OLODO: The Stigma For Not Knowing

"Olodo rabata
Oju eja l'oma je
Koni lo paper,
Silati l'oma lo
Ore mi ki lo gba
Odo oloju eja..."

If you knew of this song in your childhood, then you're probably smiling or laughing. But thinking about it, why was there stigmatization if you didn't know the answer to a question asked during class? We go to school to know, not because we already know(At least for elementary and secondary education). I remember one of my classmates in secondary school who said I was asking the teacher a stupid question, I retorted that one of the reasons my parents paid school fees was for me to learn the answers to stupid questions too.

All that aside. In our (African/Nigerian) culture do we consider a child's individual ability to learn? Or we just generalize and stereotype the intelligence of children using one yardstick.

*Edidiong is in Primary Four and can't spell beyond the four letter words she learnt three classes behind, and all the Head Mistress tells the new class teacher out loud (Pointing to Edidiong after she couldn't not spell a word she was asked to) is "That's the problem you have in your class o, that is why her seat is separated from the those of the bright ones."