On Careers: To assess or not to assess?

I did something about two weeks ago that just proves that it is never too late to do something. A career assessment. I have to confess, I am by nature a snarky person who turns up her nose at newfangled ideas such as therapy, assessments, and testing. Yes, I recognise the irony considering I am a teacher and actually live in the 21st Century. What can I say, I am a mess of complications.

Anyway, I did the test. Mostly because when the opportunity came up I was with my sister who we affectionately refer to as Chief Whip. Pavlov would be proud of how well she has conditioned her younger (though better looking) sibling i.e. me to jump when she cracks it. No matter how  I exercise my no muscles, she calls me to meet her for an hour and I end up taking her for all her roundies, and since her middle name should have been Nyaguthie or Wanjera, they are myriad. I end up at home 12 hours later dazed, wondering how it happened yet again.

So I did the test. Because she had bribed me with a meal at Java and the way to my heart is their caramel milkshake. Her friend came up to the table and shortly I had committed to taking a career test. I am 42 years old. ( I have no issues with stating my age, after all my protestations of having five children, I prefer to end the speculations). I should have an idea of what to do with my life by this point, or so I thought. But her royal highness had decreed it and meekly I went.

It was a pretty easy process, I was sent an online link and was done in half the recommended time. I am just naturally competitive plus I was not overly impressed by the questions which as my sister confided seemed “kubaff”. My conditioned self concurred, hoping by agreeing I would earn a reprieve from the roundies or at least another milkshake. Sigh, I am so easy!

After a lot of dilly-dallying on my part, I was coralled to go for the feedback meeting. It took three hours! Even snarky self was impressed by the report. Apparently, the questions were not so kubaff. The insights I gained surprised and in some cases vindicated me. Like what it said about my math skills…

“Math may be about the same as a foreign language for Anne. at least it is foreign to Anne’s mental processes in one way or another. Mathematical problems become bigger if Anne tries to solve them. Mental gears seem to get jammed in the middle of a math problem and success in the form of a solution is without reward or satisfaction for her.”

My daughter fell over laughing when she read that. That will teach me to share my life with the ungrateful, unfeeling brat. I barely got a C- in math in KCSE. Now it makes perfect sense. In Form 2 and part of Form 3, I spent most of my afternoon math lessons out of class. I thought I simply wanted to ogle boys over our school fence. There was a snooty school near my alma mater and the boys were let out of class at around 3 pm. Those boys were created on a Sunday morning. When God was fully rested and had had time to think and plan ahead. Woe unto those who were crated on Friday late afternoon when the angels were trying to beat the quota and thinking TGIF! Those are the ones who are fearfully made! Back to my weapons of math distraction, those were fine specimens! I used to wonder if the admission criterion was based on physical appearance. So every Tuesday and Thursday, I made sure I was sent out of class so I could commune from afar with God’s amazing creation. I was rather sad when I had to move classes and access was denied, I just switched to daydreaming about them. Now apparently, there was a deeper reason for actively seeking to miss those lessons. I feel so misunderstood!

Another shocker for me was that the test showed that one of my top vocations would have been in Sales. Apparently, I am very good at selling. I have spent a chunk of my life avoiding sales and marketing and declaring to all and sundry how much I hate it. Truth is I hate rejection, not marketing, I guess I need to take myself less seriously and just get on with it because if it has nothing to do with my personal gain and I believe in the cause, I can be a zealot in selling the idea or person.

There is often a point to my rambling. I learned a great deal from this assessment. I wished I had done it earlier, though in truth I have little regret in the path my life took me. I do wish however more young people had access to this kind of assessment. Just yesterday I was talking to yet more young people doing university courses they care not a whit for, that were chosen by their parents, who apparently have no idea who their children are in terms of preferences, skills, and talent. Two of the young people are simply cruising through the course, turning up for cats and tests only and they know with surprising fervency that, while they have no idea what they want to do career-wise (and can we blame them as no one has taken the time to help them find out?) they know what they don’t want: the courses that their parents are struggling to pay at university.

