Sharon Chinyere Okpani, One of the Most Vibrant English Teachers I Know

Recognised by Nkuzify as Distinguished Teacher of the Year.

Some teachers fill a room. Sharon Chinyere Okpani changes the air in it. I met her at Classic Lesson Center in Abakaliki, and I understood at once what people mean when they call someone vibrant. She walks in full of energy, and her students feel it before she says a word.

The door she opened

Sharon is the one who introduced me to Maris and Lois Modern Schools. Let me say it plainly: without Sharon, I would not have known the school, I would not have known the people I now know there, and I would not have known many of the teachers I have written about in this whole series. I came in as an English teacher. She opened the door, and through that door I grew into a Mathematics teacher, and today I am the Digital Literacy teacher. If my story at Maris and Lois were a tree, Sharon is the seed it grew from. She takes all the credit for that, and she has earned every bit of it. She also teaches phonetics, which many people know as Oral English or diction, and she does it very well.

A teacher who will not stay in one room

Sharon teaches literature in English, and she does it in many places. She teaches in lesson centres and in many secondary schools, and she hosts private classes. She is always ready to take on one more. Calling her an English teacher is true, but it is too small. Her teaching runs across the arts, and she brings the same fire to every subject she touches. She can teach English Language, Literature, Civic Education and CRS, and she can even hold down History. Hand her a subject and she will pick it up as if it had been hers all along.

A force you cannot shake

Sharon is vibrant, and I mean it in the fullest sense of the word. She is unshakable, a tough nut to crack, and the kind of person you will hardly, hardly find the like of. If competence and loyalty were put on a scale, Sharon would sit right at the edge of it: her competence is a hundred percent, and her loyalty is solid.

Humility is not her strong suit, and I say that without any bad feeling. It is simply that you cannot move her around. You cannot tell her what to do. She marches to the beat of her own drum, she comes when she comes, and what she says goes. But here is the other half of the story: she will deliver. Ask her for something and she will give you exactly what you asked for, and give it well. A person who cannot be pushed around and can always be trusted to deliver is worth her weight in gold.

A student who never stopped

Sharon studied English Education at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN). She is now doing her master's degree at Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike (AE-FUNAI) in Ebonyi State. She is still studying while she teaches many classes, and that tells you what kind of teacher she is: one who keeps learning because she believes a teacher should never stop.

A conversation that feeds you

Whenever I have an interactive session with Sharon, I come away fulfilled, as if I had taken a cup of wine and a full meal. She knows how to take scattered thoughts and piece them together into something real, so no conversation with her is ever wasted.

A walking library

With Sharon, literature is never about memorising. Ask her about Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and she will take the book apart in front of you, scene by scene, idea by idea. She is a real analyst. She can recommend books the way a good friend recommends food, and you leave wanting to read.

She is also the one who told me that great films are often taken from books. The Indian film 3 Idiots is loosely based on the novel Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat. We have talked about So Long a Letter, Mariama Bâ's moving novel written as a long letter from a widow to her friend, and about many, many other books. She can analyse all of them, and she can do the same with English history and classical antiquity.

The storyteller in the classroom

The children love to be around Sharon, and it is easy to see why. She is a storyteller, and she carries the whole class in her mind. Her gestures hold you: the hands, the voice, the movement across the room. She is also a public speaker, so she knows how to hold a room and make ideas stand up and walk. You cannot sleep in Sharon's class, and if your eyelids start to grow heavy, she will lift you right back up. She is agile and she stands tall, and her height says it all, in every sense of the word.

What she taught me

Watching her, I learned how much energy and care a great teacher brings into a room. Even as a teacher myself, I learn from Sharon, and so will you. She taught me that a teacher who tells a good story never has to fight for attention, that reading widely is the root of teaching well, and that a person who holds her ground can still be generous with her gifts. Students want to be like her. That is the highest thing a teacher can earn.

A moment I remember

It was Sharon who referred me to Maris and Lois, where I teach today, and we have kept a very strong friendship since. A good teacher opens doors, even for other teachers.

Thank you, Sharon

She is the kind of teacher you watch and think: the classroom does not pay her what she is worth. She is the kind of person who will make waves wherever she goes, and I will be watching proudly when she does. I say this as the writer of this article, and I say it personally: I love and appreciate her. Nkuzify recognises her this Teachers' Day, and we are proud to say her name.