An Extension Fellow

Leaving my age long desired career choice, I changed my gear towards agriculture; it’s all about life. I found myself studying Agricultural Extension and Rural Development in the university of the beautiful campus.

While others murmur, I was kin on unraveling the beauty of an extebsionist and finally I derived my personal definition of an Agricultural Extensionist. “An (Agric) Extensionist is a communicator, teacher, change agent, motivator, (and anything good you think of) that is expected to have the basic knowledge of different aspect of agricultural production and development, society management and every other sector of life”. This is because, local farmers go to the extension agents to also seek solutions to other areas (health, marriage, etc) of their life and not just agriculture

I found different platforms for selfless service and halfway into the programme, it became stronger giving back to the society through Future Goal Foundation. After the 5 year programme in the university, serving as a National Youth Service Corp member opened my heart more to delivering my extension and rural development skills in the walls of the classroom. I taught Agricultural Science (theory) passionately at Bioku Aaladun Community High School, Ibadan and I made Agriculture a noble profession for my students. I took different sessions to encourage them to be intentional about life and aim to achieve more.

Before I took off the khaki of selfless service to the nation, the TEACH, LEAD, IMPACT shirt was calling for a 2 year rigorous commitment of generational selfless service. As I finally got down from the bus of NYSC, I boarded another one heading to TEACH FOR NIGERIA Summer Training Institute to be trained further as a teacher. Remember, I had been trained as an Agricultural Extensionist, who is also a teacher but now a professional teacher. I was challenged, fueled and motivated to give my best to the fulfilment of the vision: “one day, every Nigerian child will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education”.

On the day I finally met my kids, my muscle relaxed (epo tan), not knowing where to start from but I started. As the days go by, my 46 excellent kids and I became friend and co-workers, working very hard to achieve our class vision of being able to speak, read and write simple English sentences and solve arithmetic sums of their grade. It was not an easy task, maybe it could have been easier if I had only 10 pupils but mine was 46 with different academic needs. And when it looked like we were stuck, we celebrated little successes. TFN added to the fuel through short regular training and coach motivations while my co-teachers rendered their motherly support.

In 2 year duration, my excellent kids tried to uphold our class values of Excellence, Hardwork, Respect, Serenity and Neatness, we reminded ourselves about the future and the need to create a better future for ourselves, learning became fun and effective, reading and writing became common in the Class of Excellence. The class grew to 60 pupils as we never rested on the move to attain excellent education. We hosted Her Excellency, Mrs Bamidele Abiodun (First Lady of Ogun State) in our class and later the TEACH FOR ALL Advisory Council. We also set up the Learning Hub.

As I graduate from the TEACH FOR NIGERIA fellowship today, I look back and reflect on these 2 years of selfless service as a teacher (Extensionist), I am proud of myself and my excellent kids. I strongly believe that there is a better future for Nigeria. My special appreciation goes to TEACH FOR NIGERIA for giving me the opportunity to be a part of my excellent kids. I also thank everyone that gave me a hand of support throughout this fellowship.

As I head on to the farm to continue Agricultural Extension and Rural Development practice, I leave this with you, “you might not get the opportunity to teach in a classroom, but have it at the back of your mind that you have a key role to play in the education sector of Nigeria. You can adopt a school or a class in the school or a child in a school and finance it, you can support the school through books and other learning materials, you can teach little kids in your neighborhood for free, etc. Whatever, your hand finds doing. Please do it”

I am MATTYDAMMY

©2020 Damilola