I have said this before, we need to help our children decide where their paths lead them. their path, not yours as a parent. They will have to live a great percentage of their lives in the world created by that career, and God knows it is hard enough to flourish in this world doing something you love. How much more then are we crippling them by forcing them into boxes they may have to break out of to find joy in their livelihoods.

Have to go now, Chief Whip has called and apparently, I am going to Eastleigh for reasons unbeknownst to me. I will grow a spine… someday.

P/s

If you wish to know more on career guidance and testing give me a shout in the comments section. Have a great week and remember Carpe diem! ( that’s my phrase of the week.

 

Teach the Hustle

I have the greatest parents. They were forward thinking for their generation. I was allowed to do things even parents of my generation would wonder at. My sister and I had boyfriends when we were teenagers, not the underground boyfriend who you had to meet at the shop at designated times, communicate via friends ( our version of social media) and pretend you have never met in the presence of any adult with a passing acquaintance to your parents. Our boyfriends came to our house, met my parents and their love (or lust) even led them to woo us by doing household chores! My mum and dad taught me a great deal about parenting, reverse psychology and how not to go insane even if your children are hell bent on trying to make it so. I absolutely love my parents.

That said, they were not perfect. Both my parents were bankers. They gave me a healthy fear of the profession. A paranoia to be honest. Banking and bankers were presented as very staid, averse to risk and highly regimented. The one valuable lesson I did not learn from my parents when I was young was how to be a hustler. Do not get me wrong, we were not rich, I and my siblings did not have lots of pocket money. We struggled and yearned for the day we would finish university and become gainfully employed so the struggle would end. That was the prevailing mantra, Go to School, get good grades, go to uni, get first class honors ( which I didn’t), get a job, stay at the job, get a husband, 2.5 kids, get a mortgage, retire and die!

There was even a song that became my personal bane at the end of every holiday, ya’ll in my generation know it.

someni vijana, muongeza pia bidii

Mwisho wa kusoma, mtapata kazi nzuri sana!

It didn’t quite work out that way. The Kenya we live in today, jobs are hard to find. Good ones even harder. My parents didn’t teach me to adjust to the reality of the lack of a job, and its substitute, the lack of a husband. Yes, both were considered viable economic options for a girl.

My children are living in an even harsher world. Retirement age has been pushed to 60 years, and we ain’t dying so all the very cushy jobs are occupied by wrinkled or soon to be wrinkled butts. We are churning out graduates every year with nowhere to take them. We are still bound by colonial legacy and old-fashioned skewed views of white collar vs blue collar. We are doing a piss poor job at teaching our children that the hustle is real and in their generation, you have to create your own niche. Now I know the world hustle has negative connotations, I am speaking of its pure values. Of having ideas and lacking the fear to push for them. Of thinking out of the box or redesigning that box. Of creative solutions to problems. Of not being bound by the fear of risk and the yoke of doubt passed on from generations before.

I have friends who are entrepreneurs and almost all of them had mentors who showed them that it was possible, even preferred. For a lot of them, these mentors were parents. Some of them were even lifelong employees. But they were employment smart. Even in their employment, they were entrepreneurial, they invested outside of their offices and had fall back plans at retirement.

I have decided that my five children will learn the entrepreneurial leadership mindset, no matter where their careers take them. I must be that example to them. Before I sound oh so evolved and all, I have a confession, I fell into this thinking quite by accident. One borne of circumstances I had little control over that meant the money had become tight. Things had to change and fast.

