Ode To the First Class

Once upon a time, there lived an old man. In those old days, he knew that you would be schooling in the best university in Africa. He anticipated the challenges you were to meet from the future as a moment from the past. This challenges he relayed in his poem, "the purpose of the American Education."

At that time, he was a student and with the birth of an American University in the sub-sahara africa, he has come to offer advice to the fresh man class.

The experience he relays is not the past education wheich he received in his old days but he himself in the past imagining the future and what he looked forward to was not also the future in itself but himself in the future, retrieving the bone he buried in the past.

The old man, A masked Mystery Student I was, as I welcomed the Second Batch of the first class students with an ode (a lyric poem):

The purpose of the American Education

From the deep mist of your distant location
I sensed your coming.
From your enthusiastic preparations
I knew you were anxious to be here.
Because never has there been this kind of pedagogy
In this part of the continent

I noticed your moves
Right from when you set out
To get your flight ticket booked
Till the moment you landed at the Yola airport.
I even greeted you,
But in disguise
Because, you would run away.

As the angel of protection
Sitting by your side there in the school bus,
I lead your way to this academic Eldora do;
The school of your dream.

As we journeyed together,
I pointed at those tourist monuments;
Those high hills that characterizes this state
And the gentle flowing river that runs the under bridges.
Never has there been such an adventurous journey.

I knew that you were to encounter a change.
A change from memory retention ability to reasoning ability
And I remember vividly that I told you,
But you would not listen.
The imagination of a new university life pre-occupied your heart.

However, I knew you never thought the voice could make a meaning.
Why be distracted at the core of a blissful moment?
When you had just realized that you are a member of
The first class of freshman student,
in the first styled American University in Sub-Sahara African
After us, being one of the 200 students in a World Class University,
is about the greatest rare privilege any young adult can have.


And as we stepped into the school,
I assisted you in moving your luggage from the school bus
There I was, in your room making you feel comfortable and welcomed
You still would not notice me
Because you were so overwhelmed with the facilities you saw around

Even when I mention the word change.
You wondered what it was, that you heard
But I knew you heard it quite well
So I left you to puzzle over it.
But you still could not make anything out of this
I had better not told you

In the following day, I appeared and smiled
And said welcome and be prepared for a change
You heard me quite well again this time
You still would not understand
Because it was a strange voice as I choose to still remain invisible
You weren’t scared anyway
Since it was all a lovely scene
There was no doubt that you enjoyed it all
But you would continue to imagine

In three weeks time I heard you say
I can’t get through everything;
Assignments after every class
Such was the change.
You complained of managing you time effectively
So as not to be late for each class
Or leave certain assignments undone
Such was the change
And you also complained of
Writing reflection paper on the humanity courses.
Papers of at least 1,200 words.
Such was the change; the desired change.
You have to think critically
And this is the purpose of the American Education.
Teaching you to think critically
And put down your thoughts on black and white

Dear student, you've heard from the old man - a mentor.
Lets wake up to face the challenge before us because AAUN is an academic battle. A child that did not go to a battle field will become weak, even physically.