By Bunmi Sofola

To keep busy whilst waiting for a job where her administrative skills would be much needed, Audrey settled for a teaching job.  “The school is a fairly decent nursery and primary school and a walking distance from my parents house,” she explained.  “When I began teaching children in the primary section, I expected my job to be full of challenges and surprises – from fuelling the pupils’ love of reading to watching their characters develop.  What I didn’t imagine was that the bulk of my time would be spent not teaching, but making up for the neglect of the children’s parents.

“On Fridays, I introduced a sort of show-and-tell session where pupils brought in something they’d made or bought at the weekend and told stories about what they’d done.  It was a chance to find out about the children’s lives and what made them tick.  The show-and-tell where Robby, a shy nine-year-old who struggled to make friends, spoke is one that will always stick with me.  ‘On Saturday night, my dad slapped my mum in the face,’ he told the class.  ‘She was screaming and there was blood everywhere.  She tried to phone for help but my dad was shouting and took the phone off her.

“It was something I was quite unprepared for.  I quickly got up from my seat and told Robby that was all we had time for in that segment.  Later on, I took him to one side and he told me how he and his brother had hid in their bedroom until all the screaming stopped.”  It broke my heart that he looked so surprised when I said that mummies and daddies shouldn’t behave like that.  In keeping with the procedure, I had to inform the principal.  I’d like to say that such alarming incidents were rare during my three-year stay at the school, but evidence of violence and neglect were shockingly common.  Colleagues at the nursery section often complained of changing nappies of kids who hadn’t even been toilet-trained, or buying stuffs at the tuck-shop for ravenous children sent to school on empty stomachs.

“I was only a few weeks into my first term as a teacher where I started at the nursery section when an incident occurred.  Once again, it was story-time and the children were gathered on the carpet around me when I noticed some of them were giggling, holding their noses and pointing at Chuks, a cheeky four-year-old boy, I took him to the toilet and discovered that not only was he in a soiled nappy, but that he’d clearly been wearing it for some time – probably all night.  ‘Do you know how to use the toilet, Chuks?’ I asked him.  But a combination of embarrassment and poor language skills meant he stared at me blankly, I cleaned him with paper towels and reported the incident to the principal who confessed she spent far more time troubleshooting issues with problem families like Chuks’ than she did dealing with the day-to-day running of the school.

“Chuks’ mother, who appeared to be too young and inexperienced, was told that her son must be toilet-trained and that it was not a teacher’s job to change nappies.  She apologised and did as she was asked.  Unbelievable as it may sound, it hadn’t occurred to her that children should know how to use the loo by the time they started school.  The problem of children still in nappies at four and five years old became so common that the school began keeping a supply of nappies and baby wipes paid for out of petty cash.  The biscuits in my classroom cupboard I paid for myself after I found one of the pupils scavenging through the waste-paper basket, desperately looking for the half-eaten cup-cake she’d seen me toss in there earlier.  When I asked what she was doing, she explained that her tummy kept rumbling because she was so hungry.  I asked if she had eaten breakfast and she replied: ‘No ma.  Mummy didn’t get out of bed in time.’

“One of the things that upset me most during my time as a teacher was the total lack of curiosity some children showed in the world around them.  While some pupils talked excitedly about what they wanted to be when they grew up and the countries they wanted to visit, others displayed no flicker of interest whatsoever.  But what can you expect when most of their weekends and holidays were spent indoors on computer games?  It’s now months since I quit my job, sick of trying to be parent as well as teacher to the children in my charge, sick of dealing with parental neglect and incompetence.  I stuck it out a little longer than the 50 per cent of teachers who quit in their first two years or so on the job – but having learnt the harsh realities which come with wanting to ‘make a difference,’ I can’t blame them for getting out before I did.”

Can Alcohol Really Slow Down Ageing Process?

Consumption of alcohol is one of the topics that’ll forever be on the front burner. Just when you think you’ve nailed the right intake to give you that feel-good lift you need and still keep you from keeling over with a terrible liver disease, up comes a flurry of research telling you you could either take more, or less!  Now, it’s been said that the science of ageing, though still in its infancy could up your intake of safe booze.  It’s part of vital regimes you need to adopt to stay healthy!

Experts from research into ageing have sniffed the evidence and come up with advise they think will stand the test of time.  They have now produced a book that answers the most frequently asked question about exercise, diet and mental agility, based on the most rigorous research currently available.

Here are the scientists’ top tips on how to thrive past 55:  Take more exercise:  Studies have shown that exercise deficiency is the biggest risk we face as we get older.  Most of us are simply not taking enough exercise to stay well.  Exercise not only make us feel fitter, younger and more alert, but also prevents many of the disabling conditions we associate with later in life.

Give up smoking:   Smoking is the biggest single risk to your health after inactivity.  It’s not just heart and lungs that are at risk.  Smoking will slow down your rate of healing, which is bad news if you need an operation or injure yourself.

It’s important to keep socially and mentally active:  Having a strong network of family and friends and lots of purposeful activity is vital to our health as we grow older.  Keep on challenging the grey matter.  Brain power can last as long as we do but appears to work best when it’s fully stretched.

Drink more water:  Many of us are slightly dehydrated, which not only interferes with digestion (leading to constipation, for example) and other processes, but also fogs up the brain.  Alcohol and Cafferin are diuretic – however, you still take in more liquid than you lose from a cup of tea, coffee or Cola-type soft drink.

Get outdoors as often as possible:  Exposure to light, especially sunshine, is vital for our body clocks and our Vitamin D levels.  Lack of Vitamin D makes development of the bone disease Osteoporosis more likely.  Getting outdoors is important for social reasons, too – It keeps us in touch with the world.

Make sure you eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables:  These are nature’s anti-ageing remedy, protecting us from many of the diseases we associate with later life.

If you drink alcohol, then little and often will do you the most good:  Studies have shown that people who regularly drink small amount of alcohol tend to live longer than teetotallers, because alcohol helps prevent coronary heart disease.  However, this protection is only significant once man pass the 40 milestone and women pass the menopause.