By Nnabugwu Chizoba (Contributor to Naza’s Corner)
Dear Kingdom-Minded, Success
driven Teens and Kids. It is with a joyful heart that I
am reaching you through your On-line weekend Platform “Naza’s Corner”. I join you to appreciate 
for her support.
for her support.
I am very certain that very soon
many of you will resume classes, after spending some splendid time with the
Family, observing the long vacation.
Cast your mind back, to the day the
so called long vacation commenced. Count the days you have spent, and try to
figure out the remaining days before your vacation or holiday period is over. As
a matter of fact, what is remaining is lesser than the days already spent. That is exactly how
time behaves. Each day that passes, is a very strong indication that
the days ahead is reducing. As it passes, it naturally leaves you with more of it behind
you and less of it in front of you.
Let me at this point congratulate
all of you, bearing in mind that you will be resuming in a new class. I join
your various schools to welcome you ahead of your resumption, into your new
classes, praying that you will advance in your education. Because Prayers must
be backed up with actions, and wishes translated from mere desires into practical
activities and realities, before any meaningful result is attained, I have
decided to take you through a transformation process of rethinking how you are spending your time.
As always, the objective of the Platform,
which is partly to assemble, and build very competent, creative, resourceful,
functional and Kingdom-minded, Success driven Teens and Kids, through very meaningful
Weekend interactions and contributions, remains the same.
Before I move further, let me task
you to perform another activity, just as you did before. This time around, let
me ask, how many years will be left to complete your stay in the school, when
you resume in your new class? Like the previous exercise, you would observe
that what is left is less than when you started. Again, another trick that time
plays.
On this
note, let me remind you and more importantly, too that in dealing with time, it
is very essential to embrace the fact that a new life always begins right
now. Therefore, whatever you desire to achieve when the school resumes, and
in life generally, the rethinking and rebuilding process begins right now.
At this point let us connect to a
story for further illustration:
Once upon a time, a Teacher in
one of the Public Schools, decided to walk into his classroom with a bottle of
Coca-Cola product, as one of his teaching aids or apparatus. As you would
expect, the class was in a fix, somehow confused, considering that Mr. Noah,
the class Teacher has never done anything close to that in the past.
Standing before the class, he
gradually raised the bottle of Coca-Cola, and pacing round the class, the
students knowing how Mr. Noah behaves, became very uncomfortable. As far as the
class was concerned, he was going to point at somebody in the class, and out
rightly pose a question to the student.
Rather than do what the class
know him for, Mr. Noah adopted a different approach. This time, he decided to pose
his question to the whole class. This notwithstanding, most of the students
were still unsettled. Their reason is, if nobody was able to answer the
question, “How heavy is this bottle of Coca-Cola
that I am holding?” Mr. Noah will still resort to pointing the students’ one
after the other, to answer the question.
Their anxiety was more of, not
wanting to disappoint Mr. Noah than being punished. The class has always seen
it as a duty to satisfy Mr. Noah by answering his questions and getting them
right. In view of this, the Students came up with various answers.
Without stating it categorically
to the students that their answers, which were in pounds and Kilograms, were
wrong, Mr. Noah informed the class that something very significant was missing
from their answers. He told them that they were ignoring the context under which
the question was asked. This left the class more confused.
It was under this confused state
that Mr. Noah noted in a baritone voice, saying “Going by my own context, which
will guide the perspective of this lesson, all I have to tell you is this: since
you did not establish the context under which your answers were built, you did not
satisfy me and therefore did not merit the mark, and my gift”.
Continuing, Mr. Noah added “The
weight of the Coca-Cola bottle, is a function of how long I hold it up in my
hand. Have you thought of what could
happen if I hold it for 10 minutes? Try to reconcile this with what could
happen if I hold it for 30 minutes, one hour or more?
At this point the class came
alive with very loud noise that attracted the attention of many people in the
school. And in a manner, not unusual with Mr. Noah and his class, the noise
died almost immediately and the class continued undistracted, thereafter.
Dear Teens and Kids, reading this
story, let me pause here and ask you this question:
- What is the weight of the Coca-Cola bottle referred to in this story?
- What do you understand by, putting your answer in context?
- Can you relate the story, with the topic of this discussion?
While I await to read your comments,
let me leave you here until next weekend. Bye…
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