Declassified!
I get to times where I do not think I have anything worthy posting here, but then, grit says I have to post something. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I wrote this (below) to my teammates at a certain Enterprise X. Some things will need deciphering though. Those who have ears will hear, and those with eyes will see. Nice reading!
Bana,
On an easy Sunday afternoon, I don’t want to be saluting you with “Hello team”. In Busoga, when we are addressing a group of people, we use “Bana” as for the case of one, we use “Muna.
Anyway, you might have guessed right, this is going to be a LONG MESSAGE! Maybe I was wrong when I said “easy Sunday” in my opening lines. This could be really a hard Sunday:
Tomorrow is Monday.
Your rent has been due for some days now.
Your girl/boy-friend ghosted you with excuses of lockdown.
Your loved ones caught this bug and you are unsure they’ll have oxygen.
You are broke.
Enter Ezra & Co. with Google Classrooms. Signing up alone has been a hustle. How will the learning and unlearning be?
Romours of downsizing at your workplace. Not sure you’ll survive.
I’m not sure what that song by Khalid is about, but all I hear is Young, Dumb and Broke(…(not) high school kids of course…)
Not forgetting the students taking one school year in two years(real chronological time) and those taking a semester in four weeks(exams inclusive).
You might be wondering where I am going?! Me too.
We’ve had a pandemic on our hands for over a year now. If you see this message, you can pat yourself on the back-you survived and thrived through it. Congrats!
Now Enterprise X is going to thrive through this pandemic. I don’t consider myself as one with a high DIGITAL IQ (I stole this word from Sunny Bindra of sunwords.com), but I am a digital native. I still don’t know how Snapchat and TikTok work, but I know they exist. I still find Facebook borrowing, yet I maintain an account there for 12 years now, and with the same password. The reason you know how to use your phone is because you actually use it. The only way you’ll get up to speed with Google Classrooms is to use it. It is a classroom with chairs and jam boards and a noticeboard for pinning results. I found it hard to use in the first hour I entered it, but then I’m here. Because Parlay and Nearbod, Zoom and Edmodo, Class Dojo and Peardeck were even harder to use or inappropriate.
Remote learning is complex (https://readtheory.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Remote-Teaching-Tools.png) but God has given us brains and brawn to crack complex things. We are all up to the task.
Now, mpozi where were we?!
Bana, regardless of whatever is going on in and around you, please lead yourself well. This project depends on you. If you convince yourself that you have some value that you can give to some students, who are in turn are willing to pay for it, you will make this work. This modal is actually highly scalable and promises even higher returns(even intrinsically!), if we all do our part. And there is less hustle than we think.
Action:
Which days of the week and particular time do you commit to be available for Enterprise X. (Both preparation and actual class)?
As I sign out, “Omulembe guno ogwaleero, atalina data anagulaba”. I hope my next Sunday article won’t be about “When not to make excuses” as taught by my dear teacher Tusu(Dr. Francis Tusubira).
Back to my daydreaming: vacations in the jungles of Cali, the heat of Bali, the street restaurants of Macedonia and the undulating hills of Albania. (Weird?!)
Yours,
Ezra (feel free to call me Muna)