Discipline still remains the duty of parents and society

By Henry Uche

Mrs. Joy Kalu-Nwiwu is a distinguished scholar whose career has been defined by a deep commitment to academic excellence. A retired Chief Lecturer from the Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Owerri, she has held pivotal leadership roles, including Head of the Department of Mass Communication and Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. In this interview with Daily Sun, Mrs. Kalu-Nwiwu speaks with both passion and precision on the urgent challenges facing today’s youth, from the decline of reading culture to the rise of indiscipline, offering a masterclass in societal reform.

Why has disciplining a child become unpleasant both in the house and schools?

Well, disciplining children at home or at school is no more tenable as it used to be. A lot of things are happening in the society. Those of us who are now grandparents , were among those that were well disciplined, both by our parents and by the school as well as the society in those days. There is an Igbo adage that signifies the fact that anywhere a child is and an adult sees the child misbehaving, the adult has the moral obligation to reprimand that child there and then, whether you are the biological parent, aunt, uncle, sibling or not. That was why, in those days, societies were disciplined. Then everybody knew the taboos, the ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ of the society, the school, the church and of the community, and everybody looks out for one child or the other, not just because he or she is your child. Therefore, if another child misbehaves, you don’t just allow that child to go without commensurate disciplinary action. Discipline was not meant to kill a child, neither was it done out of malice or hatred. It was just to make sure that a child grows in the right direction that will be useful to both the parents, the society and to the child himself. Since this modern trend of so-called Montessori or whatever they call it, Montessori school system came out from abroad, and the rest of them. Was it not the same British government that gave us the kind of education that we had before, and yet discipline was enforced. I wonder what is happening now. The Western Governments own children but in our African society, individuals, families, own children, so they can afford to discipline their children as they deem necessary unlike in the Western societies.

People had pedigrees, they come from homes and families that have norms and values that somebody had to look up to while growing. That is why, most times one begins to think, if I do this, what will my parents say, if they know that I did this type of thing. That is enough restraint because you know the family you are coming from. You know the consequences if ever, there is a report back to your family about what you committed. That is why everybody learned to be disciplined. So then, the family, the society at large, the institutions, even the church, all help to mold the characters of the children kept under their watch. But unfortunately, a lot of negative things are happening today. Even the priests who are supposed to be preaching discipline and impacting Bible principles, “Train up a child in the way he should go, so that when he grows, he will not depart from it” have failed the church and the society. But when you look at the kind of characters children are exhibiting, it’s something else. So where are we? Which way Nigerians, which way Africans? That is the problem. Even those who were disciplined and became whatever they became today, they are no more disciplining their own children. We were disciplined, our parents did, did we die? Are we not still alive today? However, some families, I can say still discipline their children, not to kill them, but to make sure that they discipline their children in such a way that they will never mess up. And remember that anywhere you are, you look back and remember that if you dare mess up, you have nowhere to go back to. That is what I can say. So everybody, we need some measures on this.

On the other hand, to balance the equation, there are some teachers and tutors who discipline children out of anger. That is not good. Sometimes they will flog and punish, the child may even start having issues health- wise, or even get injured so to say. There are some who vent anger and venoms on an innocent child, even though the person may have committed a minor offense, every offense is commensurate to a particular punishment. There are certain punishment that is meant for certain offenses. So that is what I will say. We all need to sit up. We can see that most parents have failed woefully, both at home, in the society, in the church, everywhere, we need to sit up. Let us look at some policies, because of unnecessary competitions among private schools, everybody wants where their children to look like the other children. They don’t flog them, they did this or did that, and at the end, you lose that child. So have you now trained your bourgeois child? But there are still some private schools who don’t condone such nonsense. They still discipline children, and parents who know what they want in life still send their children to such private schools. To say the least, not all private schools actually give such rules of not flogging a child. You can’t flog a child, but there is a measure of flogging which depends on the age and the level of the child. But no matter the level and age, you are not supposed to flog to kill or to harm, but just to correct. That is what I will say concerning discipline a child.

Minimal discipline: Who is at a loss when a child is indulged and way forward?

Minimal discipline has never kill any child. Even capital punishment in those days did not kill any child, so to say. When a child indulges in characters that are inimical to the norms of the society, the child deserves to be punished, but not to be killed, not to be disfigured, but to be punished so that he or she will be a deterrent to others. Now look at what is happening in so many schools. Children are now indulging in sexual practices under the glaring guise of their so- called teachers. They are no more disciplined, even if you don’t want to flog a child. Then call the parents, tell them your observations.

