Some Music for Easter

I love this band - and this song.

Have a Blessed Easter! (Or a lovely long weekend if you don't celebrate Easter.)

Making Mediocrity Acceptable

“Just remember; 50% is a pass, 51% is a distinction.”

This was the joke to which we all clung at university when we quaked at the thought of the three hour exam we were about to write. Now, what if I change the sentence to: “Just remember, 30% is a pass, 31% is a distinction”? It doesn’t sound like a joke, does it? It just sounds absurd. How on earth does getting 30% as your final mark in a subject mean you pass, you may ask. But that is exactly what you need to get in Matric (grade 12) in South Africa at the moment to pass. Let me just make that clear – of your six subjects in you final year of school, you need 30% in 3 subjects and 40% in 3 subjects to pass and receive your National Senior Certificate. And no, I am not counting “Life Orientation” as a subject – I am focusing simply on the six main academic subjects.

Each year the results are released I hang my head in shame, because I know the figures. Half of the children who start grade 1 never finish Matric. Of those who write Matric only some 70% pass. And, yet, again and again it is reiterated that the pass rate is fair. With these words thousands of students are made complacent into believing that only knowing 30% of your set work is good enough. You do not need to aim for 100%. You do not even have to aim for 50%. Only aim for 30% – and, don’t worry, your marks may even be adjusted if it is deemed that the exam was too difficult! Aim for 30% - we don’t expect more from you. By Jove! We don’t really think you could do better anyway.

Everyone is exceptional...

What worries me – truly worries me – is that generations of students are leaving high school with a bar set so low that they do not believe that they need to aim higher – and I do not mean this only academically. The lowest bar is good enough. Just getting through on the minimum is good enough. Lowering the bar to include everyone - God forbid anyone should feel ‘left out’ or that they ‘aren’t good enough’ or even have to exert themselves more than the bare minimum – is, in fact, doing a disservice to those same students. I also believe that the department is underestimating how great these students can be. They are practically telling the students that they do not expect them to be able to do better than these minimum standards. That 30% are the best they can hope for, so why set the bar higher?

In grade 5 or 6 we read the book Stories from Different Genres – a collection of short stories I enjoyed immensely. One story that haunted me – even more than the sight in my mind’s eye of a man being eaten alive by giant snails*  - was "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., in which people had to wear masks, weights and even have to hide their intelligence and talents so that they would all be equal^†. No one may be more beautiful, more talented, or more intelligent than anyone else. The world sketched in that story scared me more that all the horror tales in that book put together.

Yet the setting of such a low bar and telling people that it is fine and dandy to scrape by is already creeping towards that mentality that everyone should be included and that no one should feel that they had failed – even when they haven’t even tried. From there it is not too far a jump to a world where you are encouraged not to do your best. 

These students go on to university or college and have to be taught simple tasks like writing a paragraph – never mind writing an academic essay. Having to do your own research is met by many (most?) simply cutting and pasting badly written bits and pieces from unreliable websites. At the same time, faculties are pushed to pass most, if not all the students in a class. Again the bar is lowered. And again we are told that this is all well and good and that, if you argue against this, it is you who are in the wrong and just don’t want people to succeed. But what happens when these students enter the workplace? Will they expect the bar to still be set at 30%? Will the least amount of work be deemed “more than good enough” by them? Will mediocre be the most they will strive to be? I truly hope that this is not the case.

*This story is The Quest for the “Blank Claveringi” by Patricia Highsmith. It was weird and gruesome and I loved it. Go figure.

^† Do yourself a favour and read this classic piece.

** This piece first appeared on Storylane. Some minor changes were made before being published here. 

A New Road (in a way)

Starting this week, I’m giving the blog a little facelift content wise. Rather than limit the subject matter to a fixed pattern, I have decided to branch it out to include more ruminations and short articles like those I had posted over at Storylane.

Taking a good look at the stats of Hersenskim, I have noted those entries which have the most views and shares and will steer more towards talking about a variety of books, interests, mythology, and folklore. Music also plays a huge part in my life and I enjoy sharing those songs and bands which make an impression on me – and those that make great writing/study music.

In other news

Storylane has informed me that they are closing the site. I don’t want to switch my posts to Facebook – I only have a private page at the moment – and so I am looking at other possible sites. Once I decide on one, I’ll post the link over here.

Hope to see you back here soon!

Until then,

Á Agrai tellarias or s'agrélar silássa.

Some Poetry - The Hollow Dunes

This is a poem I wrote about a year and a half ago and came across it again last weekend.

The Hollow Dunes

The old ones have left, she said,

her eyes on the hollow dunes.

Their ships and gold they’ve taken.

With fire brands and wild calls

they’ve left.

She placed her hands upon the grassy dunes.

But the drums still speak,

the drums still call to me.

Away from the ocean.

Away from the sea.

The old ones have left, she said,

her eyes on the hollow dunes.

Perhaps they’ll remember me.

Perhaps they’ll open the dunes –

now that I’ve burnt my boat.

The old ones are calling, she said.

The old ones are calling, she sobbed.

I’ll wait for them by the hollow dunes.

Picture taken by me during a trip to the Western Cape, South Africa.

