“To the homeless, the poor, the beggar, the victim of AIDS and Alzheimer’s, the old, and the humble, the prisoners in their prison and the wanderers in their dreams, it is our sacred duty to stretch out our hand and say, ‘In spite of what separates us, what we have in common is our humanity.’”
Earning a high school diploma in two years may be considered a rare feat. Doing it while learning English and working two jobs to support a family of 13 may seem impossible.
But Congolese refugee Rehani Mbula walked the stage Friday after doing just that.
This story has literally everything you would want: love, war, violence, family, rivalry, and the deep themes that you would want to dissect IF you want to dissect them. Colonialism is so ripe within the storyline and is the constant cornerstone which the reader finds himself or herself returning to. Nothing in this book can be explained thoroughly without understanding the consequences of colonialism on Nigeria. Undoubtedly, it is colonialism itself that causes the Biafran War. It's a brilliant case study of the effects of colonialism, but it's so easy to identify with its mor e personal themes that the history becomes almost irrelevant once you start getting to know the people that make up the story itself.
"We will not find the solution to problems of violence, alienation, ignorance, and unhappiness in increasing our security, imposing more tests, punishing schools for their failure to produce 100 percent proficiency, or demanding that teachers be knowledgeable in the subjects they teach. Instead, we must allow teachers and students to interact as whole persons, and we must develop policies that treat the school as a whole community.”
I literally went through a few phases during my practicum where I felt that I sucked. I was terrible. I was not good at this and even though I knew that my heart was in the right place and my passion and calling lay with teaching, I genuinely thought I was no good.
It took this video to remind me that where I wanted to be was not going to be reached within 3 months. It probably won't be reached in my entire career, but that the point of this job and the point of a calling is to work. Be creative. Work hard and the results you search for will come.
This was pedagogical inspiration and it became both a huge wake-up call and a piece of pedagogical inspiration that will stay with me for a very long time.