There are teachers and administrators that you can hardly forget despite leaving school i.e. parting ways with them, decades back. Some for the right reasons and of course others for the very wrong reasons.
For example: The intransigence of my JSS 1 French teacher (Mr. Abutiate), the loving posture of his successor Monsieur Tackie (dans l’auto) and the caning prowess of three Maths teachers (Messrs Kwarteng, Osei, Ansah) makes them easy to recall despite our ‘clashes.’
Over in Aquinas, I can recall a majority of the teachers that steered me and my crazy friends through the years. But permit me to instead mention the popular names that did not directly teach me at any point.
Mr. Larloku, Mrs. Mary Grant, Mr. Kiki Bruku and Chico. Despite teaching me briefly in Form 3 I can’t but add Mr. Dickson – crudely referred to as Zoo master. Father Ben Ohene makes the list as does Mrs. Nadia – our AMSA patron at the time.
The subject of this piece is Juliana Ben-Eghan (Mrs.) our very sociable Social Studies teacher in form 1 and 2 till she took over as the second assistant head. She brought life to her lessons. She was one that we yearned to come to class because she had a wow factor.
At least in respect to our class, she was the only one tutor who lovingly referred to us as ‘my boys.’ Her books will normally precede her arrival and we looked across the compound as she ‘slowly’ made her way to the class.
She had a problem with her leg for which majority of us felt the pain. We loved to have her around but understood her health. Our class (Science 3 – Agric) must be the furthest from the staff room but she almost always came to engage us.
One thing that we came to admit very early on was that she was a top shot at names. Mrs. Ben-Eghan knew everyone she taught by their names. Years on, I haven’t met her since I returned to Aquinas to conduct my GIJ research.
Friends who have, including Abraham Thomas Cudjoe – Aristo of War Party clan, admits that she mentioned his name when they once met. Maybe I should add that she is fully mentioned in the acknowledgment section of my GIJ research.
Whiles a number of teachers were hard to approach or they mostly had boys following them as they issued directives, the case of Mrs. Ben-Eghan was starkly different. Almost always had boys surrounding her as they chit chatted to or from class sessions.
Even in her assistant head days, very little changed in her interactions with students besides having her teaching duties waived. And if you thought we respected her that much, wait till you saw her chic-looking and sounding sons come to her in school. A sight to behold.
From Abraham Maslow’s theory of needs to the kinds of marriages. From types of human behaviours to types of leadership, we benefitted not only from the depth of her interaction and delivery but from the light side of her examples and its aptness.
Another key Ben-Eghan moment for a select group of us – Agric students – was when we went with her to Cape Coast for the wedding ceremony of our class teacher at the time (I can't believe I can't recall his name #sad). It was a trip where we wore our anniversary cloth and travelled with the Science Resource bus.
At a point, we left the wedding grounds to go and play football with some local lads. I think we lost that game. We made reasonable noise in the rather empty bus as Ben-Eghan sat in front with other staff minding her business.
On our way back, the bus broke down at Kaneshie. We all had money to get ourselves back home but no. She would give each one of us enough to get us home and I believe if she had contacts of each one, she would call to confirm that we had all reached home safely.
She positioned herself as a mother, no; in fact that is what she was even more than a teacher and head. I’ve written about the affable and wrongly labelled Mrs. Mary Boateng but you can hardly mislabel Ben-Eghan on the basis of her disposition.
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