© Carin Marais 2013

Holt Haliern – Library and Sanctuary of Airtha

Holt Haliern was built before the Great Sundering, in the youth of the world even before the dragons had first appeared. In the centre of the great continent was a large mound of stone and it was this that the Airus took and shaped into a great hall with many rooms and floors. Large caverns and passages were opened to where a great river flowed underground. The stonework was so intricate that nothing of the like has been made since by any living in Airtha. This sanctuary – Haliern – stood as a beacon of light on the plains of the Midlands. At this time the woodland around it was sparse and the Great Wood had not come into being to hide it from the world.

All kinds of valuables and artifacts were brought to Haliern from all over the continent, but the greatest treasures were the books. The earliest of the manuscripts told the stories of the creation of Airtha and how the world came to look as it is. Others were academic treatises, written by the old masters and delivered, bound in great jeweled covers, by messengers. 

Soon the library at Haliern became the greatest in all of Airtha and the people who the Airus had chosen to take care of the great halls saw that this would be the greatest goal of this sanctuary – that it would not only be a place of learning, but also a place of memory. They saw that dark clouds had gathered on the horizon and knew that the Light would not always shine so resiliently in the world. They also knew that there would have to be a place where they would be able to keep the knowledge and memory of the Light alive.

Many of the messengers who carried the books over the whole of the continent were asked to give their services to Haliern alone. These Knowledge Seekers searched the length and breadth of Airtha for books and knowledge and had strong ties to the Seekers of the south; those who had turned against the Lewjan and left the Shadow behind to search of truth. Of one of these Knowledge Seekers, a great lay is still told of in the Midlands and Western Lands. Filled with sorrow, but also hope, it became one of the great legends still known in the later days when much sadness and shadow had covered the lands and hope was all but lost.

Yet Holt Haliern remained throughout the long ages of the world. The books in the libraries were written, copied, and kept safe from those who wished to destroy it. It served again as a sanctuary during the Time of Tears when the Second Sundering ripped the Continent apart. But, by the time of the Third Sundering of the lands of Airtha, the glory of Holt Haliern had faded. It still stood within the great forest of Brenoth, but was all but forgotten by the people of Airtha. Most who remembered the name Holt Haliern believed it to be nothing more than an old legend. The scholars of Holt Haliern rarely ventured from the confines of their halls and the Knowledge Seekers travelled in secrecy; seen as thieves and dark magicians by most who encountered them. This was the darkest time for Holt Haliern and would last for many generations after the Third Sundering until the shadow from all of Airtha started to lift. 

(Stock photos from Stock .xchng)

Om weer verlief te raak op (jou) taal

Wonderlike plakkaat deur Burning Through Pages

Nou die dag het die webwerf Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts laat weet dat die Beowulf-manuskrip nou aanlyn beskikbaar is. Dadelik twiet ek die skakel en gaan kyk weer na die eerste bladsy van dié eeue-oue manuskrip. Omtrent twee jaar voor ek die eerste keer ’n foto daarvan gesien het, het ek Seamus Heaney se vertaling van dié epiese gedig gelees en is totaal meegevoer deur Beowulf, Grendel en die draak. Dít was in graad 11. Ek sal nooit vergeet toe ek in ’n af biologieklas die boek uithaal en vir seker die vierde keer daardie maand begin lees nie. Die meisie wat langs my gesit het vra toe waaroor dit gaan – die arme ding het nie besef sy gaan die hele storie en ’n goeie dosis oor Oudengels hoor nie. (En vir die hoeveelste keer moes ek hoor dat ‘meisies nie súlke boeke moet lees nie’.)

So drie jaar terug spoor ek by ’n biblioteekboekverkoping deel 10 van die Afrikaanse Kinderensiklopedie op en kan nie my geluk glo nie*. Hierdie spesifieke deel bevat Afrikaanse vertellings van, onder andere, die Noorse mitologie en ook van die held Beowulf. Tog bly dit vreemd hoe iets in mens se eie taal die hart kan roer. Neem nou byvoorbeeld Koos du Plessis se pragtige, hartroerende lirieke. Of P.G. duPlessis se “Sommer Stories” wat in ’n paar honderd woorde mens kan laat skater van die lag, laat huil of mens vir dae aan een iets kan laat oordink. (Wys hulle mos nou weer Koöperasiestories op SABC 2. Laas Vrydag wys “’n Ruikertjie geelperskes” en daar huil ek omtrent my oë uit. Die man is ’n meester!) Ek dink nie daardie stories sal dieselfde geur hê in Engels nie.

'n Versameling van P.G. du Plessis se verhale

Hierdie week se Woord en Klank op RSG het Elisabeth Eybers se werk bespreek en haar gedigte het my sommer weer van voor af laat verlief raak op Afrikaans. Maar, moet my nie verkeerd verstaan nie, dis nou nie verlief in ’n soort een-taal-een-volk manier nie. Nee, verlief in ’n hierdie-taal-spreek-tot-my-hart manier. En tot ’n weer besef en verwondering dat die mensdom die diepste emosies en pragbeelde in mekaar se gedagtes kan skep deur net ’n klomp klanke in ’n spesifieke volgorde te maak.

(Kliek op dieWoord en Klank skakel om die week se potgooi van die episode af te laai.)

*Dit is byna meer gevaarlik om my by so ’n uitverkoping toe te laat as by Exclusive Books se uitverkoping wanneer jy ’n kilogram boeke vir R50 kan koop!