Importance of Early Corrections – 5th Annual Convention

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it stated the Biblical scripture. This statement reflects in the corrections I received through Notre Dame Grammar school. It was a very dark and cold morning, I can’t remember the exact day of the week but it was early May 1973 as everyone was preparing for the promotion examinations while the big boys in class five were getting ready for their West African School Certificate Examination in 1973. The year 1973 was when Federal Ministry of education changed school’s calendar from the traditional January to December to the current September to June, therefore, all classes actually spent only six months to complete a year’s syllabus. The stress was enormous as every student tried their best to learn and acquire the required knowledge.

Most students in boarding system felt this stress more as they had to combine their learning with frivolous and stringent disciplines from senior students who were held in higher esteem than the teachers not in terms of knowledge but based on privileges to inflict all ranges of unquestionable punishments to junior students. As a 12-year old I went through all those unimaginable chores as other students did. Many times, students had to wake up early in the morning for manual labor, morning devotion, morning duties such as cleaning and sweeping lawns, bathrooms, and classrooms. Sometimes junior students had to fetch water from the brooks for the seniors to shower or bathe. A lot of times the seniors do boost their egos based on how many buckets of un-sanitized water under their beds. On my side I had fetched water for three seniors the evening before, and unfortunately the last senior I fetched water for had to retain my bucket overnight. The implication of that was that I wouldn’t have any means of bathing unless to borrow a bucket next morning.

In the morning as the wake-up bell rang, I waited for a classmate to finish bathing then took his bucket and headed to the brook to fetch water and bathe instead of going to the church for morning devotion. At that time, failure to attend morning worship was a violation and any student caught was deemed for punishment. I went to the brook, took my shower, and on my way sneaking back to the dormitory, the outgoing senior prefect caught sight of the little tiny boy. My spine shivered because I knew the gravity of the offense. Why are you not in the church? He too was not in the church either, but before I could reply there were several lashes of cane on my back. The experience was traumatic and didn’t get off my memory till present, but the moral lesson of the experience was that I never missed morning devotion after that event, and eventually became the chapel prefect for my set. In retrospect, I found out that early corrections in life can be very rewarding and set one to the right paths.

Dr. Pius Omolewa, Ph.D.
Associate Professor University of Phoenix
Northern California, USA.