Rev. Teryima: Teacher born without fingers, toes; has 3 daughters, master's degree, plays football

Rev. Teryima in the classroom.

By Stephanie Shaakaa

GBOKO, NIGERIA — The blackboard at Penworth Secondary School stands six feet tall, a fixed plane of slate and worn paint that has absorbed years of chalk dust, arithmetic, maps, and the quiet labor of teaching. In most classrooms, it is an ordinary object, something a teacher uses without a second thought. In this classroom, however, it is something else entirely, it is a surface that must be negotiated.

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Rev. Chaplain Gbamwuan Samuel Teryima stands before it each day with that negotiation already understood. Born without fingers and without toes on one leg, every lesson begins for him with an arrangement between body and board, between intention and gravity, and between what the world assumes is required and what he has learned to make possible.