Thank a teacher today - Happy World Teacher's Day to all educators!

HAPPY TEACHER'S DAY TO ALL EDUCATORS!

Happy Teacher's Day 2013! 

"If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job." ― Donald D. Quinn

I often think of my teachers, coaches and mentors, not just in school, but in all the experiences and circumstances I've had in my life. Some of them were the weirdest and most inspirational people in my life. One that comes to mind just at this particular moment, because it was not a 'normal' teaching situation, is a time where I had just joined a group of Cub Scouts in my junior school days. Very soon after my joining the group we participated in a snare hunt in the surrounding, mountainous areas of my hometown. Our task was to walk through the bush and find snares that were set to trap animals by poachers. We would then set the traps off and remove them to save the wildlife in our environment.

As we walked through the bush some fellow Cub Scouts ahead of me walked over a snake which was on our path but disguised by the leaves and foliage on the ground. Luckily they did not step on the snake otherwise we would have had a real disaster on our hands, being in the bush, far way from any medical help. And if they had stepped on it the people behind would have been the ones to get bitten.

As I got to the snake I stopped in mid-stride as I noticed the snake. If I remember well, it was a puff adder and it was very still. I notified the Cub Scout Leader and he made sure that the rest of the group negotiated this very venomous snake without any incident. The Leader later told me that he thought that I was very aware of my surroundings and that was why I had noticed the puff adder and the others had been unaware of its presence. Whether I've still got that sort of character or not is something for another article, but the reason I mention it here is that he gave me a reason to start to discover the other qualities about myself that are unique. Up until that moment I did not appreciate that there might be gifts in me which are unique. I always had this impression that I was nothing special. It seems funny to say this, but up until that moment I was not aware that I was aware.

A group of Cub Scouts very similar to our bunch.

I can't remember whether it was on the same snare hunt or on a different occasion, but another lesson comes to mind. While crossing a small river, during our escapades, another group disturbed a swarm of bees. The group behind them walked right into an angry 'cloud' of bees. I managed to stop a few moments before I got into danger and retreated. Maybe that was something to do with my awareness again but I am grateful that I did not walk into that melee.

As the group ahead tried everything they could to extricate themselves from their predicament, running, wriggling and crying out, the Leader once again stepped in to calm the situation down. He told them to stop making so much noise and to lower themselves into the water. As they obeyed his instructions their cries died down and the bees calmed down and eventually flew away. We were then able to step into the water and help our fellow cub scouts. We helped them back to base camp and the next few hours were spent removing bee stings with the few tweezers that we could find in the first-aid kits. We were glad to tweeze our fellow cub scouts and glad that we were not the ones that the bees had chosen to express their anger on and we ended up laughing about the whole scenario. The lesson was twofold: to keep calm in a crisis and to lower ourselves into the water if ever attacked by bees somewhere near water. Thankfully this incident happened in a river.

My own parents were both teachers. In fact there are more teachers or former teachers in the rest of my extended family than I can remember. I'll own up and say that I used to say that I would never become a teacher and I guess many look down upon teaching because of what's mentioned by Donald D. Quinn in the quote at the beginning of this article. I would sometimes help my mother, who was an infants teacher, to do some menial tasks such as covering books for her students. I would look at this and think to myself, "I don’t want to be doing such things for the rest of my life." I would watch her spend many hours doing schemes of work and lesson plans over weekends and holidays and this totally put me off teaching. As I grew older and learned about wages and salaries in othe careers, it further increased my 'loathing' of teaching as a career. I couldn't understand why teacher's salaries were so low, and yet they seemed to spend so many hours of their lives preparing to deliver the ultimate lesson, never mind shaping the future of so many young lives and minds.

A group of mesmerized students that could become future surgeons, but it wasn't to be for me.

