No country for old teachers

If you're a teacher in the department of Basic Education in South Africa, and have pre-OBE experience, the department doesn't want you. It can't recognize you. It doesn't know how to speak to people who can do more than puppet-speak.

There's something very sad about wasting your life waiting for your pension which, when you get there, won't be worth as much as it is now.

One more time: education isn't about a system of schooling, it's about personal, social and economic growth. No fit between schooling and growth in South Africa.

A pre-OBE teacher should resign, take the pension pay-out, pay the immoral tax for doing so, read Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki, find a good entrepreneur coach, and go for it. You will soon learn how the puppets are manipulated, and why they speak in such funny voices.

There's a big difference between access to schooling and passing grade 12 (just)  and access to education. Access to education in South Africa is firmly denied to all, and at the moment only strenuous efforts by those who are in a position to rise above the puppet-speak are keeping education going (just).

The department of Basic Education will have none of that. Way back in the early twentieth century, for example, teachers generally were feared in respect of discipline. Today, our SA teachers are trained how to invigilate exams, and receive a certificate when they are competent to walk up and down a hall, and take in papers.

Not only is this no country for old teachers, it's also no country for unborn children if access to education dies permanently, and I don't think there's another kind of death. If the writing's on the wall, cynicism and clarity are the same thing. Here's what I mean: two desires are keeping South Africa going: the desire for a strong economy, and the desire to milk a strong economy. When the latter empties the former beyond the tipping point, we tip.

One more time: I recommend educational coaching. Coaching has arisen largely because of the popularisation of self-development, and has many, many advantages to offer young people who are intent on development. Find a reputable, trustworthy coach and pay the money. Many lessons have helped me to find a coaching platform, but what comes to mind every time I consider these lessons are the following: studying psychology, especially those psychotherapists whose work is the foundation for NLP, i.e. Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir, and being taught by Dr John Gibbon in respect of educational leadership and management. I am most thankful for this.

I wish that the older, competent teachers who can't fit into the mindlessness, and who are not puppets would also do themselves the favour of following a course in NLP, or at least read a book. I recommend Joseph O'Connor's NLP Workbook.

It's never to late to develop and grow, and do something to move the tipping point further away.

And if any individual or group wants to approach me for assistance, you're welcome. Even the action of approach leads to fruitfulness: if you don't get up, you'll never walk.