Please try and control your children and so on, and in any school, if I should be the proprietor of any school, and the report comes to the head teacher that a child or some children have been doing such nonsense, it must not be taken for granted. Serious crimes you see today in the society start from a very little act one may call insignificant, from infant or childhood and adolescent age.

We have seen it, a lot happening in schools, the management should call those parents and give them warning and time, if we notice this character any longer from your children, we will not accept you but will expel them so that you and your school will have good name. That is it. Discipline comes from homes. Minimal discipline has never killed any child. If we were not disciplined, we wouldn’t be what we are today. And of course, when a child is so indulged, in the long run, who cries? It’s the parents! There are so many instances where such children, at the end, when they have realized, to their own detriment, that this is what they have ended up being, you see them confessing openly, still accusing their parents. ‘Why didn’t you draw me back when you know I never knew what I was doing’? It has happened at different places. So we have a lot to fix as parents. We have so many roles to play towards disciplining our children, because we – the parents will be the ones to cry in long run, we will be at a loss when they will become drug addicts, rapists, or drugs dealers, or bullies. So many schools may not even like to admit such students – who loses, who bears the shame, the parents who refuse to be firm right from the beginning, in as much as society will also lose because they may have messed up another child, another person’s child who may have come from very good home, but because of influence, the person succumbs to such evil characters. So everybody has a role to play in discipline, instilling minimal discipline. It doesn’t kill anybody, because the parents, mostly will bear the brunt and the shame at the end of it all.

Absence of debate, quiz and reading Societies in primary and secondary schools, What are the implications?

Yes, we don’t really see debates, quiz and reading societies and again in secondary schools as it were, I don’t really know the kind of curricular exercises that some serious schools introduce. Some schools have so many varieties of subjects students are saddled with and see that so many students don’t even have time for simple recreation. When we were in the government public schools, at least, we had some time to ease ourselves to recreate two times the small break and the bigger break, when students will run around the field, play football, exercise and so on. It helps. It’s part of building process. Most private schools are established in small residential buildings, no space, and some parents who think they are showing their affluence by over stuffing their children with all manner of food packs with which they go to school. Are the students reading? Culture is gone, everything gone. But there are some schools that actually uphold all these debates and quiz including culture and inter -school quiz and debates, some are still upholding it today, but not as it used to be from school to school, from time to time. It’s now somehow seasonal, once in a blue moon, but it used to be a regular occurrence in those days, even in classes. Teachers design means from time to time of raising certain debatable questions or topics that children will now debate in different groups in classes, and you see children being enthusiastic, eager to learn their own opinion and to showcase prowess in English. So even if they don’t get all the English expressions, but at least that is the work of the teacher to also correct. At least you give them the opportunity to wrap their brains and bring out points, it is good to go back to the basics. I don’t know what education inspectors are doing these days when they visit schools. I don’t know whether authorities actually go to inspect schools at least one once or twice a year. They should pay a kind of surprise visits to these private schools, go through their curriculum catalogs or whatever, and find out what and what they do and how they do it, and then pay surprise visits to find out whether they are actually doing what they said they do and so on. It’s not ideal to send information before you visit them, so that they will prepare brown envelopes for you, and at the end you just inspect, laugh, maybe drink tea at a head teacher’s office and leave, nothing to write as report. That is not what it should be. The problem is that the society at large is now so corrupt. Why would, before you go for inspection in schools, you give prior information so that they will prepare especially for you? A school inspector is there for a critical assignment – for the benefits of the child and society at large. When you are entertained maybe lavishly, what then have you come to do? You cannot write any adverse reports, even if you notice some anomalies, you won’t raise the alarm because of the fat envelope you must collected, it is just for you to sit down discuss and parley with them. No! Corruption in society is killing every system. Yrs. So the quizzes and debates exercises should be upheld even within classes, within levels of education. Within an institution, and then inter- school debates and quiz competitions should be maintained. It helps. It helped in those days, and it’s still helping. It can still continue to help.

At what age or class in school should parents allows a child own a smartphone?

