10 tips to get teenage boys to study for NCEA

One of the biggest adjustments we've had to make in New Zealand, is to get used to the school system and get our heads around how NCEA works.

In just a few weeks Dan and Joe are both starting with their NCEA exams. Dan is in Year 13 (Level 3), and Joe is in Year 12 (Level 2).

After having attended a technical high school, they had to revert to academic subjects when they got here last year. Boy, have they had a hard time adjusting! The NCEA system is very different to Matric and seems to be of a much higher standard. They've gone from being top students to really struggling to achieve the required standard.

Of course choosing subjects like Chemistry, Physics and Legal Studies has not made it easier for them. Nor has their constant wagging. (Bunking in SA-speak.) But, they've got this far, and all they need to do now is to sit on their behinds, and study!


How to (attempt to) get teenage boys to study:

1. Acknowledge that this is much too hard, and that they'll never make it without super-human effort. Be sympathetic. All the time.
2. Be prepared: it will cost you money! Buy them every study guide you can lay your hands on. Also print out exam papers and answers off the internet. Also help them work out a study time table. Buy new stationery. Get colourful sticky notes. Actually get anything you can think of that may help them.
3. Stock up on chips, chocolates, jelly babies and instant capucino's.
4. Stock up on Gingko Biloba, St John's Wort and Rescue Remedy.
5. Motivate, praise, cajole, bribe, blackmail. Many times. Plead, then cry, then plead, then cry some more.
6. Promise to buy them a car.
7. Look guilty, and apologize for the inconvenience you have caused them by bringing them up, and getting them this far. Apologize even more if you've immigrated during their puberty.
8. Remind them that their fore-fathers walked barefoot over the Drakensberg Mountains. (Or the Bombay hills, if you're from Aotearoa.)
9. Pray. Pray consistently and constantly.
10. Ask well-meaning family in SA to NOT tell them they 'don't have to worry, they can write Matric next year in SA'. (Go figure!)

Oh dear, I don't know how I'm going to get through these exams! Any advice?

Oh, how I love my Mother-in-Law

MIL just invited us (that's her son and me) to join her on a family holiday next July in..... Turkey. Even more exciting: We'll be staying at the Club Med Beldi for a week!

It will be a great occasion as Paul's two brothers, (one from Phoenix, Arizona and the other from Johannesburg), their wives and children, and my 13 year old step-daughter from Cape Town will all be joining us there. MIL is 80+ and I reckon she is trying to gather together her chicks from all over the world, before she is too old to travel.

Yeeee-haaa!

When I made this little Befunky cartoon earlier this year, it must have been prophetic!

Anyone know where in Auckland I can take belly-dancing lessons?

Who is Kgalema Mothlanthe? All about the 'older brother'.

ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe was duly elected in the National Assembly on Thursday as South Africa's next president to replace Thabo Mbeki, who resigned after being "recalled" by the party. - 25/09/2008 14:09 News24.com

What do we know of him?

- He comes from a working class family

- Born on 19 July 1949 in Alexandra in Johannesburg. He grew up in Alexandra and later moved to Meadowlands, Soweto.

- In the 1970s, while working for the Johannesburg City Council, he was recruited into Umkhonto we Sizwe. He formed part of a unit tasked with recruiting comrades for military training.

- Motlanthe, 59, is known as "the elder brother" because of his calm and collected manner in even the most treacherous political waters.

- Motlanthe has distanced himself and the party from near-hysterical calls by the party's youth league to spill blood and kill for Zuma.

- In response to the militant language, Motlanthe recently said: "Of course there are individuals who are very angry ... and who then make statements - this is not ANC policy."

- Has been called "perhaps the most level-headed and reasonable of all the politicians" in the ANC.

- Known for keeping his personal life out of the public eye.

- He was a follower of the anti-apartheid activist and black consciousness leader Steve Biko, who died in police custody in 1977.

- After 11 months in initial detention, Motlanthe was sent that same year to Robben Island and was not released until 1987.

- When he was elected deputy ANC president last December, Motlanthe disarmed journalists by saying that rather than seek high office, he'd prefer to train the national football team as South Africa prepares to host the 2010 World Cup.

The closing words of his acceptance speech are certainly uplifting and hope-inspiring:

"We live in challenging times. We see before us many mountains that are yet to be climbed, and numerous rivers that still need to be crossed.

Yet, for all the challenges that lie ahead, the incontrovertible truth is that never before has South Africa been closer than it is today towards the achievement of a better life for all its people.

We therefore have a shared responsibility to build on these results and to strive together - sparing neither courage nor strength - towards the achievement of a better South Africa, a better Africa and a better world."

I guess we shall see what we shall see, soon enough!

Image: http://onctoday.co.za
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200809250768.html, News24.com

Out of the frying pan, into the fire!

Africa, Oh Africa. What is happening to you?

The news that Mbeki is being forced to resign, and that his probable runner up is Zuma, is - to say the least - frightening!

Eish - the Madoda cannot even read very well, I hear! He has no schooling, but he is a Zulu prince, so I suppose that makes it all OK. At least Mbeki is an intcharektcho!

"Azikho ukwazi, kakuhlu isipazamiso" as my students at Learn to Earn used to say!

(No knowledge, big trouble)

Eish!

Limerick, or Ode to Africa.

In Zimbabwe there's a man
Who a great little country ran
Yes, he ran it to the ground
And now rumbling tummies is the only sound
And he has hardly a fan.

In South Africa there's a chap
Who's taken a great country right off the map
From thriving, but mistaken
It's now just lost and broken
Fortunately he's on his last lap!

The future in Africa looks bleak
But if our ancestors could speak
They'd say "all Africans pull together
And vote for a man who will bring good weather
And not an illiterate sneak!"

Comment from the author of this post: I know this is terrible poetry, and I can do much better, honest, but who can be inspired by such a mess-up?

Image can be found here.