During the break between Cambridge O Level and A Level we were given the opportunity to visit places of employment as part of career guidance. I chose to go to a hospital to observe an actual operation because I was considering a career in the medical field (and precisely NOT teaching). The operation we were to observe was a simple one on an elderly gentleman. It was the removal of the prostate gland, a chestnut-shaped male organ located next to the bladder and surrounding the urethra (the tube that carries urine from the bladder to the penis). The surgeon on call explained to our small group that the gland has become swollen and thus the elderly gentleman was having difficulty in urinating. He said that this was quite a common occurence in elderly gentlemen and that it was quite a simple operation to remove it and that it's use was not essential at his age. For those that don't know their biology, the prostate gland produces a fluid called prostate fluid that carries sperm cells. I guess that is why the surgeon said it was not essential in the elderly.

The operation proceeded with the patient under anesthetic and we watched as the assisting nurses uncovered the gentleman's nether region to begin the operation and prepped the patient in all sorts of embarrassing ways. We giggled of course, mostly because our group consisted of both girls and boys but also because we wondered how these nurses could do what they were doing almost nonchalantly. That was the funny part of the procedure, but soon things got rather more serious as to grab our undivided attention. The surgeon grabbed the scalpel and started to make an incision into the crotch area. As he proceed he used laser to burn the ends of the nerves to prevent excessive bleeding. That was the part that all things went asunder for me. The smell of burning flesh was too strong for me. I passed out and was prevented from hitting the hard, cold floor by a fellow student. I only regained consciousness when I was taken outside for a breath of fresh air. Nevertheless, I was able to go back into the operating theater for some post op analysis.

That incident put me off pursuing such a career, at least for then as I didn't think I would be able to stand the sights and smells associated with it. I thought that maybe a career closely related to medicine, such as physiotherapy, would be more apt. Since that day I've not really looked in that direction again.

That's me in the centre at the back during my gap year,  being introduced to teaching

As it happened, when I completed my high school I decided to take a gap year. A year later I went back to my high school to work as a "general dogs body", a stooge as we called it. I was assigned as an assistant teacher to my Cambridge A Level Mathematics teacher, during her junior Maths classes. I was given the opportuinity to do some teaching during those classes and I actually enjoyed the experience. One weird thing that I remember was having to call my former teachers and mentors by their first names. I remember one incident when my dear Maths teacher for the whole of my high school career, Mrs. Carroll, said to me, "Call me Jean-Anne." My reply was a rather perplexed, "Yes Mrs Carroll."

My other duties included coaching sport (I didn't need to be an assistant here as I managed my own teams), doing duties in the school hostel, as well as accompanying students to different types of outings and activities. I enjoyed and learned a lot during my one year stint as a "general dogs body" within a schooling environment. During that time I applied for and was accepted for a teaching bursary, in which all my university fees would be paid for, for four years and all I had to do was complete four years of teaching afterwards. I accepted and thought to myself that if teaching was not for me then I would move into a different career when my four years of teaching were up. As it happens I have spent 15 years in the profession, and although I have given up teaching in the classroom for a while, I have a feeling that my teaching days are far from over.

A teacher has to be both a teacher and a student

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” ― Gautama Buddha

This quote has always intrigued me and being an educator I find that it applies to me as well. We do not stop learning throughout our lives if we're open to learning and are mindful. I've always thought that being an educator only meant teaching in the 'traditional' sense, but I've discovered that one can teach in many OUTRAGEOUS ways. Many careers involve teaching and one cannot limit themselves to using red pens, being a so called chalk-master or even standing in front of a visible audience with the kind of technology available today. With the variety of tools and technology, the possibilities become BOUNDLESS! Whatever I find myself doing there's one thing that I've learned and it is that I am a teacher today and always will be.

Click the image to go to the website. 