When did we start having phones of our own? In the middle 90s, before the 2000 era. Were we not studying our books before phones came? Were we not writing? That is why students don’t even know how to write simple essay, even to lay out the format for simple essay and letter writing, they don’t even know any longer, because their eyes are glued to the phone, the position of phones have made some students to be dormant, stupid, and less focused. I know that – this is the age of ICT – quite all right, and a lot of things are done through online classes and online programs – It is commendable, but parents should be careful allowing children to use smartphones too early. It corrupts most of them, except they really know how to control certain features, or know how to lock up certain Apps that these children should not double into in such smartphones. But we should be careful. Most of these children are smart, smarter than their parents. When it comes to use of phones, a lot of things they know, I personally don’t even know. We don’t even seem to know what happens at homes, most parents don’t have control, you see some parents saying ‘Pease come and switch on this television for me, because they are carrying your remote’ When you have the remote control, you still don’t know where to press, but a child as small as he or she is knows. This is their age, and if care is not taken, it’s going to damage a lot of things in their life. So I would rather suggest that when a child grows up to senior secondary level, where he or she can make use of this smartphone, specifically for academic purposes, positive purposes. I know that once you have given a child a smartphone, it is now liberty to explore the world and you cannot always control them. It’s not easy, but at least by the SS classes, he or she is now of age, even though they still need directions and reprimands, but at least you still continue to ring it into their ears. Anything you watch is to your detriment, at least use moral teachings, religious standings, Bible verses to ring it into their ears what they are doing, what they will be doing to themselves if they go contrary. That is the issue. Children today struggle for phones, to do what? What do they know? Parents should be careful about smartphones. Otherwise, the children will be lost early, though some of them are already lost. Some of them learnt how to smoke online. Some of them got exposed to a lot of blue scenes online. Some of them got killed because they were dating online and so on and so forth. Even the adults, the teenagers, most of them have been killed because they dated somebody online, somebody you never knew before, but you went to visit such a person and so on. A lot of evils have happened with the use of smartphones, and too early for that matter, we should be very careful. Smartphones should not be given to children when they want it, but it should be ‘when they need it’. Yes, there must be need for it. But unfortunately, I have seen what Artificial Intelligence (AI) is doing. Children are no more reading, exercising or tasking their brains. They are now relying solely on what AI says. So if I search the same question as you did using such AI, we just arrived at the same answer. So who will use his or her own intelligence to argue otherwise? That means nobody is now thinking, no more using our natural thinking faculty. We are now relying on smartphones. It’s very unfortunate, sad indeed.

As a retired scholar, what were your observations in the Polytechnic Community where you served? The Good, the bad, the ugly.

I will proudly say that I had wonderful observations and experience both positively and negatively. First, in my university days, I never heard nor experienced what is now popularly known as ‘sorting’. It was never a language used in my own time. In the late 70s and early 80s, when I was in the university, none of my lecturers molested me, none of our lecturers abused us or demanded any form of gratification. So I didn’t know that language. And with that orientation, especially because I schooled in the north, I came back here holding the Bible verse that says “Freely I was given, and freely I should give”. So, with that mindset, I came to the Polytechnic community to give my all, to serve humanity with all sincerity, with all sense of duty and purpose, to make sure that I groomed the children kept under my custody so that they will be worthy of learning and in character, I don’t know about others. I know that there were so many of us who had the same inclination like me, but along the line, a lot of things started changing. So many people saw the community as a gold mine, an oil well where they will come to squeeze out the blood out of the students, in the name of ‘making it’, so that they will buy splashy cars, build gigantic houses, build hostels and so on. I couldn’t even buy any piece of land by myself apart from the collective housing project by our ASUP (which is yet to be fully allocated to us up till today), neither did I buy any exotic cars but my modest ones that served me until I retired. My priority was to serve divinity through humanity with all sincerity a sense of purpose to groom children who will any day, anytime they see me and be proud to identify that this Mama was my lecturer. That was my mindset.

What happened then, what is happening?

What happened while I was there in some cases and what is still happening today makes me shed tears concerning education. Some lecturers are no more ready to help the students imbibe the knowledge and to make impact on the lives of those that are kept under their custody. It’s so unfortunate. Some are just there to rip off students and parents. It doesn’t bother them any longer. That is why so many parents have resolved to by all means, make money to send their children abroad. That is why we are having this brain drain because some students are frustrated by their lecturers, even in some universities, they pay through their nose. Students are punished unnecessarily. Sometimes, that is why some people, out of frustration decided to sell whatever they can and travel abroad and make it. But everybody in the society is at fault, so to say! We all have a stake here. We all have to contribute positively to make our institutions worth it. I gave what I had by God’s grace, not that am a Saint, with all humility, with all transparency, believing that God is a rewarder of all and I know even if I didn’t go with airplane or a Bosch, I still have my life. I have my health by the grace of God. So I advise anyone, wherever you are, be conscious of what you do, because time shall come when you will be remembered for what you have done – whether we did it right or not. We all shall receive all our recompense.

