MAKING EXCELLENCE A REALITY IN EDUCATION.
The RDP of the Mind.
The Programme of Action for Facilitating Excellence in Schools.
Pursuing Excellence in the Teaching Profession.
“…educator…promotes harmonious relationship with( the parent).
We have become quite familiar with these ideals mentioned in the SACE charter, both in our own training as educators and several pieces of literature prepared for our profession. Yet, we still have challenges of untold proportions in our operating area these days. As the Charter suggests, these challenges have to do with the quality of education, the primary of which is attitude. Attitude truly determines the level of our performance and as we go through stress of all kinds, our performance goes through severe tests.
How much do we really understand of the concept, “attitude”?
Attitude is all about how we perceive our work, whether we are comfortable in it; whether we are happy in it. Do we look forward to coming to school? How do we perceive our students? How much do they understand us? Indeed, how much do we understand them? Are we able to motivate the learners in their studies, or do they really care? Do we have the power, the skills and the will to motivate them so that they can increase their personal interests in their studies? What about the indiscipline that we see around us, how do we feel about it and how does it affect our attitudes and performance? These are just a few questions that revolve around attitude.
Attitude is all about how a person manages himself or herself and like all other forms of management, it requires skills. It is said that attitude determines a person’s altitude. This is true of course, however nobody tells us how we can develop the skill to carry a positive attitude or the kind of attitude that would carry us to ever-greater heights.
A Veritable Solution has arrived.
The problem is now almost over because there exist a Programme that empowers people to understand attitudes and teaches skills to handle any attitude, including our own. It teaches how one can understand one’s own attitude and modify it at will such that it applies both at work and in one’s private life.
The Programme empowers teachers to understand the attitudes of the learners and offers skills to deal with these attitudes and to help students generate positive attitudes. In short, the Programme generates self-mastery and interpersonal thinking skills.
Few people talk about thinking skills. This empowering Programme coaches the individual on thinking skills and how to improve the way we think. These skills can be used for better planning, better teaching, better motivation of learners, better organisation of work tasks, management and prevention of stress and time management that works, all of which make for good results at the end of the year.
Offering skills people will use the whole life long, starting immediately.
There exists an opportunity for the training of in-house training facilitators for each school to expose all the stakeholders to this dynamic and holistic Programme, to coach them on the universal principles of life. The facilitators are geared to start, early enough to help us begin to use the Programme to introduce higher levels of excellence and eliminate stress from our work.
The Programme is called “Thinking Skills for Self-mastery and Effective Interpersonal Survival Skills.” and dubbed the RDP of the Mind and Soul.
One of the greatest features of this Programme is its coverage of all challenges, at work and at home. It is designed for educators, learners and even the parents. In this way, it creates balance between work and home as well as producing synergy between educators, learners and parents. The latter is consistent with the requirements of the Programme of “Tirisano”, as it equips stakeholders with the tools for interpersonal relations, without which the concept of co-operation makes no sense.
The Significance and Importance of the RDP of the Mind.
It reverses the effects of the paradigms of the foregone autocratic society.
It enhances the senses of purpose and direction and therefore responsibility in the individual.
Clarifies the difference between the stimuli in life and the individual’s responses, for dynamic outcomes.
Regulates diversity such that the pursuance of common goals within it becomes clear and effective.
Why the Programme of Action.
The creator of the programme, Ngila Michael Muendane has been working on programmes to transform mindsets in different settings, including the corporate world, schools, community organisations, government departments, radio and television. The programmes are designed to create a common understanding among the stakeholders of any organisation. They further determine priorities, so that the stakeholders do not work at cross-purposes.
Using the programme, all concerned can, among other things, meaningfully set goals to reach the objective in a quantifiable manner so that progress can be measured. As transfer and sharing of thinking skills and knowledge of principles and techniques are necessary to build synergy among stakeholders, programmes also facilitate the identification of the stakeholders and their needs.
How to recognise opportunities and how to benefit from them.
Self-management for effective use of time.
Techniques for handling relationships more effectively for happiness.
Techniques on how to eliminate stress.
Developing leadership attributes and skills.
Changing the quality of life in the community and beyond.
Establishing a proud and fulfilling career for oneself and the people one works with.
There are some challenges that have to be shifted aside to implement the Programme successfully. These will include allocation of time taking into consideration academic time, material resources, such as office and presentation materials, accommodation, provision of refreshments and transport, where required. A public relations facility will also be required to promote communication about the Programme to build up increasing support for it.
Using the skills and insights taught in the RDP of the Mind Programme, which generate proactive thinking, solutions and opportunities have been caused to surface which address the above challenges.
The in-house Programme facilitator will chart a programme tailored to the needs and possibilities existing in the particular school, guided by the broad Programme, as described in this document. The aim is to reach as many stakeholders as possible and give out as much information as possible over time, ensuring that the sequences of the training programme are followed judiciously to ensure a proper understanding of the principles, concepts and techniques contained in the Programme.
The Areas Covered in the Programme.
Self image. Developing a healthier Self-image.
