Children come up with the most amazing statements. Sometimes they can be very amusing, as any teacher marking children’s work can testify. Some popular examples are: “Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went round giving people advice. They killed him. He died from an overdose of wedlock”. “In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits and threw the java”. And there are more where those came from.
Sometimes too they can be very astute. That is why it is wonderful hearing Grade One pupils sing with such gusto in their production the words of the song, Life is what you make of it. Exactly! Life is what we make of it; education is what we make of it; Zimbabwe is what we make of it.
Many children nowadays are quick to advise everyone they are bored — there is nothing to do. Yet there is so much they can do. It is a sad trait in these modern times that youngsters expect everything to be put on a plate (silver, preferably) before them. Many feel the world owes them something, everything. One of Bill Gates’s Rules for Life for Teenagers (copied, in fact, from someone else) says: “You will not make $100,000 a year right out of secondary school”. Yet many think they should. Life is what you make of it.
Others are quick to point out that life is not fair and that their life is so hard. Bill Gates’s first rule for them is perfect: “Life’s not fair; get used to it”. They will spend much of their time complaining in a plethora of self-pity about their lot in life, instead of getting on and doing something with their life. In barren parts of Zimbabwe, miles from anywhere, children walk along the road to school in tattered uniform and bare feet with no books to study at school, let alone at home — and yet these same kids would be sitting the same exams as pupils in private schools with all the resources and facilities and comforts on hand. Sadly, though, it was usually the latter ones who complained. Life is what we make of it; education is what we make of it; Zimbabwe is what we make of it.
Someone once said that what surprised him most was that “people live as if they will never die and people die as if they had never lived”. There is a lot more in that statement than meets the eye at first. Whatever our view of death might be, our life will be affected by it — life, and death, is what we make of it. Education plays a big part in that.
In some ways, it is fair to turn that statement around, to say “You are what you make of life”. How we do respond to life’s challenges, obstacles, difficulties, disappointments, disasters determines who we are. Equally we could change it slightly and say life is what we make it (not just what we make of it). Each school is what we make it. Zimbabwe is what we make it.
Parents are at specific schools; parents are part of those schools; parents are those schools. The key point for all of us (parents, staff, pupils, Board) is what we make of it, at this point in its history and development. We could moan and groan or we can make something greater of it. Whether we feel it owes us something or it is unfair or boring, we can still choose to make something of it. Whether we are a pirate (trying to get whatever we can) or a parrot (repeating what others say with no thought), a principal or a pupil, education, life, school, is what we make of it. And it takes our youngest children to remind us. Let us keep listening to them. We might well be even more amazed yet.
We have shared before the story told by Sir Ken Robinson of the Primary School child who was asked in her Art lesson by her teacher what she was drawing. She replied that she was drawing God. The teacher, without wishing to deflate or undermine the child quietly said, “But no-one knows what God looks like.” The child’s response was immediate and confident: “Well, they will do when I have finished”! We need to inculcate such confidence and initiative in our youngsters.
“Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be”; so said Eleanor Roosevelt. What are we making of it? What are we making of our education? What is our education making of Zimbabwe?