What would you have done differently if you were the Rector at that time?

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. One tree does not make a forest. One may have good intentions, good ideas, sincerity and transparency to perform, but will he or she be given that opportunity to do it exactly how they want to do it, given the opposition party, given the society, the political influences around him or her? It’s not easy to be the head of an institution. Sometimes you are not even there on your own. You are there because some political big wigs said you should be there, and therefore you have no say of your own. I won’t even answer that question in depth, because it’s delicate. There are interest groups, well- meaning groups of people that will support your laudable, righteous ideas, but there will be those who will be thinking that you have come there to block their dubious ways, and they will be vehemently opposing you, going to any length to make sure they destabilize your tenure. Yes, It is so. It has happened severally and it is still happening. So the only thing I can say is anybody who decides to vie for Rectorship or Vice Chancellorship should pray hard, but first and foremost, you must be disciplined. Trust and know your God absolutely, then you can control the physical and all other things will fall in place. I used my little experience as an HOD and as the Dean of a School(Faculty), if not for God’s mercies as small as HODship, I knew the spiritual manipulations I experienced. It wasn’t easy, but it was God’s grace all through as well as the good will of the majority of my colleagues then. So, being at that apex as the Chief Executive of a higher institution, is a battle, but by God’s grace,

Would you support a law banning political class from sending their children abroad to study?

To support a law banning political class from sending their children abroad to study will deprive private people from sending their children abroad to study. You must not be among the political class before your children are sent abroad to study. The increase in sending children abroad these days is because our education has failed. But who neglected this education system? Our education system was ruined by people at the helm of affairs, the political rulers, if their policies are meant to maintain the standard in education and make sure that every level of education, whether public or private is highly maintained, then nobody will have the need to go abroad, so to say, except for special courses and so on, which may require traveling abroad. And of course, people will prefer traveling abroad for leisure purposes like tourism, not just to go there and stay forever, but unfortunately, our society is gone. The same political class that refused to make use of the funds meant for developing our educational system, have siphoned all the money to send their children abroad and for other frivolous activities. They use our common wealth to train their children abroad so that they will come back to replace their parents in their political carriers thereby recycling the same children of the same people. Just look at the history of Nigeria, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren, their cousins. They are the same people till tomorrow. Too bad that anybody that enters in power will want to enforce his own dynasty by making sure that they drain the economy of the nation to send their children abroad and at the end, they will come back here to lord them over us. It will remain unfortunate until there is a standard law respected and maintained by all, not just for the poor, if not, things will never be right. There is never a time in any society people will not travel abroad on their own. Some people can sponsor traveling on their own, such as the business tycoons and so on. They can afford it, of course, but not this rat race of mass exodus. You can see that is why everybody is jumping into politics just to get a chance to siphon money and run away and take their children abroad, so that tomorrow they will come back from their own political clique to take over the political arena. It’s most unfortunate, and that makes them not to bother about maintaining standards in the educational system in this nation, it’s so disheartening that our public schools are just a ghost of themselves. Some of these politicians have their private schools, of course, you know the exorbitant fees paid in such schools. It’s not everybody’s child that can attend such private schools. Can a common impoverished man afford to send his child or children to a school where millions are paid within one term? Where will you get such fund? It is meant for those who siphon the public money and who can still maintain it – those are the ones that can go for such high class private schools, and at the end you will see them going abroad to brush up and come back to lord it over the rest of Nigerians. Therefore, if there will be a standard law that may not ban outrightly political class from sending their children abroad, but there will be some measures that will be stated that if a public officer cannot maintain the schools and any office under his or her custody properly in Nigeria that, such an officer or a political leader, will never be allowed to send his child outside the country. Let their children face what others are facing here, except you have proven evidence of how you acquired such wealth. We have said it, some even establish their private schools where they can pay all these and for their children’s special education. Unfortunately, who are the law makers? The same people, on either side of the coin, they are the ones still winning. Not until the day there will be a “reasonable Revolution” literally. I mean positive revolution. But if one wants to travel abroad, it is nobody’s business, but not when it is done at the expense and detriment of the people’s common fund. That is what I’m saying. Let’s pray for the day that God will touch the hearts of those at the helm of affairs. When would that day be, I don’t know, may God help us all.

Administrative & Academic Work, which would you advise anyone under your tutelage to go for? Why?