I will always also be forever a student. Right now I am taking the opportunity to learn as much as I can about business. It's not very usual to think of education as a business and a saying that has been around for a very long time is that teaching is a noble profession. This has been because teachers in the normal sense are not paid very much throughout the whole world. Some people, especially in developing countries, opt for this career because there's a high demand for teachers and it is one of the easier careers to consider especially when one needs to start earning and suppoting a family. On the other hand some teachers do so because it is purely a passion and they do not mind dedicating their entire lives to the nourishment of minds for very little financial reward. But I have always wondered why this is so, because teachers are responsible for nurturing the minds of those that are in the so called more important careers where the financial benefits are greater. If other people can be in careers where they are fulfilled both in what they do and their financial rewards, why can't educators be in the same situation as well? Why can't those who are passionate about their teaching have both the vocational and financial rewards. In my opinion we as educators have got to start to think of our vocations as business. We have got to redefine our careers and the possibilities of how and what we can teach in order to bring about more fulfillment both in terms of what we achieve with our students and the rewards we get. The art of teaching is being revolutionized throughout the world by teachers who have realised that they can be fulfilled by their effect, not just in classrooms or lecture theatres but of the world at large, whilst being rewarded financially for their efforts.

I am learning as much as I can about business and I have found my teacher.

I have become a student of business and am on the lookout for any opportunity to learn. My latest find is an audio newsletter by David Shepherd. David is a former University Business Professor at the University of Texas in Austin, an author and a Design Industry Consultant. He has founded and is CEO of SmallBIZ CEOs which offers the product that I am using. He also founded a company called Design Principles Inc. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

David Shepherd, CEO & Founder of SmallBIZ CEOs.

Through a decade of dedicated study, the former business school professor, David Shepherd understands business. After twenty years of teaching entrepreneurial finance and strategy for one of the nation's top-ranked business schools, David turned his sights on the surprisingly complex industry of interior design. As an instructor, David was routinely rated among the most popular by the hundreds of undergraduate students in his classes. As a professor of high-tech finance for the prestigious ICC Institute of the University of Texas at Austin, he was given the award for "Outstanding Contribution." As an entrepreneur himself, David has started several successful businesses including technology and service firms, having raised millions of dollars along the way.

Based on his best-selling book, Your Business or Your Life: 8 Steps For Getting All You Want Out of BOTH, David designed a workshop for interior designers in 2002 at the request of a national trade association. Additional workshops and consulting work followed and David became enamored with the field and the impact he was able to have on these talented small business owners. Over 3,000 interior designers have attended a live “8 Steps” workshop and thousands more have read the book.

David Shephard looking very focused during one of his conferences. 

To reduce traveling, he founded the Business of Design Conference in 2004, an annual event where interior designers come to learn how to clarify their strategies and improve their bottom lines. The conference, which ran for 10 years, remains the sole event of its kind in the industry, (that some designers have been to all of them, speaks volumes for its value).

To work more closely with select designers, David then formed the Best Practices Network, or BPN. This was a membership of from 70-100 design firms nationwide who attended semi-annual conferences and participated in online forums to share their “best practices” with each other. Members also received a monthly audio newsletter prepared by David to keep them up on the most current changes in the business environment, as well as leading edge strategies to capitalize on those changes. He has documented many of these best practices through more than 400 audio tracks developed for BPN Members.

SmallBIZ success is now just one inch from your brain

Through his “Designing Your Future” consulting process (DYF) he has helped to redefine and restructure the focus of many individual designers. The process, including time with David on site, is consistent with David’s philosophy of closely linking business and life goals.

More recently, David has completed a manuscript version of The Path: A Course in Prosperity for Interior Designers and Decorators. This book (also a Webinar course) lays out 12 radical new approaches that designers must take in order to succeed in the post-Recession economy. In addition to his business books and articles, David has also written three novels including a literary work praised by both a Nobel Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner, a historical novel on the Conquest of Mexico, and a Washington D.C. thriller.

After a decade as a design consultant, David Shepherd retired. "I never knew how fast a decade could pass!", he said.

"There I was back in 2003, innocently teaching small business finance and strategy at the University of Texas at Austin when I was asked to make a presentation to an interior design society. Interior design was a business? Who knew!"

"The rest, I suppose, is history. What I discovered was that interior design is just about the most complicated business on earth to run. And I also discovered that most of its practitioners don't get a lot yof business training in school."
"So I decided to fill the gap. Ten years later, after producing and delivering 19 unique conference events (from Cancun to New York to LA), consulting with dozens of firms, writing and recording over 400 audio tracks and countless reports and papers, I've decided to resign!"

