I must have been sitting too close to the Pakistani teacher as I’ve managed to catch his cold. I never thought I’d get a cold when the temperature is in the 90s. It couldn’t have come at a worse time as I have to give an oral test to five classes today. In each class I had to speak for 40 minutes and I kept thinking my voice was going to fade into oblivion or my cough would erupt. “What is 7 times 5; 7 times 5?” This went on for 40 minutes, class after class.
In each class I had to remind the students not to write down the questions, which they kept on doing, not to calculate on the palm of their hands and not to look at the multiplication tables at the back of the book.
Nigerians are smart students - they know lots of ways to find the answer and to avoid having to think. I thought, “Lord, give me strength. I’ve got 20 questions and four more classes to repeat this in.