Well, it depends on individuals. There are some people who are in academics, quite all right, but at a time, they find it cumbersome, weighing them down and so on. While some prefer the administrative side of an institution. It’s a matter of personal choice, but if I may advise, academic work is better because it gives someone opportunity to be exposed- academically and otherwise, because visiting, traveling, meeting with academic gurus within and outside the shores of the nation, widen someone’s horizon. It helps one to grow so it helps to nurture one’s world’s view. So academic work exposes one positively, much more than administrative in my own assessment. There are some administrative advantages too for those in that lane. They too have been exposed in their own areas. They have met with others in other places, attending local seminars, world class seminars, and so on. It depends on somebody’s inclination and how that person wants to pursue his or her career choice, administrative or academic. It depends on how ready one is willing to sacrifice to get there. Of course there are some administrative staff that have made it even to PhD level, not just academic wise, not just PhD, but in their experiences, they have been exposed within and outside this nation administratively. After all, there are career diplomats who have travelled far and wide administratively. It is an individual decision, but I would rather put academics first because it exposes one better and deeper.

Difference between lecturing and teaching & their relevance.

Unfortunate, many people don’t know the difference between lecturing and teaching. In the primary and secondary level of education, we are involved basically in teaching, critical teaching, opening up all relevant avenues to imbibe, instill knowledge and discipline in the students and pupils under your tutelage. At that level, you go deep down to the rudiments, to the basics in teaching, expository teaching, making sure that the child is well grounded to the nitty- gritty of the subject you are teaching. But when we come to the tertiary level, the lecturing level, we are supposed to assume that all the basic knowledge the child should possess, have been acquired, and the child has had such basic knowledge from the primary to secondary before coming into tertiary institutions. Tertiary level is meant for mature minds, where you can on your own study, research, make your own input without much guidance. Not that the lecturer will not guide. The lecturer comes in, exposes you to different angles, different authors, different ideas, different theories, and then discusses such in the class, and gives you your freedom to go and study more, make in depth research and bring back ideas, make your own impact. But in the teaching, it is assumed you don’t even know it. You have come to learn what you don’t know at all. Nobody assumes that you know it at the teaching level, it is you that will imbibe that knowledge from the basics and guide that child, expose that child and make sure that he or she knows how to go about reading, studying and carrying out assignments, guiding the child to get himself equipped. Having done that, you now assume that by the time a child gets groomed at these levels and gets to the tertiary, he can now be on his own, to explore on his own, even without the lecturer coming into the class once you are given your course outline, you can go online, you can do research. You can go to the library. You can do anything you can to get facts concerning that topic, and then still deliver. Most lecturers even learn from their students, yes it happens, for those who are actually very ready. Unfortunately, what we have these days is no more lecturing. Personally, I didn’t lecture most times. I taught the students from the basics. What is happening today at the primary and secondary levels is quite unfortunate. I don’t know what some teachers were doing at those levels especially in most public schools because most of the students did not even know the basics. Let me use the English language curriculum that I know of, there are simple, basic grammar that a child should have been conversant with from primary and secondary levels of education. But come to the tertiary, you begin to wonder, did these children really go through the four walls of any school, whether local or international or whatever except a few compared to the majority who exhibit total ignorance of the basic grammar of our national official language for decades. One begins to wonder, what kind of schools they attend? Even some of them who claim to have gone through private schools in both primary and secondary levels. You begin to wonder why they don’t know certain basic grammar rules and sentence constructions, especially the tenses. Verb conjugations is a problem with so many people. Some people don’t know when to use the past tense or present tense. Some when they make grammar errors, can’t even recall that it was a grammar error and immediately correct themselves. One can make a slip of tongue and immediately correct himself. But some people keep saying, *I has, they doesn’t* and so on in English. I don’t know what kind of basic teaching they really had. I have seen some students in HND II that cannot even write a simple essay with proper punctuations. Some people still write their names(proper noun) beginning with small letters, not knowing that names of human beings, places and so on, are Proper Nouns that should be written with capital letter beginning, even at final year level. That is unfortunate. The teaching is no more even done at the levels they are supposed to be done. Therefore, we end up, those who have the conscience among us end up partly going back to the basics, teaching before thinking of lecturing. I did not actually lectured. I taught all through my career, my students can testify to that I know very well that, each topic I dabbled into, you see me going back to where the students are having problems, some times I had to start teaching from the scratch to bring them up so we can continue where we are. It was tedious. It’s unfortunate people don’t know the difference between teaching and lecturing. I think we need more of teachers (competent ones), than lecturers because of the impact they make in the lives of our children.