"Well, I've decided to make a career shift—to writing books full time. But before I do, I'm going to present to a precious few designers (and friends) the "101 Best/BEST Practices" I've ever seen."

"On the one hand, I can't wait to settle into that quiet library in Santa Fe to write. On the other hand, I've grown to love this industry and its entrepreneurs. [My work has been] filled with emotion, celebration, laughter, and the highest level of education ever offered in your field."

He lives in the Dallas Fort Worth area where he writes and runs as often as he can. Shepherd holds B.A. and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Texas at Austin where he was also an All-American track and field athlete. He enjoys time with his sons, an attorney and an accountant.

Click on the image to find out what the audio advantage is all about. 

As a result of his lifetime work David has founded a company called SmallBIZ CEOs. He produces a monthly audio newsletter to which I have subscribed am trying out for 30 days. In it he shares the lessons he has imparted through his workshops. He is passionate about small business although his lessons can be applied to large corporations, start-ups or small business. I have been impressed by what I have listened to so far and I urge you to give it a try for yourself. The newsletter enables you to share the knowledge you pick up with others in business while earning a passive income yourself. It is FREE to try for 30 days and if you are not satisfied you can cancel your subscription at the click of a single button on his website, without paying a single cent. The audios are fully downloadable so that you can listen to them at leisure on your favourute device. There are also weekly Webinars to discuss the material in the newsletters.

Click on a banner or link anywhere in this article to go to David's website. 

I am thankful that David has taken the time to make his Audio Newsletter. I have been in contact with him and hope to be able to host him in the city of Johannesburg in the near future. He says that he's as far as 15 minutes to the nearest airport and a 20 hour flight from Dallas to South Africa. Thank a teacher today for all the things that you have learned and experienced. Be thankful for your life for it has been your greatest teacher.

Be blessed,
Sam Maramba

SmallBIZ CEOs audio advantage

Emotional Attachment to Objects vs. Healthy Relationships

What is Emotional Attachment?

As promised here's the second installment of the article on letting go of attachments. Click here to the link to the previous one. 

Emotional Attachment

The web dictionary defines emotional attachment as,

“physical desire for something or someone, and the inability to release or do without that thing or person.”

Do you have unhealthy emotional attachment to objects?

How you might become emotionally attached to a brand or object. 

The above graphic shows how one might be emotionally attached to a certain brand or object. If your happiness rests upon having a certain object or thing, then your emotions are attached to that object or thing. The attachment causes you to forego your personal development and growth, at the expense of having that thing. Ask yourself the following:

1. Is it possible to have/love this thing/person/situation without being completely attached to it?
2. Why do I believe my life will fall apart without __________?
3. Why do I believe I can only be happy if ________?

Stages of Emotional Attachment

A mother and child form an emotional attachment. 

We're all attached to things in our lives. It all starts from a very young age where, when we feel hungry, we cry out for our mother's comfort and milk. Unless she cuddles us, we cry out until the comfort we require arrives. As we become toddlers we start to have emotional attachment to specific toys that we 'cannot' do without or a certain favourite meal, prepared in a certain way, and if we don't get these things, exactly the way we want them, when we want them, then we complain.

Some toddlers cannot sleep without their favourite teddy.

As we get into our teens we will have attachments in the form of friends or cliques, favourite places to sit in class or on a school bus, cellphones and gadgets. The words "MY" and "MINE" tend to come out of our mouths more often and if anybody else takes OUR object or starts to hang out with OUR friends then war breaks out.

Keep away from MY things.

In fact we can end up having signs on our bedroom doors that warn others to KEEP OUT, just so that we can protect our space and our things. At school we can get very upset if someone sits in our place in the classroom, cafeteria or school bus. Seniors start to demarcate certain areas for seniors only, such as special lawns or common rooms and if a junior infringes upon this territory then it's a huge issue.

