TRAIN TEACHERS HOW TO EMPOWER THE YOUNG TO BECOME THINKERS AND MANAGERS.

The education system must address solutions to everyday problems.

The best time to introduce empowerment skills is at primary school before children had time to copy-cat the behaviour of self-destructive elders.

Children should grow up with an attitude of finding solutions for problems instead of blaming the apartheid system, the government or other external sources for everyday problems within their communities.

The days of thieves, beggars and handout should be over. If a gate breaks on a prosperous farm, the workers know that it needs to be fixed. Domestic workers know how to clean. People who have the skill and intelligence to build shacks should be able to maintain toilets.

The missing link is management and self-motivation skills.

It is easier to blame, and beg that to take charge.   We see this trend even among our leaders.

It is the time that our education system teach our teachers how to educate parents and their children on management and self-motivation.

NB – FIRST TRAIN THE TEACHERS because many of them still think that strike action is the only way to solve problems and that violence and vandalism are part and parcel of such action to force other to solve problems they should be capable of doing themselves.  

Many teachers will moan when the roof of their classroom leaks or a window is broken, without getting on the phone to find someone who can fix it.

It is a pity too that many newspaper reporters are more interested in sensationalism than to give alternative viewpoints that can empower the community.

Municipalities should be ready to help communities who are willing to help themselves free of charge, for instance, mMunicipal workers can supervise and provide materials while the community takes care of  after its own repairs.

Our schools should be nation builders also.

#education, #conflict, #violence, #vandalism

Who is going to teach the teachers how to teach?

 Will teachers be taught how to teach?

A child’s education should provide him with the tools to overcome poverty as well as how to be a wise financial manager.
 Education should teach the history of minority groups and foster patriotism and pride for his heritage.
 Education should bring out the best in every child.

There are some questions that requires answers: 

Can teachers whose main interest is to earn a salary at the end of the month and who regard teaching as a battle to survive from one payday to the next do that?
Who is going to teach the teachers how to teach?
 How do one get rid of the deadwood within our education departments, how does one fill the gap when they leave?

Do not go forward looking backward

• The Search for new ways is the most imperative problem.

• Due to the unusualness of conditions of the future, it will be impossible to proceed by the old ways.

• All new ones must remember this. It is the worst thing when men do not know how to escape from the old rut. It is dreadful when people approach new conditions with their old habits.

• Just as it is impossible to open a present-day lock with a medieval key, likewise it is impossible for men with old habits to unlock the door to the future.

• Today it did not succeed in order that tomorrow it may blossom more beautifully.

From the book 'Brotherhood', #423

THE UNIVERSITY OF ''HARD KNOCKS' GRADUATES?

Many Africans, who were subjected to no or inadequate schooling or learning opportunities, gathered a lifetime of experience or knowledge in their fields of interest.

Many of them could, with or without, a little training and recognition, become leaders in their fields of self-trained expertise.

Africa is loosing many of its artists, historians, conservationists and craftsmen because their skills and knowledge were never recognized.

The knowledge of African languages, plants, cures and history is being lost daily when elders retire or die without imparting their knowledge and expertise, ……. unrecognized … forgotten.

Stupid mistakes are being made into laws because of the inexperience or lack of wisdom of some people in charge.

It is time we find ways to honor those who graduated from the ‘University of Hard Knocks’.

It is time we set up a criterion for people, over fifty years of age, who became self taught experts in their fields, of interest or experience; to receive their well earned recognition.
It is time we give certificates, degrees and doctorates to people who gathered and are able to share a lifetime of wisdom or knowledge.

The elders who possess such expertise, knowledge or wisdom due to the experience of a lifetime of observation or hard work, should be aided to impart their knowledge into a thesis, either verbally or written. They should receive their recognition to the level they deserve. Literacy should not be a qualifying criterion.

The elders should be given their degrees, certificates and doctorates which would have been theirs if they lived in an era of open opportunities. This need not be a racial thing, as many elders, of all races, needed to leave school to earn an income for their families. Tertiary education in Africa has ever been, and still is, out of the reach of the majority. It is time that only the lack of will-power separates a person from his/her educational opportunities.

Many elderly have a wealth of knowledge to impart, without perhaps the ability to attend university or the know-how to share their expertise. Some of them never had any formal schooling and are therefore illiterate.

