Returning to school!

What a privilege it was to return to my alma mater, Belgravia High School in Athlone, Cape Town this week, to speak at the 2014 Valedictory Ceremony.  Apart from the ceremony, however, the experience in general was surreal since, even while I sat there on the stage, I realised that the three components of my message manifested themselves right there in the room!

The first part of my address contained a reference to the 'career revolution', a different way of conceiving personal career development.  This is not my concept, not is it new.  However, it remains at odds with the traditional views of 'future', often held by lower middle class communities such as the school community of a typical Athlone school.  The idea that traditional careers were conceived as linear, starting with some education or apprenticeship after school, and slowly growing from there.  It was based on values of longevity and loyalty, values which were, and are, rewarded at retirement.  Its progression was predictable and steady.  Most importantly, the traditional career was centred around the employer, aspirationally a large corporate, or the State.


For some years now, this idea of career development has been superceded by a more contemporary concept of personal career development.  Today, economies are no longer able to employ growing numbers of young adults of working age, skilled or not.  Today, personal growth is less and less dependent on the largess of employers.  Instead, the qualities of individuals are more and more material for their development.   Career development is unpredictable, and haphazard in nature.  Individuals may have several jobs or even concurrent interests that will characterise their productive years.  The values associated with that development are not loyalty and longevity.  Instead, success now depends on agility, communication skills and creativity.


There is a natural tension between these two positions, and the parents and learners in the hall often represented two camps on either side of that philosophical divide.  In our work we experience this often: parents wanting sons and daughters to enter professional areas of study, for 'security' and 'guarantees', while young adults want to express themselves differently.


The second part of my address related to Seth Godin's concept of the Purple Cow.  A Purple Cow is an event, action or product that generates a following because it flows upstream.  It is remarkable, and gets people talking about it.  I used Cape Town medic and academic, Prof Tim Noakes, as my example.  Prof Noakes introduced Cape Town to the Banting diet, a Low Card, High Fat diet, which he packaged in an eating plan called the real meal revolution.  In mere months, Noakes has developed a following he could never have thought possible.  The book he published along with other contributors was difficult to find in stores, and had to be reprinted.  The ingredients common to his recipes, such as almond flour and xylitol, has been in such demand that the price of the former quadrupled, and continued to sell!  Seth Godin makes the point that, while purple cows are remarkable and rare, they will soon be everyday when more and more start to appear.  In short, we should be prepared to continue searching for innovation.

My point to my young audience was exactly that: that to be prepared to fail (another of Godin's positions) in order to find what is so remarkable that others will want to speak about it, develop is, have it, buy it.


The last part of my speech was dedicated to each and every eighteen-year-old in the audience, and what awaited them, and how they were to consider preparing themselves for this.  I started with the myth that their success at school would translate into success in the future.  Conversely, those who struggled at school were not doomed to be ordinary or unsuccessful.  Our experiences at the University of Cape Town have shown over the years that a whole range of factors, not only academic ability, contribute to success.

Now for the surreal!  I realised that there were teachers in that hall who were there when I arrived!  They embodied the traditional career, and they would be rewarded for their loyalty and service to the school.  Were they able to sustain a changing world, based on revolutionary ideas about personal development?

With teachers around that long, was a school community of this nature able to recognise the need for purple cows, and support them when they emerged?  So, when a young learner delivered an oral tribute to his school that day, that clearly stood above all other speakers on the day, is this talent recognised and honed?

Lastly, how instrumental was a school community in uplifting 10% of their learners, the achievers, over the rest, the plodders.  Were they merely perpetuating our distorted perspectives of who are likely to achieve, and why?

I ended with a reference to time, and how we are all able to remember years back so vividly, but unable to imagine the very near future.

Let that be a clarion call for all of us.

Thank you Bellies!