A Possibly Unrelated Story

The topic of seniority reminds me of a funny story that happened when I was a senior at school. A new kid arrived at the school who had been exposed to schooling in the UK. Although he is African, he had a strong pommie accent.

As seniors we could always get someone else to do the queuing. 

One of the privileges we had as seniors was that we could send juniors to the tuck-shop to buy things for us. We were not harsh about it like I had heard was happening in certain other schools. Apparently in these other schools as a junior, a senior could actually send you to buy something at the tuck-shop with your own 'hard earned' bucks and you could not make any objections about it to anyone. You would just have to go to the tuck-shop, purchase whatever was requested and then hand it over, no questions asked.

Anyway this young African pommie seemed a pleasant fella and a fellow senior and I spent some time chatting to him during one break time, finding out a little more about him. We were especially entertained by his pommie accent because it was very different from the colonial English that we were used to.

Towards the end of the break my friend decided to send this young fella to the tuck-shop to buy us two cream sodas (we totally adored cream sodas then, but I can't think why). He seemed quite a sensible fella and he seemed to be of the understanding that we were the 'big shots' in the pond, so it was to his advantage to stay on our right side. My friend searched in his pocket for a note which would cover the purchase and although he did not mention it, he fully expected to get some change from the purchase. The young African pommie gladly accepted the note and scurried off to the tuck-shop without a second thought.

Meanwhile we laughed to ourselves about how enthusiastic the young man was and we carried on with our break time duties. Just then the bell for the end of break rang and we turned around to see our new student walking towards us with two cream sodas in hand. He gladly handed them over to us with a smile and we thanked him. My friend waited patiently for his change which was not forthcoming. He eventually asked about the cash and then a very perplexing reply came from the young man and I will never forget it so long as I live.

"I bought me'self a croonchie ". 

"I bought me'self a croonchie", said the rookie.

We paused a moment because we were not used to the accent and thought that we'd misheard the reply.

"What did you say?", my friend asked.

"I sed I bought me'self a croonchie."

"What's that?"

"A croonchie."

"Oooh... a Crunchie!"

By this time we were very weak at the knees and seething. The fact that this young man had had the cheek to use the change for his own purchase caught us off guard. We felt powerless to ask why he had thought that he could buy himself a "croonchie". We just stared at him and eventually told him to go to his next lesson.

We looked at each other in disbelief. All the things we could have possibly imposed on this fella as punishment for having done such an atrocious act were forgotten. It was just unbelievable and in anger or shock, I can't remember which now, we hurried on to our next class.

Much later we recalled the whole event and laughed at it and in the midst of repeating that fateful statement, "I BOUGHT ME'SELF A CROONCHIE", over and over again, the young man became known as CRUNCHIE, even to those that did not know anything about that event. I think even to this day he is still known by that name even though the event happened a long time ago.

Now, why did I recall that event again? Oh yes, it was this idea about attachment to objects and things. We were attached to our seniority and when someone did not see us that way we were offended to the point where we could not believe it. We were also attached to the money. We expected that the young man would go and carry out the task requested of him and return our money, without expectation of anything in return.

Mobile phones,  cars you name it, are gadgets close to a man's heart. 

Moving into adulthood we also get attached to many things. We buy a lot of possessions because we now have the earning power that we've always wanted and we stock up our living environments with lots of goods, some of which we don't really need. Some of the goods are for comfort or to make our environment look lived in or for so called ambiance. We keep some of the things from our younger days because they hold a special place in our hearts, even though we don't need them anymore.

Click here to read about Kaitlin's story.

Sometimes we wait/hunt for specials on 'perfect' goods that we've always wanted or of a certain type or quality. We think that these goods will serve us for a lifetime. But life changes though and what could have been good for us to have, might not serve us best in another part of our lives. There's a saying that suggests that holding onto things in our lives so tightly prevents our fists from opening up to receive more and better things.

