My Story
This guy struggled big time at the beginning of his educational
pathway. It's a story I like to share, particularly with young learners
still seeking to make headway in their educational development.
I struggled throughout primary school education, with just basic
understanding of the whole learning process and class experience. I
started at Nyamambisi Primary school in Marobela, then later transferred to
Satellite Primary school in Francistown, where I had to repeat the final class,
Standard 7.
The big challenge was reading and writing, two of my most dominant
learning styles today, as per the VARK learning styles questionnaire.
When there was a task to read in class, I would be one of those who would
remain standing, to face embarrassment and punishment. When it was time
to copy notes from the board, I simply drew millipedes on my exercise
book. That could easily have been the end of my journey of education, but
somehow, I was able to catch up and go beyond my learning obstacles to become
better than I was.
My journey began in earnest at secondary school when suddenly there was
light coming from the end of the tunnel. From then onwards I was on the
ascendancy of my educational pathway. You won't believe this, I only
discovered recently that l got a distinction for my Ph.D. research at a French
university. As part of a verification process at BQA I had to get my
certificate translated into English at the Alliance Francaise in Gaborone, and
it was only then I noticed the distinction rating of my research.
Why am I sharing this, you may wonder? Simply, to acknowledge the
fact that things do get better in life, despite any trying situations you may
come up against. Life is a journey along which there are testing
challenges to overcome, and you know doubt have what it takes to surpass such
challenges. You are always more than anything that bothers or challenges
you, and hence, as Winston Churchill put it "Never, never, never give
up", for there's much life has to offer to you in the future ahead.
What you need first is to believe in yourself, master some perseverance
and resilience to learn, and act on your understanding to get to the future you
desire. This is a story I particularly like to share with young learners
who may find themselves in a similar situation as I did, which could easily
cause them to lose confidence in their ability to lean on the learning
process. When this happens and you're still young, you end up going to
school only because you are expected to, which is not a good start at all.
Finally, I wish to encourage those still early in employment, including
my former students, to not only focus on the salary benefits aspect of it, but
also see a huge opportunity to grow themselves in their professions. As
you get better at work, in your profession, you also grow in personal
productivity across your personal life. Ultimately, you get better in all
aspects of your life!
The Full Story
My story begins in the mid 60’s in rural Africa when every child then belonged to the entire community, which meant more teachers showing up for guidance, along my journey. When my school days began, I walked a total distance of more than 10 kilometres each day. A combination of the walking distance, and a lack of facilities resulting in classes being taught outside, made early school days a great challenge for me. In addition, the languages of instruction at school were all new to me, which made learning difficult and uninteresting. I struggled with understanding throughout the entire period of my primary school education, and ultimately repeated my final year exam. Nevertheless, with a little help from my family and teachers, I managed to overcome my challenges and proceeded with my educational path. Secondary school education brought in a whole new, and different, experience for me. I began to see some great light flashing at the end of my tunnel, and surprisingly I garnered some confidence and a sense of self-belief, unlike in the past. Soon I started getting praises from fellow students who called me by names of some important contributors from the past, in science and history, because I was doing well in these subjects. This was the main turning point of my educational development, as my earlier struggles simply faded away, while a new potential-aware me unfolded. On completion of my secondary school phase I spent a year on a national service programme, where I also gained some valuable lessons relevant to my continued development, as a resourceful person. One key lesson I learnt during my national service year was to be a proactive being, in seeking for opportunities to engage my abilities, experience, knowledge, skills etc., as a way of authenticating my worth and serving life. This too became a major turning point for me, in that it shaped my entire outlook about my engagements in life going into the future.
By the time I got to
varsity I had already built-up some good momentum to drive my journey, and I
never really met any challenges I could not handle. During every long vacation that we had, while
at varsity, I always made sure to engage my proactive qualities by seeking for
vacation employment, so I can continue to authenticate my worth by being of
service to life, as well as obtain some financial rewards, and work
experience. The latter was critical to
helping me settle, when I finally graduated and became a workplace team member
in the public service. For the next 20
years I continued to proactively engage in life through the workplace, and even
surprised myself when I initiated some major projects that I had minimal
knowledge on, but nevertheless managed to complete successfully. While at the workplace I took full advantage
of numerous work reform and human resources development learning processes
offered, across the board in the public service, to grow and advance
myself. This is where my love for motivational
education on personal development stemmed from, and I ultimately used the
opportunity to develop my own personal strategic plan, to help me craft the
kind of experience I desire out of my moment of human life. So, today all that I do is built upon my
personal strategic plan, with the aim to yield for me a meaningful, worthy,
purposeful, and fulfilling experience of life.
