SYMPATHY (PAUL LAWRENCE DUNBAR 1872-1906)

I know what the cage bird feels, alas!

When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;

When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,

And the river flow like a stream of glass

When the first bird sings and the first bud opens

And the faint perfume from its chalice steals

I know what the caged bird feels

I know why the caged bird beats his wing

Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;

For he must fly back to his perch and cling

When he fain would be on the perch bough a-swing

And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars

And they pulse again with a keener sting

I know why he beats his wings

I know why the cage bird sings, ah me,

When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore;

When he beats his bars and would be free;

It is not a carol of joy or glee,

But a prayer that he sends from his heart deep core,

But a plea, that upward to heaven, he flings

I know why the cage bird sings!

Night

 

Night the beauty of time
So powerful

She is revered by the sun
So beautiful 

She adores herself with stars

She who was there before time

Though skeptical of the night
But remember the splendor of stars
Is only perceived at night
Ask the owl, bat and the firefly
Secret lovers know better

Oh night!
The confident of vices
The protector of conspirators
The keeper of secret
The pathway of spirits

The Smallest Coffins Are The Heaviest

He fought hard to hold the river of tears that was about to force its way down his face, it was the hardest thing he had ever done, acting strong in that situation was close to impossible.

"Men are not suppose to cry", those were the words of his late father, whenever he wanted to cry. So he had learnt to always hide his tears and weakness under the guise of a serious face. but today as a father, all he wanted was to cry,  to pour out the tears that were choking him, to scream out the pain that has been consuming him for six agonising months.

His little son's tender face was embellished with a Mona Lisa smile, that failed to hide the pain he was going through. The last six months had made him to realize that his little boy was  stronger than him in all ramifications, he had faced his nightmare like a man,  he had fought like  a warrior, but tonight he is going to lose the battle though he don't know it yet.

Read on daddy, his son urged him to continue reading from the book, "Tales by Moonlight". He wished his little boy would realize that he was not reading from the book, but was metaphorically, telling him the story of the battle he was about to lose.

Did he died? His son asked.

Did the boy survived?

Yes he did, the brave boy survived, and as he bent to  kiss his boy goodnight, the tears he had  been holding trickled down his  cheek and splashed on his son's face.

Why are you crying daddy?

It's nothing, I have a bad eye, I will have to see the doctor.

He left the hospital to meet the old undertaker at the local cemetery to pick a spot for his son.

His wife had refused to enter the I.C.U, she didn't want her son to to see her face, she was bad at hiding her emotions, her words could make him lose the hope that had kept him fighting.

He got the call from the hospital and from his wife the following morning, he refused to answer for  he already knew the news they were about  to tell him.

He took his time to pick a suitable coffin for his  boy, that morning he knew the smallest coffins are the heaviest to carry.

He drove to the hospital with the coffin at the back seat of his car. He got to the hospital which he had become familiar with and embarked on the agonising walk to pick his son's corpse at the morgue.

There is no name like that on my list. The morgue attendant told him.

Check again, he died last night.

Sorry sir, no name like that.

He walked in anger to the ICU that had been his son's​ home for the past six months. And when he got there he saw his wife by his son's bedside, reading him the story from "Tales by Moonlight"; and his feeding tube disconnected.

He stood petrified as he watched in joyful tears as his son chew his meal for the first time in six months.

LOVE KILLED HIM

He had been dating her for six months and counting, but she didn’t know that yet. All his friends knew she was the love of his life except her. She was the reason he masturbates in the toilet before bathing, she was always the subject of his wet dreams, but he had been hiding his feelings all this while for he lacked the courage to tell it to her face, how he die in her arms every night.

So as he sat by the pool side of Rendezvous Hotel, ogling at her as other boys took turn to teach her how to swim, seizing the opportunity to touch the breast and butts he had only touched in his imagination. He ogled with envy wishing he was the one giving her swimming instruction in the pool.

