Monthly Archives: June 2015

Every so often I come across an essay that totally changes the way I think about life or what I’m doing. It’s like a mental palate cleanser 🙂 The previous one was this one.  And today I read another: “The Road to Self Renewal.” Some excerpts I loved…

“The things you learn in maturity aren’t simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior. You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent but pays off on character. You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you; they are thinking about themselves. You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really quite relaxing. Those are things that are hard to learn early in life. As a rule you have to have picked up some mileage and some dents in your fenders before you understand. As writer Norman Douglas said, “There are some things you can’t learn from others. You have to pass through the fire.” You come to terms with yourself. You finally grasp what playwright S.N. Behrman meant when he said, “At the end of every road you meet yourself.

…

Life is an endless unfolding and, if we wish it to be, an endless process of self discovery, an endless and unpredictable dialogue between our own potentialities and the life situations in which we find ourselves. By potentialities I mean not just success as the world measures success, but the full range of one’s capacities for learning, sensing, wondering, understanding, loving and aspiring.

…

For many, this life is a vale of tears; for no one is it free of pain. But we are so designed that we can cope with it if we can live in some context of a coherent community and traditionally prescribed patterns of culture. Today you can’t count on any such heritage. You have to build meaning into your life, and you build it through your commitments, whether to your religion, to an ethical order as you conceive it, to your life’s work, to loved ones, to your fellow humans. Young people run around searching for identity, but it isn’t handed out free anymore – not in this transient, rootless, pluralistic society. Your identity is what you’ve committed yourself to.

…

I hope it’s clear that the door of opportunity doesn’t really close as long as you’re reasonably healthy. And I don’t just mean opportunity for high status but opportunity to grow and enrich your life in every dimension.

…

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account. 

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account. “

What a gem! Full essay here.

• On the 7th of July I will be part of a debate with the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga as well as Prof Mary Metcalfe, Sizwe Nxasana and Nadi Albino. If you’re around join us – it should be an interesting debate 🙂 (to RSVP see the invite above).
• For those of you who will be in and around JHB on 22 June (9am-1pm) come and join us for a conversation about the Annual National Assessments (invite here). I’ll be speaking together with Martin Gustafsson and Caroline Long.
• Interesting article: “Brahm Fleisch on building a new infrastructure for learning in Gauteng“
• Applications for teacher intern bursaries are due on the 3rd of July 2015 (see here).  Only students studying through UNISA are eligible and the focus is on Maths and English. I really like the internship model of teacher training (i.e. being under a master teacher) and am keen to see this program expand.
• “Beyond benchmarks: What 20 years of TIMSS data tell us about South African education” (Reddy, Zuze et al, 2015)
• Comprehensive Special Report on Early Literacy by EduWeek (2015) – (Thanks Kim Draper)
• Someone dies from a shack fire every 2 days. A friend of mine, Frank Petousis, is involved with a social startup called Lumkani which builds small cheap devices which can detect shack fires and alert residents (and neighbors). I’ve donated to their Indiegogo drive to raise $50,000 to cover 3000 shacks. Go check it out!
• On the 22nd of May 2015 Ireland took to a referendum the issue of gay marriage in the country (watch this video). Citizens voted overwhelmingly in favor of granting equal status to gay people to get married (62% voted yes).
• 100 things to do in Cape Town during winter

From here- http://sociologicalimagination.org/archives/17711