The purpose of sharing my story is to inspire you out of any restraining challenges you may come up against in life. This is a story that I particularly like to share with young people still early in their developmental path, who may be tempted to give up too soon when they encounter difficult situations. There is always a reason for any challenging situation, but more importantly, every individual is naturally gifted and empowered to find solutions for any such challenges, and ultimately make success. Yes, there were moments when I felt like school was not for me and I found it hard to continue, but the little man inside kept assuring me that all will be fine. I also had the support of my family, teachers, and the community at large. For that reason, I share my story to celebrate the support I got during my own struggles, with the hope to help others who might be in similar situations, to become aware that they are not alone in this, and that they too can go beyond any challenges they may be facing now.
Part I – The Beginning
My memory takes me back to
my toddler days, in the mid 60’s, where I grew up in a small village
called Mafungo/Marobela in Botswana, Southern Africa. Then I knew nothing about the world, and
neither did I understand much about my own country, except a local community of
subsistence farmers, largely comprised of my extended family members. Here, I remember, we had less than a hector
piece of land where we grew food that would last the entire year until the next
ploughing/planting season. Yes, we
practiced rain-fed subsistence farming, and the typically semi-arid climate
only supported a single planting season.
My roles at this stage were simply to watch and learn how the
elders went about their busyness of community lifestyle, in addition to just
playing with the other kids, or maybe crying to seek for attention from the
elders, for whatever reason. The most
outstanding lesson for me, that I took from this era, is how then the community
held in high esteem the spirit of togetherness or teamwork, particularly
regarding synergy during the ploughing season.
Back then people used cattle-drawn ploughs, which not every family could
afford, and hence the rest of the community would gather for a day or two to
support one family, while the respective family only provided meals. This practice would repeat throughout the
entire community until all families had cultivated and planted in their crop
fields. Things changed though with the
introduction of mechanized farming implements, and now it’s more like “every
family for themselves”. However, the
great lessons of synergy and teamwork remains, and can be applied in many
different situations of life, such as in family, workplace, or community
engagements. These lessons from early
days really helped me to comprehend life better, and to know how to recognize
opportunities and roles, so I can effectively fit myself into the right
equation of human life support systems.
For example, when I report for work, or any other life engagement, I
know that my role is simply about synergy, with the aim to team up with others
and help create the ultimate results desired.
This lesson has served me well throughout my public service employment
era spanning over three decades.
Part II – The School Days Era
When school began, I was
only 5 years old, and then there emerged some challenges for the first time in
my world. Before then I never needed to
do anything really than just play and have fun and look up to my parents for
anything I needed. But now I was
growing, and it was the beginning of a new era where some minute level of
responsibility needed to sprout. I
didn’t really understand much about school, and neither did I have any specific
expectations of my own. However, what
was clear though was that my parents expected me to go to school, and in
addition, it was clear that my days of all-day-play and fun were over. In most times I would be walking around
school grounds just following my elder brother who we started school together
and in the same class.
The first real challenge I
faced, at that age of 5, was having to walk a distance equal to my age to
school, and then the same amount back home from school. It was tiring for me
such that when I got to school just paying attention in class was another major
obstacle on its own. Much of the time I
would be just sitting there in class, daydreaming, and waiting for the
play/feeding-time bell so I can go out to have meals, as well as play with the
other kids. In addition to getting tired
because of the distance factor, there were other side effects emanating from
changing seasons and weather patterns.
During those times, many of us kids from the neighbourhood would walk
barefoot to school through very cold winter mornings, as well as during very
hot summer days, resulting in uncomfortable feelings about the whole school
saga. I remember one incident where I
got tired along the way during a hot summer day and decided to lie down under a
tree in the shade, and I unfortunately fell asleep, and the other kids left me
behind. I was later picked up, thanks
God, by one of the elder girls coming from behind who then carried me on her
back until I got nearer to home. When
the rainy season began, the pathways we followed to go to school would often
not be passable at streams or river junctions due to floodwaters, and that
meant having to cover extra distance to seek for a safe cross-point, with a
culvert. In one such instance I found
myself being carried at the back of a bicycle by one elderly man, while the
rest of the older kids ran.