His friends stared at him laughing knowing the pain he was enduring, they took turns​ to challenge and cajole him to enter the pool and woo her. He got angry and gulped the bottle of beer he had been sipping for the past hour and quickly selected the best out of the thousand lines he had been rehearsing  for a day like this. 

 He walked towards the pool to cheering of his friends.  He called her name but she didn’t turn back and so he dived into the pool and that was when he remembered he can't swim.

         Two days later as he lay on his back motionless inside the cold coffin searching through the familiar faces that have come to pay their last respect to the lad who drowned in the pool. 

        He searched and searched but the love of his life was nowhere in sight. His soul shrinks in regret at the thought that the reason for his untimely death was somewhere living her life.

Finland schools: Subjects scrapped and replaced with 'topics' as country reforms its education system

While Nigerians are busy debating whether to merge religious studies together in schools, Finland is light years ahead of us, as they are set to introduce a new approach to teaching.

With Finland radically reforming the way its children are taught, Richard Garner visits Helsinki to find out if the teachers approve

Pupils at Siltamaki primary school perform a rap as part of their cross-subject learning Jussi Helttunen
For years, Finland has been the by-word for a successful education system, perched at the top of international league tables for literacy and numeracy.

Only far eastern countries such as Singapore and China outperform the Nordic nation in the influential Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings. Politicians and education experts from around the world have made pilgrimages to Helsinki in the hope of identifying and replicating the secret of its success.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that Finland is about to embark on one of the most radical education reform programmes ever undertaken by a nation state – scrapping traditional “teaching by subject” in favour of “teaching by topic”.

“This is going to be a big change in education in Finland that we’re just beginning,” said Liisa Pohjolainen, who is in charge of youth and adult education in Helsinki – the capital city at the forefront of the reform programme.

Pasi Silander, the city’s development manager, explained: “What we need now is a different kind of education to prepare people for working life.

“Young people use quite advanced computers. In the past the banks had lots of  bank clerks totting up figures but now that has totally changed.

“We therefore have to make the changes in education that are necessary for industry and modern society.”

Subject-specific lessons – an hour of history in the morning, an hour of geography in the afternoon – are already being phased out for 16-year-olds in the city’s upper schools. They are being replaced by what the Finns call “phenomenon” teaching – or teaching by topic. For instance, a teenager studying a vocational course might take “cafeteria services” lessons, which would include elements of maths, languages (to help serve foreign customers), writing skills and communication skills.

More academic pupils would be taught cross-subject topics such as the European Union - which would merge elements of economics, history (of the countries involved), languages and geography.

There are other changes too, not least to the traditional format that sees rows of pupils sitting passively in front of their teacher, listening to lessons or waiting to be questioned. Instead there will be a more collaborative approach, with pupils working in smaller groups to solve problems while improving their communication skills.

Marjo Kyllonen, Helsinki’s education manager – who will be presenting her blueprint for change to the council at the end of this month, said: “It is not only Helsinki but the whole of Finland who will be embracing change.

“We really need a rethinking of education and a redesigning of our system, so it prepares our children for the future with the skills that are needed for today and tomorrow.

“There are schools that are teaching in the old fashioned way which was of benefit in the beginnings of the 1900s – but the needs are not the same and we need something fit for the 21st century.”

Though, the reforms have met objections from teachers and heads – many of whom have spent their lives focusing on a particular subject only to be told to change their approach.

Ms Kyllonen has been advocating a “co-teaching” approach to lesson planning, with input from more than one subject specialist. Teachers who embrace this new system can receive a small top-up in salary.

About 70 per cent of the city’s high school teachers have now been trained in adopting the new approach, according to Mr Silander.

“We have really changed the mindset,” he said. “It is quite difficult to get teachers to start and take the first step… but teachers who have taken to the new approach say they can’t go back

Finnish schools are obliged to introduce a period of “phenomenon-based teaching” at least once a year. These projects can last several weeks. In Helsinki, they are pushing the reforms at a faster pace with schools encouraged to set aside two periods during the year for adopting the new approach. Ms Kyllonen’s blueprint, to be published later this month, envisages the reforms will be in place across all Finnish schools by 2020.

