Teachers are the most important persons in anyone's life. Teachers teach us everything that we know. They inspire us. They leave their imprints, almost like genetic imprints in our lives, and those imprints survive forever. They come in different shapes. The teachers in the classrooms, the ones we meet in our life-long journey of searching and probing. The ones who cross our paths and leave indelible marks.
Even more importantly, the ones that do not carry dusters and chalks but whose lives redefine ours, changing us for better, for real. They write and we read their words and thoughts, or we even just hear about them and their works, and we are recruited as disciples for as long as we live. They could be formal teachers or village elders, raconteurs, musicians, dancers, grandmothers and grandfathers or writers and scientists, but they change us all the same, because the truth is that as we grow, we contend with a multiplicity of influences, and we get influenced, re-born, re-made.
All teachers inspire us with words, with methods, with what they say and what they do, and in the process, they help the world to forge ahead, they extend traditions and thoughts, and even if they never get the rewards that they deserve, they remain unforgettable all the same because teaching is one of the most divine of all professions. This then is a tribute to all teachers, all those illuminated souls who give, and nurture, so that others may grow. What has triggered these ruminations is the report of the death in the United Kingdom, this week, of Carol Dawes, a Jamaican-Nigerian mother, teacher, scholar and great influencer, at 84. Nigerian students of the dramatic arts in the 80s and 90s will remember Mama Dawes fondly, particularly her students and colleagues at the Universities of Port Harcourt, Ife and Calabar, and indeed everyone who was privileged to encounter her.