The second and perhaps
biggest challenge I had was right inside the classroom, and it’s a challenge
that stretched throughout my entire primary education learning period. My take-off in the learning process was very
slow indeed, and I believe this was partly influenced by the challenge of
distance to school described above, in addition to my young mind struggling to
comprehend the essence of class. When I
got to class for the very first time, the biggest surprise and discovery, which
later became a major obstacle during my early learning days, was that the
mediums or languages of instruction were all new to me. Class lessons were taught through two of the
official languages in Botswana, being Setswana and English, which by then were
all strange to me except for my local language Ikalanga. So, I had this young mind looking to go out
and play, and a tired body after walking some distance, maybe through some cold
or rainy weather, but needing to maintain some great focus and concentration in
learning something new through new languages.
When the teacher read out a word or phrase and called out for students
to repeat what was said, I never understood a thing and all I heard was just
noise. Nevertheless, I soon picked out
one word that made sense to me, and that word was “again”, which always
resulted in a repeat of what we had said previously. So, it became clear then to me that when the
teacher said “again” it meant that we had to repeat a word or phrase that we
just said.
The next daunting task for
me in class was the exercise of reading from a book page, which often turned
out to be some embarrassing moment for me, when most kids could read their part
and sat down, but I had to remain standing and conspicuous. This trend did continue throughout the years,
albeit with some minor improvements, until the end of my primary school
era. I remember one time when my mother
asked that we bring a book from school (i.e. at the time school pupils did not
have any textbooks of their own), through which she then took me through some
reading exercise, word for word, and I could see a bit of a spark at the end of
my tunnel. The reading exercise was
based on a recitation, which had an image of a man heading sheep, which I still
can clearly visualize today. Not only
did I struggle with reading, but I also had difficulties with writing, which
during my early classes we had to write on the ground when taught outside the
classroom, under a tree. Somewhere in
mid-primary classes I began to feel the overwhelm of taking notes, but soon
discovered that a guy sitting next to me in class had improvised a “smart but
stupid” way of taking notes quickly and stress free. I learnt from this guy that the best way to
cope with notetaking was to simply drag your pen in-between lines of an
exercise book and draw some spring-like or millipedes-like feature that
resemble a good handwriting, even if they don’t make any sense, since they
cannot be read as words, phrases, or sentences.
This meant that when it was time to use the notes for homework exercise
or to revise for a test, reading was no longer an option, as there was nothing
to read. Fortunately (or unfortunately
from our then point of view) we got found out and by then it was a matter of
“to spare the rod is to spoil the child”, and the teacher simply administered
this principle.
In 1975, my parents decided
that we needed a different learning environment, and hence me and my brother
transferred from Nyamambisi Primary School in the village of Mafungo/Marobela
to Satellite Primary School in the town (now city) of Francistown. My first day at the new school stirred up
some fear emotions, linked to my reading and writing struggles in class. The reason for this fear stemmed from the
noticeable presence of light-coloured people, which to me then could only mean
that I have now been transferred to an “English-medium” school, where I’ll be
expected to speak and communicate in English throughout. Having come from my
village primary school, where although I struggled with the languages of
instruction, but at least I was free to speak my own language outside of class
and during playtime. So now, what am I
going to do to communicate and seek for help, I wondered in fear? The good news (or bad news!?) though was I
soon found out that the light-coloured people were Afrikaans-speaking rather than
English-speaking, and some in my class also struggled with reading like I
did. This was such a relief for me, and
I managed to garner some little bit of confidence, as I realized that struggle
was not just a thing for those like me brought-up in a village, and neither is
it a race thing. I then just kept going,
never really worrying too much about my struggle, until I suffered a temporary
delay when I did not do well for my final year exam in 1976 (i.e. Primary
School Leaving Examination/PSLE) and had to repeat the final year level (i.e.
Standard 7). That was the year I got
left behind by my brother who managed to go through to secondary school, while
I still needed to up my effort and do better.
I indeed ultimately did better and caught up with my brother at Mater
Spei College, in Francistown, where I went through all my secondary education.