Understanding how the sub-conscious and conscious mind work together and how that understanding can be used to recognise failure or success in personal goals.
The key to personal power.
The controlling force that directs all human action.
Shaping one’s own destiny – taking control.
How to use self-awareness to achieve full personal potential.
What we all want and how to get it.
How it can be used to work for the student instead of against him/her.
Self-expectancy as a dynamic mental attitude for achievement.
Self-motivation. How the individual does not need anyone to push him/her to do anything.
Life values. The things, thoughts and feelings that tell the individual how to act, behave and conduct themselves in every situation of their lives and how they can use these to shape their own destiny and take decisions that they can fully understand and be happy with.
Rules and beliefs – if one is not happy or is confused, the answer lies in one’s rules and beliefs. Understand them and make them work for one.
How to change one’s life by creating the values that are personally valid.
The making of a visionary.
Goal setting that really produces results without painful effort.
Strategic prioritisation in handling goals to ensure success.
Developing a more dynamic self-esteem while encouraging it in others.
How to generate successful relationships at every level of life including leadership. The magic of the win-win approach.
Preparing for opportunity and recognising it when it appears.
Naturally, delivery will be according to the audience, ensuring a language and verbiage are used to ensure optimum understanding.
There are several ways that the Programme can be delivered.
The basic approach most recommended is to deliver the whole programme, straddled over the year, ensuring that the modules follow each other in their “natural” sequence. This will ensure that the principles and techniques are habituated and the greatest benefit will be derived from this approach.
However the Programme can also be delivered over six days.
The needs and possibilities with each group of students will dictate the delivery.
Because of the healing and stimulating nature of the programme of the RDP of the Mind, great show of enthusiasm is ensured among all that will be exposed to it, especially the beneficiaries.
The Programme carries definite potency to eliminate many of the ills in our society, including poor exam results, poor teaching and learning culture, crime, domestic violence, poor work ethic. In a word, levels of excellence are guaranteed to manifest if the Programme is implemented fully, according to design.
Through the RDP of the Mind and Soul, our Nation’s soul shall be healed.
Facilitated by Ngila Michael Muendane.
Muendane’s wish is to inspire other schools in the future to realise the power of attitude in achieving good results, both in teaching and learning.
Through AIPEL and Soultalk, the latter being his company, Muendane organizes and facilitates personal transformational courses for individuals in the corporate world, in government and educational institutions. He was the first radio and television motivational speaker in South Africa. He has also been involved in training peace monitors in the country during the dark days of the entry into democracy in the early nineties.
Muendane conducts training in corporations and parastatals, as well as educational institutions.
(He has trained staff members, both academia and administrative, at the Tshwane University of Technology, University of the North, University of the Western Cape, and RAU).
As a lifestyle coach, he continues to host and to address high profile seminars on these issues. He was, for twelve years, the sole panelist on the Soultalk Show, a monthly Life Skills and Motivational show on MetroFM. He featured on radio and television together with people such as the internationally acclaimed thinking skills and Mindpower practitioners, Edward De Bono and the equally internationally renown, John Kehoe. Felicia Mabuza-Suttle used to use his expertise on her show, where he once appeared together with John Kehoe.
He goes round schools giving free motivational sessions to teachers especially in the rural areas such as Modjadji, Tzaneen, Eastern Cape and Natal. He is often invited to give free motivational talks to churches all over the country.
Nurses and the police have also been exposed and benefited from his anti-stress programmes; he produced a video specifically for the police, which is still being used on Pol-TV. He trained all the senior police officers in the province of the Free State, from Inspector to the Provincial Commissioner, which he did Pro Bono.
He goes round the country giving FREE seminars in churches schools and community organisations and NGO’s on a crusade of personal transformation to engender the spirit of “Living with Purpose”, as his contribution to the government’s campaign on “Moral regeneration”.
He visits prisons every month to motivate inmates away from crime and anti-social behaviour.
In 1997, he presented “Switched On,” a 13 series youth programme, which was his own creation, on SABC TV.
He is well traveled and is a consulting editor of the only encyclopaedia on Africa; a trilogy called Know Africa. He has addressed the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, International Labour Organisation and other internal organisations on liberatory issues. He lived in Europe for over 15 years, based in London and traveled around the African continent.
He studied Economics and Economic history, Political Science, Industrial Psychology, Statistical Methods and Public Administration through UNISA.
Muendane was involved in the liberation of South Africa from apartheid colonialism since 1962, spent seven years on Robben Island and 20 years in exile. He joined parliament in 1996 and abandoned politics in 2001. He has also delivered keynote addresses at high profile conferences, such as the South African Medical and Dental Practitioners Council, the Professional Educators Union, the Printing Industries Conference and the “Tribute Magazine” Titans of the Century Awards, the launch of the South African Black Entrepreneurs Forum and the PEU conferences, to mention but a few.
This remarkable man has authored three books, “Discover Your Purpose, Destroy Failure”, “I am an African” and “The Leader South Africa Never Had”.
Muendane have a passion for his people, that is why he wants to get involved in the promotion of their progress whenever he is given a chance to.