Sharing a phone, learning without friends
I am 14 years old. Today, May 1, is my birthday.
In normal times I attend Gaskiya Junior Secondary School in Ajegunle, a neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria. My school closed in late March, around the time we were going on our spring break. My school had no distance learning plan and we have been given no resources.
I study now with Miss Shola Shoroyewun, a community leader who helps five of us with our lessons. We are cousins and siblings living in the same compound.
None of us has a computer or WiFi. So we share Miss Shola’s phone. We are also using a new website called Safleaders. It includes the junior and senior secondary curriculum that we have in school — English language arts, civic education, mathematics and agricultural science.
Using the website is cool and easy. You can download what you need to read very fast. We just pass the phone from student to student, or one of us will read to the others.
The last assignment we got from Miss Shola was to do a personal narrative. We looked up what was required and then we talked and Miss Shola broke everything down. If I have more questions I know she can answer them.
I miss my friends, I miss the cooperation between students, I miss the group projects and the lessons. I would rather be back in my traditional school. But there are so many students in my classroom that I can’t count them — it feels like one hundred.
Even though we are in lockdown, I feel happy. My academic life is better now than before. I can focus more on my studies and I have time for my own projects.
My learning space is my bed and when I am not doing schoolwork. I like to read there. The book I am reading now is by Ben Carson, the U.S. secretary of housing and urban development who has said he has family roots in Kenya.
The title is “Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence.”