There is one moment though
that I still cherish so dearly from my final/repeat year at Satellite Primary
School, in 1977. Just before the final
exams began, I got hospitalized for measles, and that created panic in my mind
with the thought that I was never going to make it for the exams, and hence,
fail my repeat final year. To my child
mind I was totally on my own, and nobody really cared that I had an exam
coming. I was worried that failing to go
through for the second time would mean end of the road for me, in my quest for
higher education, and only saw a trip back to the village. To my surprise, and out of the blues, one of
the teachers from my school just appeared, and announced that she brought me an
exam paper scheduled for that day. This
brought so much joy for me, firstly because I realized that something was being
done to help me go through my exams, and secondly that I’m not just by myself
and forgotten like I thought. I in fact
believed then that the teacher who brought an exam paper to my hospital bed,
did so out of her own volition and that made me feel so appreciative of such an
act. This incident, though seemingly
just a normal and simple procedural act, did influence me to embrace the entire
teaching and learning establishments, and see them as a conduit of love. This, in the sense of Stephen R. Covey’s
(Book: The 8th Habit) definition of love being “a verb, a
doing word, something you do to support others, a value that is actualized
through loving actions, even for people who offend or do not love in return”. I thereafter made sure to commit to the
learning process as a form of appreciation and gratitude, for that “support
or love”, brought to me by the teacher and the school, at my hospital
bed. To this day, I continue to learn
from many teachers that shows up in my life, including Stephen R. Covey cited
above, and I still am inspired greatly by that gesture of 1977.
*****a major
cross-over here*****
A “flood light at the end
of the tunnel” is how I can summarise my moment at secondary school. When I got to secondary school, all things
became much clearer, and it was as if I just woke up from a whole season of sleep. I was beginning to feel like a normal
student, who could handle school lessons well, without the fear of failing to
read like earlier at primary school. By
the second and third year of my secondary education I began to do exceptionally
well in Science and History, to the extent some of my classmates tagged me with
names of Scientists and Historians we learnt about in class, such as Le
Chatelier, after the “Le Chatelier Principle” or the law of equilibrium in
chemical reactions. I also got the tag “Otto
von Bismark” after a former German Chancellor from the 1800’S who played a role
to unite his nation then. I remember, it
was in the history class where I truly began to practice and learn how to write
sentences and paragraphs, after one of the teachers would consistently give us
assignments that went like “in 3 to 5 lines write about the fall of the League
of Nations or write about the Mfecane war of Southern Africa” etc., and
then those who did well would be given sweets or candy. To date, writing is one of my top learning
styles, based on the VARK Learning Styles, and I believe it all began here
during my era of secondary school education.
I remain hugely thankful to all the teachers who supported me and made
it possible for me to see light at the end of the tunnel, when it seemed likely
that my road could just as easily have come to an end earlier, considering the
difficulties I had at primary school.
This is where my believe in education stems from, and for that reason I
am pursuing a project about motivational education for personal development to
give others a little push, so they gain momentum to go the distance.
On completion of my secondary school learning programme, I opted to join the then newly introduced, year-long, National Service Scheme (a.k.a. Tirelo Sechaba) than to continue right away into varsity, where I had already been offered a place. It is a decision that I believe has given much value to my development as a resource person than I could have imagined at the time I did so. While at Tirelo Sechaba, my engagements entailed teaching at a primary school, as well as helping- out at a local health facility i.e. a health post. It was at the latter where I learnt the most, in terms of my development, following some great advice I got from my then supervisor, which however at the time I wouldn’t have foreseen any value from, going into the future. The routine practice, at the time, was that I show-up every day at work to assist in the procedures of caring for the sick. However, when there were no patients, I would usually spend much of the days just lying on a bench and basking in the sun. This became a growing habit, entangled in procrastination, much to the dislike of my supervisor, who then advised that “when there are no patients coming into the facility, to seek for help, the right thing to do than just lie all day on a bench, is to engage in home visits to find out how they are doing”. These words, said then, have helped me change my view about work, and most importantly, have had a long-term catalytic and transformational effect on my life, as I began to notice and rid myself of any procrastination tendencies, by learning to become proactive in what I do. I have since made effort to recognize and act on many opportunities that came along my path, culminating with the development of my own personal strategic plan, from which I have extracted my current life project, the Centre for Knowledge (CfK), which specializes on motivational and inspirational education for others. For this, I am once more hugely thankful for the opportunity to enlist in Tirelo Sechaba, and most importantly, for the support and words of advice I got from the community.
