The School Corridor Tatler

Today Eugene Daniels, gave a powerful talk at our SMT forum about the deep change we need if we want to turn schools around. Eugene Daniels's message is clear: Let's teach beyond teaching to targets. Let's teach to each child's dream".  If children do not succeed, adults have to take responsibility for the children's failure. This is a 360 degree turn, flipping traditional thinking that blames the child for not achieving. Eugene Daniels having a meaningful conversation with our school leadership teams You must experience Eugene Daniels to benefit from his evidence-based talk about deep change. Besides drawing on literature, Eugene's shared how he is implementing the model of deep change and he gave us a few practical tips on how schools can deepen their own transformation.  These are a few of the insights that I gleaned from the talk. We must learn to do things differently. We should move away from doing more of the same. If we don't l...

You are seldom disappointed when storyteller, Professor Jonathan Jansen takes the floor. Rapport comes naturally even on this typical winter's afternoon. Off we go with Jonathan to Namibia, meeting a few young people and community members whom he had engaged on his recent travels to our neighbour. We hear our neighbours are calmer, happier and more aligned although they too have a difficult past. Selwyn Page, Devine Fisher, Jonathan Jansen and Jackie Loos Before we know it, we are travelling south again, crossing the Orange River and land straight in Spear Land. We hear lessons drawn from the Spear incident interspersed with just an adequate dose of contextual information to aid understanding. The Spear outcry demonstrated that we are still a deeply wounded nation - so angry and volatile that we forego reason and debate. It highlighted the failings of our education system and the incident also made us more aware of the thinness of our democracy.   Jonathan and Simon, the Organiser ...

  A tribute to Eugene Daniels, Education District Director of Metro South There I was, an apprehensive novice education district official being spoken to by the Education District Director of Metro South Education District, Western Cape, Eugene Daniels. Eugene had joined us during our induction and enquired in a calm, warm voice how I was adjusting.  He looked just like one of us, except he had copies of the book “Leading in a culture of change” by Michael Fullan nestling on his table. Needless to say, by the end of the session, I went home armed with my personal copy of that book. I devoured every page and pencilled in key bits of information like a new student. Eugene at a Staff  forum held at Rondevlei Nature Reserve. Over the next four years, I experienced this MBWA-styled leadership embraced by Eugene. He was, as far as possible, part of our professional spaces. He joined us when we he ld professional development workshops for our educators, becoming a partici...