Before that my children were well on their way to becoming well behaved entitled brats. I had the money to pay for Ubers, movies, outings. To be hones, money was easier to give than lessons. I will give you an example, my son is at Strathmoree School. In his first week of school, he was left by the school van which I pay dearly for, Boy calls me and requests I uber him home. I did and had a conversation about it. You know how it is with mothers, conversation means I yell, he pretends to listen and goes his merry way. I told him next time it happens ” Tembea na Yesu!'” in loud volumes and accompanied by many words. A few months later, after an economic downturn at home, he was again left by his transport. Of course, he called me, expecting his mother’s gooey heart ( yes my children know I have a lot of bark, so much so they forget the occasional bite). I told him to pray, take a hold of Jesus’ hand and start walking and I hang up. He turned up two hours later, dusty and tired. Having walked from Lavington via Waiyaki way to Ngara. After that, I dropped the school van and started giving him bus fare. How he utilises it is his business. Now, he walks part of the way home and is saving up. My daughter is the true example. She volunteers two days at her former primary school, has a part-time job at another school and is setting up an online business selling accessories. Even my house help is expanding. I make my own pillows and taught her how to. That has become her side hustle. She makes pillows and braids hair on her own time.

What changed?The circumstances and I did, and they, in turn, changed me. I want to be the example, to teach them not to become slaves to a job, giving the best years of their lives to someone else’s vision. It starts with us parents. Do not be wary and weary of hard lessons. Do not let your job take your energies from teaching what are basically going to be survival skills. The time is now before the hardship in this world beats them down like it has done so many of us. Teach them resilience, teach them how to believe and how to keep doing so, Augment their academic life which is sorely lacking in teaching the necessary life and EQ skills they need to navigate 21St-century life. It will make them smarter employees and employers. It will make them more. And that is our greatest mandate.

 

Homework is fun!?

 

My children like doing homework, or at least the last three who do not know do. The older two, well they do it anyway. I do not check homework. I am often just as perplexed as my friends at my children’s love of this oft-dreaded task and education as a whole.

The other day my three younger children were playing a game. Mr chill actually took time to call in the Fashionista and Pacman from their rollick in the dirt to come and play. I watched bemused as they took all their books, made my living room even messier by arranging them on every available surface and started playing this game. It was called… wait for it (drum roll, bated breathe) Revision!

Yes, my mouth dropped too. I watched them play this game for the next two hours. My last born, Pacman, Aka the Termite, who is borderline literate (and that was said with a mother’s optimism) was given barely-literate appropriate tasks by his more erudite eight-year-old brothers. They were very serious about the game, assignments were given, marked and fought over. They are, after all, boys. Various topics were covered, many books were used. Arguments over deep academic and literacy altering matters such as whether cat was written with a ‘C’ or a ‘K’ were deliberated with the requisite occasional violence. On my sofa as the astounded spectator, I found myself wondering about life-altering matters such as DNA testing. If I hadn’t been intimately present for their gestation and birthing, I would have been convinced there was no way these children were mine!

I had no idea why my children like school work and reading. I was forced to think on it. It is simple really. I am not driven about homework. Maybe it is because I have one hormonal teenager and four madly (read psychotic) active boys and consider the end of a day without maim a triumph, maybe it is because I am not high strung by nature, or I could be a closet evil genius who has psychological reversal down pat, or could be I am just lazy and the thought of helping all of them with their homework is exhausting. Whatever the case, I have never pushed my children on homework. I have seen parents yell, even beat their children because of homework. My home will be a place of respite. I have worked so that my children have no negative home experiences of a frustrated mother sitting up with them, yelling or pushing. Homework to them is play, it is learning, it is a challenge. There is no division in their heads between homework and fun. And when they are old enough, as my older two are, to know different, it has become an ingrained habit to do the assignments handed out.

I talk to their teachers about homework. I make it very clear that while I will be supportive, I will not be a dictator. My home will not be an extension of the formal, stress-related classroom with me as the enforcer. I have no qualms with the teacher being Mr/Ms. Not Nice Guy in the homework scenario. I will support any punishments meted by Mr/Ms. Not Nice Guy for assignments not handed in, included me being called into school to embarrass my child.

I seem to have gotten this right. In letting them take responsibility for their work, I have allowed them to see the joy of it and find insanely creative ways of doing it, Revision…smh. Thank God it worked out!

I will congratulate my blundering self with a nice read… who knows maybe by my voracious reading, I may have set a good example.

Careers…, and choices.