Meanwhile, the pre-school sector is also embracing change through an innovative project, the Playful Learning Centre, which is engaged in discussions with the computer games industry about how it could help introduce a more “playful” learning approach to younger children.

“We would like to make Finland the leading country in terms of playful solutions to children’s learning,” said Olavi Mentanen, director of the PLC project,

The eyes of the education world will be upon Finland as it opts for change: will it be able to retain or improve its showing in the PISA league tables published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

If it does, how will the rest of the education world react?

Case study: Finnish approach

It is an English lesson, but there is a map of continental Europe on the whiteboard. The children must combine weather conditions with the different countries displayed on the board. For instance, today it is sunny in Finland and foggy in Denmark. This means the pupils combine the learning of English with geography.

Welcome to Siltamaki primary school in Helsinki – a school with 240 seven- to 12-year-olds – which has embraced Finland’s new learning style. Its principal, Anne-Mari Jaatinen, explains the school’s philosophy: “We want the pupils to learn in a safe, happy, relaxed and inspired atmosphere.”

We come across children playing chess in a corridor and a game being played whereby children rush around the corridors collecting information about different parts of Africa. Ms Jaatinen describes what is going on as “joyful learning”. She wants more collaboration and communication between pupils to allow them to develop their creative thinking skills.

Nigeria need to take a cue from Finland and embark on a quick approach to reform our educational system.

IF WE MUST DIE (Claude McKay 1889-1948)

If we must die let it not be like hogs
Haunted and penned in an inglorious spot
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs
Making their mock at our accursed lot
If we must die, o let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Let men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Amazing Facts You Don't Know About the Noble Prize in Literature

 

Here are some facts about the Noble Prize in Literature award:

1) In 1909, Selma Legerlof became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature. One of her best known works is Jerusalem, which in 1996 was adapted into a movie by the same name.

2) Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European or non-white recipient of the Nobel Prize (in any category). Tagore was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize in literature. 

3) Have people declined the Nobel Prize in literature? Yes. Boris Pasternak, the Russian poet and writer was originally awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize in literature. Famously known for Doctor Zhivago, a novel set in a timeline between the Russian Revolution and the Second World War, Pasternak’s work was not allowed to be published in the USSR for these were the Cold Wars. He was forced to decline the award by the USSR. 
In 1964, leading French philosopher and writer, Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, but refused to accept the award as he always declined all official honours. In a public announcement about his refusal of the Nobel Prize, Sartre wrote that “a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution.” 

4) Politics: Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2010, contested the 1990 presidential elections in his country. Although he won the first round of voting, he lost the race to Alberto Fujimori. Llosa’s famous works include The Time of the Hero, The Green House and Conversation in the Cathedral.

5) In 1907, Bombay (now Mumbai)-born British author Rudyard Kipling was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature. Kipling, then aged forty-two, remains the youngest winner of the award till date. He is also the first English-language recipient of the honour. 

6) Ivo Andric of former Yugoslavia, the 1961 Nobel Prize in literature winner, is the first recipient of the award for works in the Serbo-Croatian language. He was born in Bosnia to Croat parents and lived most of his life in Belgrade (Serbia).

7) Wole Soyinka in 1986 became the first African to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Soyinka is known to be a central figure in Nigerian history, and for his role in the nation’s independence from British rule. He has been known to oppose military dictatorships, both in his own country and elsewhere.

8) In 2000, the Nobel Committee decide to award China’s Gao Xingjian with the Nobel Prize in literature. Gao became the first Chinese recipient of the prize (though he had adopted French citizenship in 1998). However, his works were banned in China after his 1989 book The Fugitives, which had references to the Tiananmen Square massacre. In 2012, when Mo Yan became the second Chinese to win the Prize, the People’s Daily refused to acknowledge Gao’s feat, hailing Mo as the “first time for a writer of Chinese nationality to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Today is the day that Chinese writers have awaited for too long...”

9)  2016 saw Bob Dylan becoming the first Musician to be awarded the noble prize in literature since the inception of the Prize