The University of Hard Knocks can go out and seek those who can add to a database of knowledge gathered by experiencing life in Africa. Such a database of knowledge and experience should be able to be tapped freely by all.

There are people sweeping floors today with more knowledge locked in their heads than the graduates who employ them.

Not all elder people deserve recognition for the way they lived. People fail at life too.
Some people spend a lifetime on self gratification, but there are many who dedicated their lives to some cause. There are those loyal long-term employees who are more able to lead their team than the young college graduate who have nothing but a signed certificate to say he can do the job.

It is time for Africa to stop keeping racism alive with BEE’s and brood over past injustices and gather it’s strengths from within its own people.
A degree from the university of hard knocks should carry the same weight as one from a modern university.

I shall give an example from the nature conservation or natural healing fields:

There are many uneducated elders who know the habitat and behavior of the animals in a specific area. They can follow its spoor without referring to a manual. They know their call. They know their habitat and what will drive them away. They know the plants in an area and how it can be used for cures. They understand what will disturb the ecosystem.

How many conservation students who graduate will be able to match their knowledge?
How many new conservation graduates even know the names of the birds or plants in the area they work in without having to refer to a manual?

That is but one area of African life. There are many similar examples in other areas.
Ex Unitate Vires 7-11-2009







Original post from HEALING THE DIVIDE

Education for all and let the best student get the job.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

29 MARCH 2009

Black, white or colored empowerment is a form of racist empowerment.
It is time that we live up to the ideal to regard all people as equal.

South Africa can become economically strong if she employs the best people for all jobs - regardless of race or color. We need to develop racial color blindness. We all need to become, ‘the people’, Citizens of South Africa.

Students who did not qualify for further education, in the field of their passion, should be encouraged to return to school to improve the marks of their weak subjects. We do not need doctors who can not work out the right dosage of medication per body-weight, or the required infant formula per weight.

Downgrading maths and giving under-qualifying students university entrance, based on a color criterion, can lead to South African universities being regarded as sub standard and South African academics regarded as uneducated.

It may be time we replace black racist empowerment with non-racist economic empowerment.

Today black empowerment gives stupid kids from private schools -who had all the educational opportunities they needed - preference to higher education, while students with top grades, and the ability to become good managers, are forced into career paths for which they hold no interest and does not challenge their capabilities.

It is time we empower the poor and under-privileged students, regardless of race and color.

In South Africa we already have the infrastructure for economic empowerment in place. We just need to take racism out of it. There should never be a need for any person to be classified as any race. The only classification we need is one of Citizenship.

We can grow a strong economy again. It was the persistent divide within the country that destroyed our opportunity to count among the first world nations. We were once the leading African nation, but unfair and ludicrous policies are in a process of leveling that lead. We do not need any more stupid people in high places. It is only hard work honesty and intelligent action that can save us.

We do not need bosses who are milking a company while they wait to be headhunted to milk another company with a bigger bounty.

Where the education system fails, we could replace it with an on-line electronic educational system. The technology is there for that kind of quality education to be available for each and everyone. School computers could be fitted with indestructible tracking devices that record the history of finger print access, face recognition and keystroke activity off-line.

• This system of supervision is needed for student identification during tests,
• to determine how long a student spends on subjects
• as well as making it difficult for thieves to get away with computer theft.

Computer based education can bridge the language barrier.


To help the teachers there can be a system where students from a higher grade supervise one or more students from a lower grade on-line.
The students ability to improve his rank in the class (not necessary the grade) could earn marks towards the final examination of his supervisor.
The ability to supervise and guide workers is an important quality students can become familiar with at an early age.

That means that if your understudy gets the tenth highest marks in the first test and improves to fifth place throughout the year, you should share his success as well as your own student educator whose job it is to supervise your studies as well as the way you supervise the studies of those under you.
School children can become familiar with the hierarchical structure in companies while still at school.

First year university students can supervise the online performance of final year high school students.

This kind of system can bridge the lack of qualified teachers in Africa.

School computers need not be stand alone devices, but can be built as dedicated educational devices which are attached to a mainframe and of no commercial value in order to minimize theft and corruption.

Ex Unitate Vires 29-03-2009

Photograph by Eddie Arpasella


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