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Get up, stand up!

21/9/2015

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Bigger is stronger and smaller is weaker. This seems to be the mindset of many South African Rugby coaches. Never mind that modern science and conditioning is about negating  physical dominance by developing speed and skill sets to counteract this dimension. Never mind that history is littered with Goliath-like figures that had the arrogance to underestimate the little guy. Look around the world today and you can find similar scenarios being played out daily. So Japan's demolition job on our national psyche this past weekend has had the appropriate effect on a rugby regime that buys into dominance through physicality...we are left deeply scarred, fragmented and polarized. We are ranked third in the world of Rugby and we are big boys...the coach is on record that he doesn't "do small". 

Not one commentator could resist going for the jugular. The wrecking ball was the preferred interrogation tool. A few months ago a colleague spoke of "shoulda, woulda and coulda”, driving many reflections. This is not necessarily wrong if a response comes from it; often nothing does.

The challenge I have with this weekend’s shock, is how shocked we really are as a country. It appears to go beyond the 80 minutes the national Rugby team spent on the field. It is as if we have had our entire identity wrapped up in this game and now that we’ve lost, our country is also rudderless. And we must ask why this is so.

There is no doubt that sport is a great unifier. Our country, in 1995 and 1996, experienced the nation building effect of doing well in sport. The 2007 Rugby World Cup Title was another. The 2010 World Cup hosted by us a further example. Each “win" experience has made us forget our troubles, re-energise our communities and made us feel we can overcome any odds. Our political leaders showed savvy and used this success to galvanise the nation and it made us feel invincible. 

Twenty One years into our democracy, we know sporting success doesn’t bring long-term nation building success. It is simply a catalyst and something else must happen thereafter. What we not seeing this time around, is the political leadership in the country embracing the loss to Japan to rally the country. The country is being allowed to process the loss as another failure alongside a long list of failures. The loss, alongside Eskom’s woes, SAA flying without direction, PRASA buying oversized locomotives, the Post Office looking for a new identity and relevance, the SABC looking for its voice, our national soccer team not making significant progress, our slow switch from analogue to digital technologies, the lack of jobs, the unemployment rate, our slow economic growth, the stale political landscape and our sensitivity to race and language, has made us dejected. And the outpouring of this dejection has been offloaded onto Saturday’s loss against Japan. From the president to the jobless are offered as reasons why the team failed. It is absolutely ridiculous. Some reports in the media blame seagulls for crapping on the training ground in Brighton.  

I’ve asked a few people what we should do to re-build our world cup campaign. No one could immediately offer solutions. I mean, It is clear a one-game loss doesn’t mean the tournament is lost. Our current state of depression is as if nothing can be done to reinvigorate our campaign. 

Here is my take. We CAN still win this tournament. We CANNOT give up now. We MUST rally around the team as a country. And if we are not destined to win the 2015 tournament, we will dust ourselves off, learn the lessons and move forward with renewed vigour. Now bring on Samoa! We can do this! What doesn't kill us will make us stronger!


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Cyberspace connections

13/9/2015

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This week I attended the Internet Service Providers Association’s (ISPA) Super Teachers Awards. Ten teachers from across five provinces were being recognized as finalists for integrating the use of ICT in their classrooms. What stood out was not only that the nominees were trying very hard to integrate technology into the teaching and learning environment but that many of them were from poor rural schools from one of the poorest provinces in the country, i.e Limpopo.

Their projects covered everything from teaching learners basic computer skills and the use of iPads, generating collaborative frameworks to share resources and expertise to developing content relevant to the environment they found themselves in. All of them recognized the huge impact their projects would have within their learning and teaching environments and the incredible journey their learners would undergo as a consequence. It was heartwarming to sit in their presence and see them exude such joy and delight when their respective resumes were read before the eventual winner was announced. Only one of them could win the grand prize and when the announcement of the grand prize winner was made, the adulation from the rest of the educators made one feel everyone won, especially the many children whose lives they must be touching daily. I wonder how the learners responded the days after this event when they were told about the achievements of their teachers.

The Super Teachers Awards is run by the COZACares Foundation. The finalists are selected by an online panel after teachers upload their entries. Once selected, the finalists receive training on media across many platforms: radio, TV, online, Twitter feed, social media channels and print. The Media Training session focused on the structure and hierarchy of newsrooms, the news gathering and production process and the characteristics of journalists. They also undertook simulated media interviews and basic writing exercises. The Media session is designed to offer educators a dip into the world of the media through both verbal and non-verbal communication.

Up to the point that I received an invite to the Gala event, I had no idea this programme existed. It was also noteworthy that no entries were received from the Western Cape. This must change. Our province is investing over R1 billion in high speed broadband, which will see all schools connected by the end of next year. Many schools have already received e-classroom setups, with hundreds of activations over the last year.

In this past week, the Western Cape Government also launched its e-portal, a site which contains many resources for educators, administrators, educators, parents and learners. Not only are service providers to our sector encouraged to upload their many resources; educators too are encouraged to register and upload their inputs, whether programmes or lesson plans. The central theme is that a database is created that allows sharing and collaboration, which will improve, over time, all our schools’ academic outcomes.

I therefore challenge all our educators, the many who have embraced technology, to do two things: (1) share their resources via the e-portal and (2) register your intent to submit your entry to compete for the Super Teachers Awards in 2016. I know Western Cape educators can have a strong presence on both fronts.

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    Juan Benjamin

    I'm an education specialist driven to create platforms for engaging the issues, celebrating my peers and sharing experiences.

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