My battle of the Mind & Belief System

The antidote for emotional attachment is to start practising the art of non-attachment. It sounds easy, but it can be quite difficult, as I am experiencing, but it is a step in the right direction.

I've come to the crossroads as it were, about some of the objects in my life. I've started to get rid of some of them and there seems to be resistance from the family about getting rid of them, probably because at this moment there're no immediate plans to replace any of them. Some other reasons might be that when we acquired certain objects they were 'high quality objects' at an unbelievably low price, so they said.

I myself had an inexplicably negative reaction when one of the objects was wheeled away. Even though I am the one who initiated the 'cleaning up' exercise, and I thought I would be fine with this 'cleansing', I was quite visibly distraught. I took a shower and played some jazz to get over it. I was fine after that but perhaps it would be a good idea to prepare members of the family before the next object makes its way out. My wife is particularly attached to ‘her' microwave oven, so perhaps that will be one of the last objects to go.

I've also started to go through every room in the house, looking for anything that I can throw away, every scrap of paper I've ever kept. I'm a stationery-keeper. I keep pens, sometimes even when the ink has dried out. I don't like to throw away paper, perhaps because I was taught about tree conservation from a very early age. I have many out-dated gadgets and accessories that have long ceased to be useful. During my childhood we did not have many store-bought toys and so we always had to make do with what other people had no use for, which we used to make our own toys. We kept most things just in case we could find a use for them later. Clothes were sometimes handed down to siblings and so I have a lot of clothes that I no longer use but keep, just in case I can find some relative to give them to.

I am re-examining my belief system to see exactly why I have these emotional attachments to certain objects. It even goes to the extend that if I see someone else getting rid of something, I immediately consider whether I can make use of it or not. This sometimes results in my space being crowded with things that I never find another use for. For me, this is an emotional battle and cleansing, which if I keep at it, will be greatly beneficial. Physically clearing my living space of unnecessary objects has several advantages:

• The house is a lot cleaner, obviously
• It is easier to clean the house and to keep it clean
• The physical clearing of the mess is symbolic to clearing the mess in our lives
• It clears our minds and living space for simplicity and more creativity
• The process of letting go of objects which we might be emotionally attached to is therapeutic
• Very often the process of looking for things to clear away objects enables you to brainstorm while at it
• Letting go allows new things to come into our lives, both spiritually and materially

Creating Healthy Relationships vs. Emotional Attachment

When we look at objects, they are just that - inanimate objects. What is it that makes objects so 'precious' in human minds? What is it that makes humans so unwilling to part with their possessions, sometimes sacrificing connections or relationships with others?

Relationships last a lifetime. 

Sometimes when I get 'stuck' in a philosophical whirlpool I think about how the person who invented money really ruined the fate of humanity. Yes I agree, we have to have some sort of method to barter goods and services, but when you actually think about it, money is just glorified paper and therefore could be used to do any of the things 'normal' paper is used for.

Need change to buy bread?

Just listen to the jokes that fly around about when the currencies of certain states decrease drastically in value. In Italy for example, one had to go to the bakers to buy a loaf of bread with a wheelbarrow-full of money.

You needed a bundle of these to buy toilet paper.

The currencies in Zimbabwe and Argentina also fell so drastically that the prices changed by the time you got to the till to pay for the goods. The Zimbabwe dollar got to such a low that it was supposedly cheaper to use the notes as toilet paper than to actually buy it (at least that was one of the jokes flying around).

The value of any commodity, stock or currency on the market depends quite heavily on sentiment and I propose that this is exactly why humans find it difficult to let go of objects - the sentimental attachment. Is it not more fulfilling to attach oneself to building relationships with people and helping build people, rather than to build up a pile of possessions? Is it not better to ensure that your emotional relationships, whether with objects or with people, are healthy relationships?

Always keep in mind that the value of objects depends on sentiment and like currencies, the value could be different overnight. The value of relationships, if they are kept healthy, lasts a lifetime so rather invest your time, energy and effort in maintaining meaningful relationships with your loved ones.

Tell us what you think in the comments section.

Be blessed.