When Gen Z Became Parents, Teachers Became Targets -By Abdulkadir Salaudeen

The realization that those born in the era generally referred to as Gen Z are now becoming parents is disturbing. The era comes with many challenges, one of which is parenting. It is a situation whereby people who need parenting have become, and are becoming, parents. This is not because these Gen Z parents have not grown up enough to be parents, age-wise. It is because they lack the basic manners and civility expected of a being worthy of being called human, let alone being parents.

They lack self-respect because they are worthless, and are thus incapable of giving respect to whom respect is due — those who naturally deserve it. Going by this column’s title, those who naturally deserve respect are teachers. This has never been in dispute until we started having Gen Z parents, making the fate of teachers not only in limbo but also in danger. I have the late Maryam in mind — the teacher who was beaten to the point of death in Kogi State last week.

Before I go further, let me narrate two anecdotes. We can then contrast what parenting used to be with what it is now.

More than a decade ago, I was head teacher of a Qur’anic school. We had no structure; students learnt under shades. Yet, for reasons I don’t have time to explain, the school attracted some of the most influential people in the city for their children.

There was a stubborn student we had to send away with his siblings. The mother pleaded more than once, and out of deference to her, I would have them back. On one occasion, I sent the eldest away and insisted the father must accompany him if I was to take him back. The mother and their uncle appealed, to no avail.

Those who loved me cautioned me: the father was too prominent for an ordinary teacher to summon. “I am aware,” I replied. The “big man” was the Commissioner for Education in Jigawa State. I was warned: “anger him and he would shut down the school.”  I was not moved. “Let him shut it down; the community will suffer, not me,” I said.

One weekend, while I was in a meeting with teachers, someone came. I cannot recall if she was the commissioner’s wife or her brother. A phone was handed to me. I was reluctant, but I collected it, expecting the usual narcissistic gibberish from influential parents, especially politicians. I was ready for fire-for-fire. To me, he was just a parent like other parents. That was why I never hesitated to send his children home when they misbehaved.

What happened next shocked me — pleasantly. At the top of his voice, the furious Commissioner ordered me to “beat the hell” out of his stubborn son and to make sure the strokes were visible on his skin. He pleaded that he could not come himself because of engagements outside the State.

With that, he earned my respect for life. I forgave the boy without using the rod. Some witnesses to that conversation may be reading this column. The Commissioner is now late, but he is remembered for good. May God have mercy on him. He was Professor Haruna Wakili, a multiple award-winning, thoroughbred professor of History and a foreword looking historian at Bayero University Kano. I later read some of his works. One was cited in a paper titled “The Role of Nigerian Ulama in Politics and Nation Building: The Controversy, Achievements and Recommendations,” authored by Prof. Saidu Ahmad Dukawa and myself.

There was another school I taught — a secular, conventional school for the children of “big men.” Cane use was discouraged, but teachers could take limited disciplinary measures. Within that window, a teacher disciplined a student who was the Deputy Governor’s son. After school, the boy reported the teacher. Before one could say Jack Robinson, the father’s orderlies and family members stormed the school to “teach the teacher a lesson” he would never forget.

To the surprise of many staff, the school expelled all the Deputy Governor’s children involved. The proprietor would not tolerate such nonsense from the number-two family in the State. That was also over a decade ago. I wonder if we still have proprietors who will defend a teacher’s dignity, even at the cost of losing the children of politicians and moneybags.

Lest I forget: the proprietor is worth emulating. He is a Hausa Muslim. The school was dominated by Muslims in a Muslim-majority state. Yet the teacher whose integrity he protected — to the fury of the Deputy Governor’s family — was a Yoruba Christian. If justice always trumped ethnicity and religion as in that case, Nigeria would not be in this mess. This isn’t just because he is a Muslim, there are good Christians like him. But people in whom justice overrides bigotry are few in this country.

Now, to the Gen Z parents who cannot train their children because they themselves are untrained, and who will not allow those whose training and profession is to train the untrained. The incident that killed a teacher began on June 17, when a teacher disciplined a pupil for misconduct. Maryam Usman of Brains Minds Nursery and Primary School, Olamaboro LGA, earned the wrath of an undisciplined father for disciplining his son.

Maryam was just 22. According to reports, the beastly father stormed the school with two women and attacked her. That was not enough. She was assaulted again at home by thugs who should never have been parents. Later that day, on her way to the mosque, she was attacked and stripped naked. The next day, more thugs continued the assault because they think it is a crime for a teacher to discipline a pupil. She was left severely injured and unconscious, and died days later despite medical care.

See the contrast. The professor-commissioner, with all his status and learning, asked that discipline be visible on his son’s skin. The unknown Gen Z father, with no visible achievement beyond fatherhood, pounced on a poor female teacher for doing her job. I do not know what action Brains Minds has taken, but its proprietors should learn from the earlier anecdote: protect your teachers from Gen Z assault.

I honestly do not know where the dangerous idea that teachers must not discipline students came from. It feels like it came from the pit of hell. In our days, the cane was corrective and reformative. Parents of my generation can testify. The fear of the cane and the teacher who wielded it was the beginning of wisdom. Then it was “spare the rod and spoil the child.” Now it is “use the cane and get beaten by Gen Z parents.”

My children often say, “I will beat the hell out of you,” when playing. They picked it from their father, who will not spare the rod and who appreciates neighbors who help with discipline. I am training them for Paradise, and no one enters Paradise without passing over or through Hell. This is not just idiom; it is scriptural. See Qur’an 19: 71-72.

Thus, my kids are caned when there is need, so that they will be well-behaved when manners are required. They must endure present pain for future gain. The Yoruba in me does not make me tolerant of nonsense when it comes to child upbringing. Ideally, no teacher should be tolerant of nonsense. But with Gen Z parents, teachers should tread with care.

To conclude: what is the fate of teachers in Nigeria? If teachers are not dignified, and we all quit teaching to sell akara and roasted agbado — now the most dignified, trending, profitable trade in Nigeria since last week — who will teach this generation and the next?

Teachers must be dignified. We are not punching bags. May God have mercy on the late Maryam. My condolences to her family.

Abdulkadir Salaudeen

salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com