09/08/2025
She Taught… While Her Son Walked Back Home Alone
It happened in a small school where I once worked.
A story I can never forget.
One of our teachers was in the classroom, teaching with all her heart.
Her voice was steady. Her chalk moved across the blackboard like nothing was wrong.
But inside… she was $hattering.
Just minutes before, she had watched her only son walk out through the school gate.
Not because he was s!ck.
Not because he was in tr0uble.
But because she couldn’t pay his school fees.
This was the same school where she had taught for years.
The same walls where she had trained hundreds of other people’s children to read, write, and dream big.
She had begged, borrowed, and sacrificed to keep her boy in class.
But her salary was too small, and the debt had grown too big.
The management said, “Madam, we have tried. We can’t keep him without payment.”
And just like that… her son, her pride, her only child, was walking home with his bag hanging low, his eyes filled with $hame.
And still, Mrs. Ada had to stand in front of another class.
She taught them fractions while her own child was missing the very lesson he loved.
She smiled at them, but her eyes told a different story — a story of a mother’s quiet pa!n.
I stood at the doorway that day, watching her.
And something inside me br0ke.
I kept thinking: How can a woman give the world so much, and yet be unable to give her own child the same gift?
After school, I told her, “From this month, I’ll pay part of his fees. He will not miss school again.”
She froze. Then the tear$ came.
Not the gentle kind…
They rolled down heavy, like the rain in August.
She held my hands and kept saying, “God will remember you… God will remember you…”
But the truth is, this isn’t just her story.
It is the story of many teachers in Nigeria.
We build the dreams of a nation, yet we cannot afford to build our own.
We teach doctors, engineers, governors, even presidents… yet our pockets stay empty.
Dear Nigeria,
When will the ones who carry the chalk be able to carry their children’s future with pride?
When will we stop pushing teachers to the ground and start lifting them up like the treasures they are?
If you are reading this,
Say a prayer for every teacher who teaches with a smile,
but cr!es when no one is watching.
May our reward not only wait for heaven.
May it find us here… on this very earth.