I believe in karma.  Because I am a teacher. As in, I, Anne Mbai nee Muchoki, am a teacher. I was not necessarily a rude, obnoxious student but when I was a student,  teachers represented everything that was uncool about adults.  They were just like parents, only worse. Old, wore old people clothes, spoke funny and seemed harsh, bitter people who relieved their mediocre, sad lives by beating on us,  and giving us exams, seeming to take gleeful joy from marking and therefore failing us. I never meant to be a teacher. Then Karma,  and her minion, the University Admissions Board happened.
To this day, I cannot recall what courses I had chosen for my undergraduate study.  My criteria was simple and in retrospect a tad shallow. Only courses offered in the University of Nairobi. The reason, I was and am an unabashed urbanite. Then Nairobi was, in my opinion, the only truly urban area in Kenya. I need constant plugging in, therefore electricity. Crowds, pollution and traffic jams are a familiar soothe to my soul. The rural areas creep me out especially for extended periods. I am left wondering. What do people do without electricity?  What are all those animals ruminating,  as they,  well, ruminate? Have you all read Animal Farm? Why do all the animals look so placid? They must be plotting evil. I would if I was being raised so someone would pluck at my udder or sharpen knives and make merry in anticipation of my death.  But I digress.
For a long time,  I was of the opinion that the Admissions board picks courses for the rest of us small people,  other than the doctors,  lawyers,  engineers and such like,  by using an appropriately modified dart board.
“Anne Waithera Muchoki”,  and throw, “education it is”!
I refused to go to university. I wasn’t going to be uncool,  and bitter and all those other things. I was going to be cool and chic,  once I knew what I wanted to be. I would rock my unknown career,  be the envy of many. I knew what I did not want! Teacher,  mwalimu,  blergh!
My father, knowing I was of his ilk took over to save my mother, and me, from death and probable imprisonment on her part. He made an appointment with the then vice chancellor of the university (Back then we had the most educated president on the planet, as he was the Chancellor of all public universities) and dragged me there. I cannot remember much of what he said. I only remember that he made me realise it could have been worse. Looking at my results he advocated that they change my course, to a bachelor of Sciences! I woke up then! In memory of my poor beleaguered chemistry exam. I slept during that exam. I still think there is another Anne Muchoki out there who got my chemistry results and got her career path all messed up. With that visit and the very real threat of banishment to aforementioned shags.  I went to university, to study to become a teacher. Yes, my attitude was right at home in the chip on my shoulder. I was there under duress, the threat of cruel and unusual punishment. I carefully studied the rules,  latching on to the part that said,

“all learners must attend at least two-thirds of their classes to graduate…”

Ergo,  I could legally miss a third of the classes. The amount of time I spent looking for loopholes,  I should have been a lawyer!
And so it went, passive resistance all the way.  Until teaching practicum.  You know, when student teachers come to your school as part of their coursework. I was standing there at the Assembly,  thinking not nice thoughts about my mother,  first for making me go to campus and two, for not having a better suit I could borrow,  then the students attempted to go on strike. There was noise,  shouting,  chaos.  The police swooped in. The ringleaders were carted off. I was riveted. This was followed one week later by an incident where I intercepted a student with a panga,  headed to well,  behead the principal.
It was then I realised.  Teaching was not boring! I know these are not the best examples,  but I had not yet grown in my wisdom teeth. In class,  the students and I clicked,  even in this school, where discipline was clearly an issue, my classes were fun. I was teaching History, a subject I loved and they were soaking it up. I inspired them.  It was a humbling time. In those three months, I realised what great parents I had, and that they did know better,  and that Karma wasn’t necessarily all bad.
I am a teacher. I probably will die being a teacher,  it is now who I am not what I do.
There is a point to this story. It is this. My story worked out.  But it is a sad testament that most of us and many of our children lacked career guidance. Even today,  students will choose the Big Five.  Medicine,  Law,  Engineering,  Architecture and the new favorite Actuarial Science. There is nothing wrong with those careers. But we need the teachers,  the entrepreneurs,  the sociologists, the craftsmen,  the artists,  the creatives for a well-balanced mural of society. We must guide our children,  as parents because as a teacher,  I can frankly tell you, we are overwhelmed, and have limited options. Step up for your child, listen to them,  guide them, do the research,  know them, so that maybe they will not spend valuable time and expense, only to drop out or be stuck in a career path they have little passion or zeal for.  For many of us know,  how stifling it is when your career is more prison than the sky you hoped you would take wing in.

