My Father, A Teacher Without A Classroom

Recognised by Nkuzify as Distinguished Teacher of the Year.

My father, Godwin Nwoye, would not have called himself a teacher. He was not a professor or anything like it. He told us he stopped at what he called elementary school, and since he was born about ten years before Nigeria's independence in 1960, I am not even sure that what he called elementary matches anything we would recognise today.

But he taught us more than he ever said. My father was not a man of words. He was a man of action, and he did far more than he ever announced.

The Books He Brought Close

The few times he brought us close to books, he showed my siblings and me where he believed education began: with the old African people. He pointed us to the Egyptians and their whole system. He showed us how to use an abacus and how to count with it.

If I had not learned that at such an early age, I may never have embraced my African roots the way I did.

The African Names On Everything I Build

You can see his lessons in the names of my platforms. Nkuzify, the website that holds everything about teaching, takes its name from the Igbo word for teaching. Tekoon, our typing game for children, comes from the Yoruba word àmọ̀tẹ́kùn, with the opening dropped. Ẹkùn is the leopard, and àmọ̀tẹ́kùn is usually explained as the cheetah, "the one that looks like a leopard", though speakers still debate exactly which animal the word names. Both names are African on purpose, and both go back to a man who stopped at elementary school. I wrote more about Tekoon on the blog.

Go African, Not Western

My father believed that history matters, and the history he cared about most was Black and African history. Much of what I have built is based on it, and I owe that to him. My mother, who wanted the best for me, would often say "Western, Western, Western". My father kept turning me back towards Africa. I needed both voices, but his is the one that set the direction of everything I make.

Why Nkuzify Is Black And Gold

The colours of Nkuzify come from the same place. Black stands for the colour of the race. Gold stands for the gold that Africa has long been known for. There is also a story I grew up hearing, and I cannot say whether it is historically exact: that Africans who graduated from the great schools of Egypt and the universities of Mali, such as Timbuktu, were given gold as a kind of certificate. True or not, I love what it says, that learning and gold belong together.

Four Days After My Birthday

My father died on 14 August 2014, four days after my birthday on 10 August, at 12:44 a.m.. There is a lot of four in my father's story: the 14th, the four days, 12:44, and the year 2014.

Rest in peace, Dad. Thank you for being one of my first teachers. If you have a teacher of your own to thank this week, you can make them a free card. My mother and my brother taught me too: read about my mother and my brother Benjamin.