My varsity era began immediately following completion of my national service assignment, and I enrolled for a Bachelor of Science programme in Geology. Getting to this stage and looking back where I was in my development at primary school, gave me the confidence that varsity would be less of a struggle. My journey of self-development, particularly regarding formal work engagements, continued during this period at varsity. When the university went into a break, I would choose to seek for vacation employment rather than return to the village, where I could have easily fallen back into the old habit of procrastinating and basking in the sun, and worse still, look out to my parents for financial support when I could earn some money for myself. I continued to use the experience and momentum gained from the national service scheme to engage in vacation employment, which included working at the university at some point, as well as other public sector organisations. This experience later helped me a great deal to settle on my first employment appointment after completion of my course programme.
Part III – The Public Service Era
As soon as I graduated from university, I got employment in the public service, and it was during this period that I experienced a marked growth in my personal development. My view about employment is that it is another level of the education system, where you are afforded an opportunity to engage your knowledge and skill, acquired from the earlier learning institutions. So, I took this offer seriously and used it to train myself further on how to act on my basic knowledge and skills to create some results, as well as continue to learn to elevate my level of knowledge, skill, efficacy and productivity. This period of employment was for me the most prolific in terms of my growth, both in my professional career and my personal development, and ultimately determined my preferred direction in the post-employment stage of my life. Besides learning how to apply acquired knowledge and skills, from the earlier learning forums, I had several other opportunities to enhance my professional development, ranging from seminars and workshops, conferences, short courses, as well as complete study programmes where I ultimately attained my master and doctoral degrees.
In addition to my
professional development, the workplace also provided a plethora of
interventional learning forums on human resources development, work reform,
leadership, management, planning processes etc., which is where my greatest
influence in choosing personal development for a vocation, in the second half
of my life, came from. During these
workplace-organized short training sessions, there would be experts on the
subject coming from outside the organization, to come and teach us something we
needed to know. Occasionally, in
addition to notes provided, there would be a book offered at the end of the
training, for further reading on the subject matter. I remember the first book I was offered,
titled “The Personal Efficiency Program”, authored by Kerry Gleeson, became
the main influence and gateway to acquiring more books on personal
development. At this stage I began to
create summary presentations from the lessons we got from visiting experts, as
well as from some of the books I had purchased, to share with my team at
work. This is when I began to develop
clarity about my vision and decided it was time to plan for the next half of my
life, so I can claim my place at the fireplace.
*****another
major cross-over here*****
Part IV – The Visionary Era
Nearly two decades ago while undertaking research on micro-fossils, I got to observe some fossil species of a still living planktonic algae that dates to a much earlier Period of Earth history, before the advent of the human species. It was during the second of the Gulf Wars (a Burning Platform), and I began to wonder how we got to an extent where it seems like we are headed for self-extinction, though we have only been here just a moment (geologically speaking), compared to these planktonic algae. It was these thoughts, amplified by many other concerns I already had about our ineffectiveness as Humanity, such as conflicts of sorts, health issues, poor productivity at workplaces etc. etc. (which I collectively term “The Burning Platform”), that buoyed me to develop my personal vision. I truly wondered how we could possibly turn the limited moment we were offered to live and celebrate life into some non-productive struggles that only serves to expedite our extinction as a species.
While I pondered over possibilities to address issues of my burning platform, I remembered the following words of wisdom commonly attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, which goes thus “You must become the change you want to see in life”. These words had a catalytic effect on me and gave me the momentum to determine my personal strategic foundations and turn my mission into a “life project”, the Centre for Knowledge (CfK), through-which I offer motivational and inspirational education on personal development, with the hope that many would begin to see different options to engage in life, in a productive and fulfilling way, over a longer period of time. My vision is called *The Future I Desire (A Step in Evolution), and is essentially about embracing education to learn, understand, know and act to make our common desires, as humanity i.e. peace, love, joy and happiness, a reality. If we can all make the effort to change in this manner, through truly embracing the process of learning for self-growth, then the entire human species can manage to take a transformational step in evolution, from a conflict-riddled, endlessly displaced, and perennially struggling species, to one that is more supportive and synergistic, both in principle and in practice.
As part of my mission,
today I spend much of my time-sharing wisdom tips to inspire others to commit
more to their course in life. I am
obviously content with how my journey has unfolded since the early days. Besides the ills of human conflicts, I
haven’t got much to complain about in life.
**************************
>> If you managed to read up to the end of this, I take this moment to thank you so much for your effort. I truly hope you did make one or two value picks!
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