This was really my chance and Korkorti had prophesied it.
“Hello Sister,” Korkorti called her when about to leave us.
The girl slowed down and looked at us. My heartbeat increased in tempo. What really was I going to tell this angel? Wouldn’t she think Korkorti was Satan and me a common red-eyed demon? I gathered courage.
“What do you want?” she asked in a sweet voice. My heart melted instantly. Spotless beauty with voice that did something to me. Good gracious!
“Eh-h, my friend says he likes you,” Korkorti to her bluntly.
At that very moment I felt as if a sledge-hammer had hit my chest with the force of a dynamite. What a blunder! What a shock! I felt dizzy instantly. My bosom friend had balked the whole agenda. Before I could recover from the shock, the girl had walked away. From that day. I never met another holy child.
In January, this year, I miraculously received a letter from an 18-year old Holy Child student who said she was my fan.
It was a nicely written letter and I enjoyed reading it. I then relived the Korkorti incident and laughed aloud to myself.
So when Korkorti and Kofi Owuo summoned me, I reminded them of the day my heart melted at the sight of the angel; that angel which disappeared before my eyes and made me go back home not crying and yet not laughing.
Proofread
Searching for the Holy Child
GREETINGS from Korkorti and from Kofi Owuo, alias Death-By-Poverty. When this column took a short break, the two friends summoned me. They wanted to know whether the column had gone on pension or was just on strike.
I explained that the column was not on retirement and neither was it on a hunger strike. Rather, the column was of the habit of falling into coma for four weeks or thereabout every year.
Kwame Korkorti and Kofi Owuo (who is addicted to poverty and has sworn not to prosper) are two of my former classmates I cherish so much. And it was great fun to be a Nino in those days. In fact, on the first day on campus, Korkorti was bold enough to bully his own mates who tragically mistook him for a senior.
In fact, when the first-years arrived, Korkorti was one of them but quickly pretended he was in Form 2. So he began pulling the noses of his mates and brushing their faces when the real seniors were not quite in sight. It was when classes began that his victims realised the so-called nose-pulling senior was in fact their own classmate
So Korkorti got famous for that gimmick. But his English was poor.
The English master was a tall, bombastic young man who claimed he was a former soccer star. In fact, he swore he had a magical left foot that was comparable to that of the legendary Pele. And his grandiloquence par excellence clearly distinguished him from other members of staff.
He did not quite like Korkorti because although the boy was stubborn and his head did not have a nice shape, the girls adored him. Moreover he never did his English Language assignments.
Stand up, you tall fool, the English master often ordered. Korkorti wouldn’t stand up but would just smile broadly.
“I say stand up” the teacher would bark now like a dog suffering from rabies “Get up and let me measure your stupidity.”
Korkorti would stand up this time round and yawn.
Certainly, lunchtime has been long in coming and a good yawn often relieved the young student’s stomach of gastronomic stress.
Invariably, the English guru did not like it when Korkorti yawned. For one thing, the boy opened his mouth too widely. For another, he yawned a bit too audibly and that caused laughter among his mates.
Certainly, the master must have figured out that the boy’s height was proportional to his stupidity. But there were no school rules against yawning or wide mouth. In fact, there was freedom of yawning and snoring and Korkorti exercised both freedoms judiciously and democratically.
“Do you know when you yawn you look like a hungry crocodile,” the master once asked him.
“Yes sir, I am aware sir,” Korkorti confirmed and yawned again. This time he nearly swallowed the whole class. There was an uproar and the whole class reverberated in good laughter.
The English master shook his head and then nodded it like an agama lizard. This Korkorti boy was a real character, a phenomenon, a one-man-thousand. Meanwhile lessons had to continue.
It was in those days when school was exciting and we often gathered and talked about girls. I had often dreamt of having a girl from Holy Child School because I had heard very saintly and curious things about them,
I had learnt from a guy from Saint Augustine’s College that Holy Child girls were of a special breed, in fact a hybrid between the cultured home-bred variety and those of inner holiness. They were born of the Holy Spirit. The only thing was that they didn’t suffer under Pontius Pilate.
In short, they were angels in human form, spoke in a special way, walked with a unique and danced with heavenly steps. They were taught by Holy Nuns and so were quite different from us who had no hope of making any spirito-culturo-scholastic progress.
I confessed to Korkorti that I wanted a girl from Holy Child, not for immoral purposes but to partake of their saintly ways so that when it was time for going to heaven, Kwame Alomele could also be considered.
During vacations we met girls from Mawuli, Ola, Accra Girls, St. Roses, Wesley Girls but none from Holy Child. Then one day, Kwame Korkorti whispered into my ear that a Holy Child babe was in town and that he was sure my dreams had come true.
Korkorti organised it and we positioned at a spot, knowing the girl would traverse en route to the library or the market. After a boring period of waiting, Korkorti suddenly espied the child coming. I looked at her face and saw of an angel. What! This was the kind I always wanted. God bless my soul! This was really my chance and Korkorti had prophesied it.
“Hello Sister,” Korkorti called her when about to leave us.
The girl slowed down and looked at us. My heartbeat increased in tempo. What really was I going to tell this angel? Wouldn’t she think Korkorti was Satan and me a common red-eyed demon? I gathered courage.
“What do you want?” she asked in a sweet voice. My heart melted instantly. Spotless beauty with voice that did something to me. Good gracious!
“Eh-h, my friend says he likes you,” Korkorti to her bluntly.
At that very moment I felt as if a sledge-hammer had hit my chest with the force of a dynamite. What a blunder! What a shock! I felt dizzy instantly. My bosom friend had balked the whole agenda. Before I could recover from the shock, the girl had walked away. From that day. I never met another holy child.
In January, this year, I miraculously received a letter from an 18-year old Holy Child student who said she was my fan. It was a nicely written letter and I enjoyed reading it. I then relived the Korkorti incident and laughed aloud to myself.
So when Korkorti and Kofi Owuo summoned me, I reminded them of the day my heart melted at the sight of the angel; that angel which disappeared before my eyes and made me go back home not crying and yet not laughing.
This article was first published on Saturday, March 18, 1996
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