Bricks and Mortar or People?

When I was young and idealistic I had a poster on my wall that said:

IT WILL BE A GREAT DAY WHEN 

OUR SCHOOLS HAVE ALL THE MONEY THEY NEED

AND THE ARMY HAS TO HAVE 

A BAKE SALE TO BUY A BOMBER

That must have been at least 20 years ago but I was reminded of this recently while in a forum where we were posed the question, "Bricks and Mortar or People?" We were discussing the future of traditional education and  whether it was more bricks and mortar that was needed or better teaching methods, in order to address the imbalance of access to education in our societies. 

Four out of ten, children, globally, will never enter a classroom; 250 million children don't learn basic reading, writing and math. In South Africa, particularly, we have an entire generation of people who not only had limited access to education but the education we could access was generally of an inferior quality.  If we want to reverse this legacy and impact the future of our country positively, we need to focus our resources on education. With almost 40% of our population children under 18, this is no mean task. 

There are many people who are hungry for their children to now have the education which was denied them. So hungry that they are prepared to walk kilometres or sit under a tree as long as they have a teacher. while I am not advocating that it’s alright to run classes under a tree, I think that (if we have to choose) our resources might be better employed by investing in people.

By training more teachers to teach more children we’ll be approaching this problem from two directions – transferring skills and creating employment for adults AND providing education for our children. It's equally important to ensure that what goes on inside the buildings is what our children deserve. In some of the most deprived regions up to 75% of children still cannot read after several years of school.

Our children deserve a free, quality education so that they may realise their full potential.

Read more in this blog: 
Education to Change the World 

Happy Birthday, Pa

Education to Change the World

A very recognisable quote as we rounded a corner in Boston

While in the USA, I visited a few of the 1 200+ schools* (see below). I was struck by two characteristics which I believe are common to the education system in America. One was the accessibility of the education and the other was the balance of the curriculum. 

For Americans who want to study, there are federal grants and bursaries and many of the universities, even those like Harvard, offer needs-based scholarships.  This means that if you have the academic ability, by and large, lack of funds need not be a stumbling block. This results in a diversity of students which I found exciting.

I was also very taken with the liberal arts core of the curriculum. Subjects like art, history, music and science, form the basis of an all-round foundation. In other words, graduates who are able to hold forth on a variety of topics, are being produced. Majors are only declared in third year. 

Education was the tool that the South African government used to oppress us…education was meant to keep us in our place. You were able to learn just enough for the jobs that you were expected to do; depending on the colour of your skin, you had enough education to become a factory worker, a maid or a gardener, or if you were lucky, a teacher or a nurse. 

My grandfather taught me that education was the one thing that the apartheid government couldn't take away from us; that they had taken away our rights, property and opportunities but they couldn’t take away what was in our brains, they couldn’t stop us from learning. I believe that it’s the same tool that was used to oppress us that must be used to uplift us. So many generations of people in our country haven’t had access to education. We’ve come a long way from where we were but we have to keep fighting so that our children, and our country, can have a better future. 

I know that the American school system is far from perfect, but I think that this kind of accessibility and well-rounded curriculum is something to strive for. 

*A four-year college or university offers a bachelor's degree. Programs that offer these degrees are called "undergraduate" schools. A "university" is a group of schools for studies after secondary school. At least one of these schools is a college where students receive a bachelor's degree

It's a small world, after all

I found myself thousands of kilometres from  Cape Town having a conversation with a Swedish woman in traditional Midsummer dress, and the UAE ambassador to Sweden, about Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie’s book, Half of a Yellow Sun, which we had all read and enjoyed.

My son and I have spent four days in a small town in Sweden attending the Tallberg Forum. Tallberg is situated on the edge of Lake Siljan, a three-and-a-half-hour train ride to the north of Stockholm.  It has 230-240 permanent residents and eight hotels, all of which started out as farmhouses. The green hills surrounding the water, and long days of sunshine far from the bustle of the city, are conducive to interaction, reflection and absorption.

Every year since 1981 the Forum has been convened around the theme “How on earth can we live together?” It was established to provide a platform for free and open exchange of ideas and experiences. Participants come from all walks of life, from over 70 different countries. The people who attend are committed to finding solutions to improve the state of the world and are involved in businesses or NGOs which support that commitment. 

This year the focus was on globalization and how it relates to education, technology, culture, religion, race and identity. Huge problems exist globally around issues of the environment, education, health and human rights. I was struck by how South Africa is a microcosm of the concerns around the world.  

Our society is still so deeply divided and we are suspicious of those from whom we have been separated by apartheid. Before we can interact with the rest of the world, we need to learn to interact with the people who we live side by side with. We need to take time to get to know our neighbours, the people we go to school or university with, and the people we work with. We need to create an environment that invites sharing; a sense of community on a local and national level before we can truly be part of and participate on a global platform. Stereotypes and prejudices exist because we don’t take the trouble to move out of our comfort zones to get to know each other.

There’s hard work still to be done, necessary if we want to move forward. While we may not all agree on the issues, it is important to start talking. We may find that we are not all that different after all.

Blue and Yellow Moneybox

Me with Pa circa 1965

Today is the anniversary of my grandfather's birth. I am thinking of him particularly this year as I embark on a new course of study. Pa changed the course of my life with his little blue and yellow UBS moneybox. Every evening, from the pockets of his khaki coat, he would take out the coins he had gathered during the day. He would allow me to put them into the money box. “For your education,” he would remind me. I had grown up with the mantra, “They can take everything away from you, but not your education”. 

He believed fervently that I would have to study further so that I could be independent. By the time I had finished school he had saved enough to pay for my first year at university. With a brave smile pasted on my face and the weight of generations of expectation, I embarked on a very different voyage. 

In 1980 it was no easy feat for "someone of colour" to be accepted by the University of Cape Town. 

Entering university was such a cultural onslaught that I might as well have been in a different country. The campus was overwhelming. I think my entire school could have fitted into the Jagger Hall. There were lecture halls and sports centres,  buses shuttling back and forth, and more "white" people than I had ever seen in my life. And I was able to sit next to them in class, on the bus and in the library. Although, when it came to doing clinical practice in the hospitals, we were not allowed to treat "white" patients.

My grandfather died before I completed my degree and did not get to see me graduate, but as he had envisioned, I am independent. And I did not stop studying. The learning path he set me on more than thirty years ago has evolved to take me to the far corners of the world. Along the way I have earned a few more diplomas and certificates. And here I am embarking on another journey which is taking me back to my alma mater in a new South Africa, without a special permit, simply because I want to and I have the ability. 

There is a quote by Joseph Goldstein a  Buddhist teacher, that goes something like this: “If you are already facing in the right direction, all you have to do is keep on moving”. Pa made sure that I was facing the right way. Happy Birthday, Pa. I hope you can see me moving forward.