HE NEVER STOPS TO AMAZE ME

It amazes me sometimes when I see the decisions these little ones take on impromptu, especially when they do important things in a very casual way as though they knew it all their lives meanwhile they might have just seen it somewhere and acted on it impromptu because a situation required such amount of intelligence. Sometimes when I talk to my mother, she tells me stories of the silly yet very important things I did as a child, most of which I can't even remember doing because I was so young. Today I look at my siblings and see similar traits and I'm marveled by their level of intelligence. So marvelled that I do wonder if I was that smart as a child.

Image by freepik

One of such act was with my younger brother who is a very special child if you know what I mean. My experience with him has taught me never to write off any kid no matter the kind of trait they exhibit. Moreover, I've learned first-hand that no child is dull and we just have to give them a chance to learn their own way by carefully observing their strengths instead of looking at their obvious weaknesses. A lot of times it's easy to dwell on a child's weakness especially when it's compared to other kids, and this is the point a lot of adults make mistakes including teachers in school. It's like teaching a fish to fly, no matter how hard you try, you will only kill the fish because its place is in the water.

I keep talking about how blessed I am to have a mother who never gives up on her children. Growing up I was among the best in my class from kindergarten, and my sister too was like that. But my younger brother was different, at a point he was beginning to hate going to school because it made him look like a failure. He would end up getting 23 out of 25 in class, and my mum would tell him he was more intelligent than two of his classmates. However my mum tried the approach that made my sister very good in class which was employing a lesson teacher for him, but it didn't work. The highest he got at the end of the term was 18 out of 25 which showed that the teacher was really trying his best.

Image by freepik

My dad was beginning to get frustrated with his results and was beginning to show it, but my mum ensured it never got to him. A period came when my parents couldn't afford a lesson teacher for him and my other brother who was doing very well in school. That one was a bookworm while the elder looked like the direct opposite. However, in the process of teaching them, my sister who can be very harsh when teaching would discipline them until whatever they're reading stuck in their brain, but for this my particular brother, no amount of discipline worked, he just didn't seem to get it. At one point, she was teaching him Basic since as a primary 3 pupil and decided to tell him to do what he was good at.

That particular brother of mine although wasn't good with conventional reading, but he is very good at composing songs from age 3. She was teaching him about wind and the different instruments for measuring wind, I can still remember clearly because he turned that lesson into a song and for the first time he was happy he read and remembered. When we saw that he was able to do really well with music, my mum exposed him to all sorts of musical instruments which he learned on his own to play perfectly. This was how his grades gradually began to improve but what amazed me most was that a year later he went to a children's competition in the city of Warri, Delta State Nigeria and Came out second position. I looked at him with so much love, as at the last time I saw him, and he had won a scholarship up until he finished secondary school. Who would see him then and think he could even come out top 5 among 25 students…

THIS IS MY RESPONSE TO HIVE LEARNER'S PROMPT FOR WEEK 114 EPISODE 1