How I learned the Word: Glossophobia
There is a normal culture prevalent in society especially in the African society; whenever children are considered to talk too much or ask many questions, the natural responses to the children will be the following: ‘keep quiet’, ‘you talk too much’, ‘don’t disturb uncle (or aunty)’. When this happens, we tend to shirk the responses made especially by parents or elders and we just laugh. Sometimes when this happens we just respond and say, “she is just a child leave her (or him)”.
This cultural ideology got me thinking one day when I followed my boss for a family visitation somewhere in Nigeria in 2017. We got to the house and we were welcomed by the family with a glass of chilled water and ice blocks, I recall that the ice block gave me a brain freeze. While my boss talked with his family people, I was sipping my cold water and chewing the block and admiring the beautiful house. The family was a very comfortable family in terms of wealth and luxurious items so it was really difficult for me to overlook the ambience at that moment.
My boss later engaged in some catching up with the children of the house especially the youngest child, a girl and for the sake of this article is named PomPom. PomPom is a six-year-old girl, smart and very outspoken, although she was overcoming stammering in her speech. PomPom asked my boss lots of questions like: “how are your children?”; “When are they coming again”? ; “Where is that other uncle you brought before”? My boss cheerfully answered all the questions but as you can guess she pressed on and on, there was no stopping PomPom she is just a very curious child.
The table was set and we were served with an amazingly hot plate of porridge. Normally, I would have wanted to respectfully decline the food but after the journey that day, my soul and body craved the hot porridge. While my boss waited for his plate of food, he played with Pompom; she was portraying some new steps she just learned in Ballet class and asked my boss to follow suit then he responded that he only knows how to “Dab” (Dabbing is a youthful dance step). PomPom with all smiles in her face wondering where an “Old man” learned the word “Dab” responded by saying she has Glossophobia, so she will not be able to dab. With the hot porridge in my mouth, I looked at her and asked her what the meaning of the word is, and she said it basically means stage fright.
You can imagine the amazement on my face when she told me. “I mean a six year old?” that is what I thought. However, I will admit that I did not believe at first that she was right, so I picked up my dictionary and of course Google (even in the midst of my hot porridge). I was ready to prove her wrong. The verdict came out and I was shocked, amazed and happy all at the same time. I was shocked because, I claim to be a public speaking enthusiast and I had never heard of the word; amazed because she was only six and she knew a word such as Glossophobia and happy because this young lady just affirmed what I had always known, that it is ever too early to enter the road into success and excellence.
I shared this story because, culturally, children are always told to keep quiet especially when they are in the midst of elders. Children inherently are curious, they want to know “everything”, even though they cannot be taught and told everything, or their questions can be annoying sometimes to adults, it doesn’t mean we should shut down their curiosity. This is also a problem in the educational space because, while growing up children have been taught and told to keep quiet and only listen, so they go to schools and have their teachers ask them more questions rather than the students (once children) asking the teachers more questions. The curiosity in the minds should never be stifled; rather we should always look for better ways to harness this curiosity in children, so that children can keep asking questions and indeed the right questions. Yes, many or some of the questions children ask are probably not sensible or out of place but if they are properly taught on how to harness their curiosity in positive ways then their thought process will be shaped in a way that gives meaning to the nature of questions they have. This is very important because at the end of the day, the questions are not entirely the main issue here but the thought process and the curious nature of children.
PomPom asked me to split (like the ballet dancers) because that was my reward for doubting her vocabulary prowess but I could (and can) not split, at least not yet, so I promised her that the next time we see I will definitely split. I left that house that evening thinking about how I will learn how to split and importantly how the short events had dramatically reshaped my view on the curiosity of children. If her mother or her father had stopped her from talking to me and asking me questions, I would not have known the word Glossophobia and that may have been really terrible.
On that day I saw first-hand the reason why children should be exposed to the best environment that enables their learning process and makes them educationally sound. Although, I did not get to ask PomPom where she learned the word Glossophobia from, but I can take a wild guess that she probably learned it from an educational cartoon or movie, a book or maybe in a literary art class. As I write this article, my thoughts are with PomPom and I am extremely positive that she is on the right track towards a sound life experience because of the concrete steps she is taking to build an intellectually sound mind.
PomPom is not on the right track by herself, it has been her awesome parents, a good school and probably the good guidance of uncles and aunties (like Uncle Alex). What I am saying here is, as it always said; “it takes a village to build a child”- the efforts we make to the building up of every child counts and it all adds up to give the child a wholesome life experience that the child needs. So next time you see an overly curious child, rather than keep her quiet, help him/her harness her curiosity in positive directions and when you see a child that shirks asking questions and expressing himself or herself, also help the child bring out and develop his curiosity. The childhood of an individual greatly shapes his or her future; we should never allow children hide in the shell of assumptions by not asking enough questions and expressing themselves.
