The Street is a Blackboard

By Benedict Chinagorom, Portharcourt, Ex-Student

Age: 19

I used to think that the only place knowledge lived was inside four walls with chalkboards, uniforms, and the bell that told us when to sit or rise. I was wrong.

It was a Tuesday morning when I discovered the truth. Our teachers were on strike, and my mother dragged me to the market to help her sell garri. I protested at first — after all, I was a student, not a trader. But she just laughed and said, “School no dey finish, but hunger no dey wait.”

The market was noisy — women shouting prices, hawkers weaving through, and children balancing trays bigger than their heads. I sat by the stall, arranging cups of garri, when a man approached. His eyes were sharp, his voice louder than thunder.

“How much for this cup?” he barked.

“Five hundred naira,” I replied, steady.

He hissed. “I’ll give you three hundred.”

In school, I had learned to solve simultaneous equations, but no teacher had ever shown me how to solve this kind of problem. I hesitated. My mother was busy with another customer, so I was on my own. I wanted to stick to the price, but the man’s glare pinned me down.

Before I could answer, a little boy selling sachet water leaned close and whispered, “No gree for am. If you bend small, bend with sense.”

Something in his tone gave me courage. I looked up at the man and said, “Oga, I can do four fifty. That’s my last.”

The man studied me, his eyes narrowing, then finally dropped the money. “You get sense,” he muttered before walking away.

The water seller grinned.

“Na so life be. You stand small, bend small, you no go break.”

That was lesson one.

Later in the day, another customer, a woman with a baby strapped to her back, came to buy. She counted her coins twice, then sighed. “Abeg, my money reach only three hundred. My pikin never chop since morning.”

My mind went to the arithmetic my teacher drilled into us: balance both sides, numbers must match. But this was not about numbers. It was about hunger. Without thinking too hard, I pushed the cup of garri toward her and said, “Take it.”

Her eyes widened. She blessed me in three languages before leaving. My mother, who had seen everything, smiled faintly. “Sometimes, profit is not only in money.”

That was lesson two.

By evening, my feet were dusty, my voice hoarse, but my mind was alive. I had learned more in that market stall than in many months of school.

From the water seller, I learned resilience and negotiation. From the hungry woman, I learned compassion. From my mother, I learned sacrifice. None of these came from textbooks. They came from life — raw, unedited, beyond the classroom.

Now, whenever I sit in a classroom and hear the bell, I remember another bell — the one that rang inside me that Tuesday in the market. The street was my blackboard, and life itself was the teacher.

And that day, I became a student all over again.