WHY MY FRIENDS AND I PUT DEVIL BEANS IN WATER AT OUR HOSTEL- JOKE PHILIPS
by Akintola Oluwatobi
Recounting her boarding school experience, Joke Philips recalled how she and her friends put velvet bean popularly know as devil’s beans in water at their hostel. Philips says her stay in the hostel was not a good experience.
According to her, in every boarding school there are dominant boarders which mainly consist of the senior students and the oppressed which are mainly the junior boarders. “Living in a boarding school is a living hell for this people because the seniors jumped at every opportunity to frustrate them, punish and take their provisions and send them unwarranted errands. It is such a traumatic experience on daily basis”.
Philips says bullying and oppression cannot be eradicated in boarding schools. “The oppressed students harbour the traumatic experience they live through everyday and console themselves that one day they will also become a senior (dominant boarders) eventually becoming more tyrannical than their seniors.
She recalled an experience that made her swear not to ever be truthful again. “I was the last person to bath. All the taps in the hostel were on because water was not running at the period.we were in our classes when they pumped. The hostel became a pool and flowing down the stairs. Someone noticed and asked ‘where is the water coming from’? They were able to trace it down to our hostel”. She says that the house master punished all the hostel occupants but the seniors “stayed longer”.
“You would have thought that is the end of the story. The seniors investigated afterwards and I confessed to open one out of the five taps.” She recalled serving punishment for her offence and other unconfessed offenders. “They made me to fetch water from the well to fill everyone’s buckets. I was asked to fetch eighty something buckets upstairs from the well even though water was running in our hostel.”
It was during the course of serving the punishment that one of her friends asked if she will just fetched the water and allow the seniors to use to use it in peace. “My friend came up with the idea and I agreed. We fetched for the junior classes first, then from SSS one to three we added devil beans and threw the remaining inside the well so that it won’t be traced to us. They will assume it grew inside the well. We took the water in and it was a disaster. That devil beans.. some people landed in the hospital, the well was flushed because the whole water was contaminated. That is what brutality and bullying does.i can never imagine putting devil beans in someone’s water if i was not made to go through that strenuous punishment.
On positive things learnt, she stated that bullying and brutality is not all about hostel. She pointed out that she developed reading habit which improved her academy performance. She also learned to look after herself and be independent.
When asked if she will enrol her children in boarding school, ” i can never ever, even when a child becomes a dominant boarder. Sorry I didn’t mention i was withdrawn from boarding in JSS two, now imagine my parents left me for another three years. I would have become a tyrant king.
HOW A SENIOR MADE ME SLEEP UNDER HER BUNK FOR A WEEK- FUNMI ONIYIRE
When asked about her experience in boarding school, Funmi Oniyire, a super teenager who just concluded her secondary school education in a boarding school somewhere in osun state says “it’s quite fine but terrible during junior secondary school”.
Pointing out the differences on being a junior and senior boarder, Oniyire says senior students will not miss the slightest opportunity to oppress the junior ones. ” In my school, junior and senior students have different hostels. School authority had to separate us because of bullying”. She narrated how a senior dragged her out from of sick bed and made her her walked several metres on her knees. ” I am sick and lying on my bed when someone came to tell that senior Mariam is calling me. I was like tell her that I’m sick. She came herself shouting at me and dragged me out of my hostel. She made me knee and walked on my knees from central to senior hostel. I tried explaining to her that I am sick but she was not interested.”
Oniyire stated further how she was maltreated and debased by ‘senior Mariam’ who made her knee and sleep under the bunk, fetched water, washed and pressed her clothes for a week. ” On a particular day, while fetching for her, i was angry and lamenting, then broke her bucket, that was the beginning of another series of maltreatment.
According to Funmi Oniyire who was traumatized by the actions of Mariam and reported her to the school authority, but that didn’t deter her from proceeding with her wickedness. “I reported her to the matron (house mistress) and she was warned but she was not bothered until I spent a week. I reported the incident to grandma (proprietress) and she was suspended for two weeks”.
It was interesting to hear that hardened Mariam resumed bullying and maltreating Funmi after her resumption back to school. Funmi recalled that she reported the case to her parents who came visiting during open day and took the matter up. Mariam was suspended for another two weeks. Hell bent on not changing or allow Funmi breath a sigh of relief, Mariam continued where she stopped before suspension, a situation that finally led to her expulsion.
She disclosed how senior students lured juniors into homosexuality and illicit sexual affairs. She also decried the quality of food saying that was another problem she had to contend with. “Feeding is bad. They usually serve Eba and Orunla (dey okra) with small shawa fish and I don’t like shawa. The possibility that you will find maggot in your fiSh is high because they would have fried it a long time and keep in a freezer.”
She revealed the effects of boarding school on her to be both positive and negative. She learned to wake early and look after herself while on the other hand ” i have gone far and deep into bad behaviors. Acting right at home became a problem”.
Funmi also turned to a bully after she became a senior. Stealing and other vices has become part of her “because they have planted evil in me” she stated that she will not enrol her children in boarding school because of bullying and bad behaviors
[5:26 PM, 10/9/2021] Akintola Tobi: Is it still advisable to enroll a child in boarding school?
Nigeria education system is not immune against the downward spin famous with almost all the sectors of the economy. The situation is adversely affecting the effective functioning, accessibility and quality of education in Nigeria.
Education sector has been overwhelmed by ill conceived policies and corruption resulting in dilapidated and obscure classrooms, lack/inadequate teaching materials, demotivated and poorly remunerated teachers.
Nigeria was ranked 120th out of 136 countries as regards quality of primary education by world economic forum in 2017.
Boarding school, being a crucial part of our educational system known to be a safe haven for parents to ‘outsource’ the care of their child (ren) to teachers and house masters due to factors that may include availability of time due to other engagements, career development, ministerial assignment and more. In as much that the positive impacts of boarding schools cannot be overstated, cases of bullying and abused, homosexuality, malnutrition are daily increasing.
With the reality on ground, one cannot but ask if it is still advisable to enroll one’s child in boarding school away from the watchful and monitoring eyes of the parents. Can we still commit the care of our children into the hands of demotivated teachers who are poorly remunerated in an unfriendly working environment?
Responding to the questions raised by The Naijahomemakers, a nurse and mother of two, Mrs Eniola Adewumi says there are schools and there are schools. She believe that the nascent and formative years of a child should be spent at home because ” boarding is you handing over the care of your children to another fellow which can never be the same as you. If proper training should elude a child at that stage, there is nothing the parents can do afterwards”. She added that the moulding period of a child is between ages five to fourteen or fifteen.
According to Mrs Adewumi, considering that a child is expected to gain admission by sixteen-seventeen years, “it is insensitive to throw them out at their tender age” she stated further that any child below fifteen should not be allowed to go to any boarding school as it is the responsibility of the parents to study their children and know the type of children they are.
She bemoaned issue of bullying and maltreatment of younger boarders from their seniors. Having said that, Adewumi is also wary of negative influence and peer pressure, underfeeding and other unmet needs which can make a child to develop a negative coping mechanism. ” I detest boarding especially for under age”.
Similarly, an accountant and a youth motivator, Mrs Adedoyin Ajiboye says it is not advisable to enroll one’s child in boarding school especially if parents can avoid it. She decried cases of homosexuality, lesbianism, cultism which is now rampant even in primary schools according to her. She added that enrolling a child (ren) in day school will avail the parents the opportunity to monitor them better. She concluded by saying she does not like the (boarding school) idea.