My child, the illiterate…

I seem to be committing a cardinal sin.  You see I have a child who is out of school. I am fostering illiteracy,  which is truly ironical seeing I am a teacher. Popular opinion is that I am retarding my child,  raising a future layabout. I will probably support this illiterate, backward child for the rest of his life as he will never ever catch up with the rest of his peers.  See my illiterate is only three and a half and has never been to school,  well Sunday school,  but apparently, that doesn’t count.
I decided that none of my children would go to school before the age of four,  and I might as well confess it all,  I also hate holiday tuition and extra classes. I agree some children may need remedial classes,  but that’s a discussion for another day. And do not get me started on boarding schools for children in primary school.
I fully support the new education laws. I believe as parents,  we have abdicated our place.  We give birth and hand them over to the government to raise,  via schools and teachers. I see both sides,  teacher, and parent.  I will tell you now.  I am a teacher.  My job is to impart knowledge. To help,  yes help you give your child an education.  Not to raise him for you. I certainly don’t want to,  I have five of my own.  And I want to have them with me,  see them grow, be their first influence,  let them be children.  So, honorable Kaimenyi,  I applaud the shorter school days,  the weekends and the holidays. And I will keep my son illiterate just a bit longer,  he is learning what matters.  That mummy loves him, and its okay to be a child.

Of Responsibility and abdication…

Boarding schools… All who know me know this for me is a pet peeve.  Especially for children less than 14 years. I make no claim to being an expert, all I am is a parent, a teacher and a concerned citizen. Expressing my considered opinion.
Today, my friend told me of a conversation she overheard of a woman touting the positivity of sending her child to a boarding school.  She was encouraging her friend to do the same. Her child is in pre-unit!  I assume that makes her at most five years old. I question our sanity, that, one; boarding schools exist for children that young,  and two; they do because we send our children to them.
I agree there are dire circumstances that would make it impossible or dangerous, physically and psychologically, for a child to be at home.  But that is not why most of us are sending our children out. We send them away because they are not paying attention in school, because they are not serious enough, to do better academically because we need to work. Because they are simply being children, and in doing so disrupting our important lives. A colleague of mine told me she sent her child in class five to boarding school because she was always watching cable tv and using the WiFi!
Parenting is hard. Very hard, with no guarantees at the end,  actually with no end in sight. I know I often relax more at work than at home,  given the choice, if I knew that my children would turn out great, I would sometimes consider farming out some of it. And keep the nice, happy parts. The love,  flowers,  kisses, and joy. Leave the discipline,  angst,  sick nights,  worry and disappointments. But the truth is, they, my five, need me and their father. To be there,  especially now, in their formative years.
I do not want my child to be taught the facts of life by her peers, a teacher whose loyalty is vested in a pay slip or worst still to navigate the vagaries of childhood and adolescence on her own. I want to be an authority figure, because what logical argument would I make,  what moral leg would I stand on, when I see my child three months out of a year, where she fends for herself in an environment where she is a statistic, for expecting her to then respect my authority?
For the most part, the reasons given for sending our children away, truly in my opinion, and I am well aware I may take flack for this, are simply selfish. We don’t want to turn off the cable, how then would we keep up with the Kardashians?  Or turn off the WiFi. Or take that extra time to ensure the homework is done, the syllabus is covered,  the school report is relevant and their teacher has a name.
I urge you, put these precious gifts in their place. First. Your window to influence is so short and so vital, it is invaluable. The master’s degree,  that promotion can wait,  they,  your children, cannot. Trust me,  that corner office and the millions in the bank will count for nothing if you lose out on their childhood memories and in doing so lose them.