Hello hello hello,
I got to thinking recently and said to myself:
It would be really cool if one of my readers wrote a guest post.
So, in short, that is what I need help with. Now as I write this, I have already contacted a few of you and asked if you are ready, willing and able to contribute a guest post to tDA. Now I see some of you asking,
But Mwangi, whatever shall I write about?
I Am Glad You Asked
Seeing as this is the blog dedicated to happiness and peace of mind of Africans in the diaspora AND a lot of y’all, actually most of you reading, are in the diaspora, I would love to know about your experiences and especially the things you have learned along the way. Some of the formats that this article can take are:
a) Top 7 Things I Have Learned Living in Sydney/ Boston/ Coppanhagen etc etc
b) The Story of the Day You Knew You Were an African Immigrant
c) Story of a Day You Triumphed Over Adversity
d) Whatever you feel about writing about, as long as it teaches other people something.
But What If I Am Shy About Talking About Myself
If that is the case, then allow me to recommend that you write a rebuttal post to one of my more controversial posts. Feel free to call me a naive, badly chopped, lemon-head if you please, as long as your rebuttal helps other people. The more controversial posts in the history of the Displaced African are:
a) Jungle Fever: The Relationship Between African Men and White Women
b) Promiscuity Making a Man a Stud and a Woman a Whore IS NOT a Double Standard. Here’s Why?
c) The Empty Symbol That is Barrack Obama
d) For the Ladies: Stop Complaining
Anyway, I am really looking forward to seeing what people can come up with. My first ever guest post, 7 Barriers to an Immigrant’s Success, did very well and is one of the most read articles in the history of this blog.
Let me sign off here by saying:
If you are tempted by the idea and not quite sure whether or not you should. DO IT! I had no idea what I was doing when I first started writing this blog, but in retrospect it’s turned out pretty OK. Plus, I do not bite 😉
To finish off: You see, people aren’t only ignorant about the complexity of Africa. Watch below and be amazed! Thanks Caustic Blonde for bringing this brilliant piece of television to my attention.
Be blessed and bless others,
Mwangi
Tags: African, Carol Jalango, guest post, Motivation Zone, the Displaced African
ROTFLMAO…kelly pickler…geez gal…well i guess that speaks volume about the american education system!
@seinlife: My guess is she decided to skip ‘the whole education thing’ all together.
spot on….
She probably attended a public school, I would NEVER send a child of mine to a public school in America. Thank GOD! my parents had the good sense to send my brothers and me to a private school.
@Caustic: Surely public school can’t be that bad. I did my final year of high school in an Australian public school and it was pretty sweet, though even here in Oz there are complaints in the news all the time about how low the public school standard are. My hope is that it’s more news hype than reality. I hope public schools aren’t as bad as the impression I have gotten from the media.
But they are, I have several friends who are teachers in the public school system and they tell me the biggest problem is that parents do not want to take any sort of responsibility for their children’s education (or behavior). The problem with this is, your child may be fine, but what about another child in class that disrupts the entire class? Little to nothing is done about the child, or he or she will be sent to detention just to return and disrupt the class the next day. I do not think their curriculum is on par with private schools. I have a friend who attended a private school through the 8th grade and then attended a public highschool. She told me that she had the same science book for Biology in her Freshman year of public highschool (9th grade) as she did in the 6th grade at a private school. In a private school they don’t have to keep you, but in a public school they do and I think that makes a big difference in the education your child receives. Many Americans think that if they would just throw more money at public schools that the whole system would miraculously change for the better overnight. I have to disagree and until parents start taking responsibility for their children’s education, throwing more money at the public school system is like throwing the money down a bottomless pit. I could go on and on about this topic, but seeing this is only a comment and not an article I will stop here.
@Caustic: I think you should write a post about it. That sounds pretty bad. Public schools here down under by comparison are paradises, in fact my parents moved house just so that my sister’s could go to a public school…..WOW! America is just an interesting place.
haha gotta luv the US…what will they think of next! making money for charity by displaying ignorance. At least she owns it…no embarrassment there!
@gal: Now you know somewhere in the catalogue of US programs that have existed there is a program that is exactly like that….after all there was “I want to marry a midget” or something like that, Jay Leno used to have some segments of his program dedicated to showing the ignorance of the typical American amongst other mentally enlightening programs that have filled the airwaves……..
I totally agree with @caustic point on parents not caring enough about their kids but there are many factors as to why public education especially inner city is otrocious and funding certainly plays a role.
If you notice city residents always vote ‘No’ to school levy’s when they show up on the ballot. Why? because they think their schools are being mismanaged. In some cases this is probably true but by saying no they are saying no to the children in that school district. So with no computers, outdated books, bad teachers (coz you need money to attract good ones) then how to make do?
I certainly concur that disruptive kids can be dealt with in a more ideal way but those kids are probably disruptive coz they are bored and unchallenged. Again if the schools were well funded and equiped with the right tools that disruptive child would probably feel more fulfilled at school. But that is not to say that is the case for all disruptive children, alot of the inner city school children come from broken homes where for example a single mom on crack or overwhelmed with bills and consumed with work is unable to care for her kids so they end up taking care of themselves and getting into very bad stuff. Again i strongly believe if the school was well funded perhaps a counsellor would be helpful in this case.
Some inner city schools have resorted to using ‘vouchers’ allowing eligible students to attend school in the suburbs. This is obviously not solving the problem (maybe for just that one student) but not for that particular school.
I personally would send my kid to public school after all i pay property taxes and part of that funds my designated school. The difference would be that i would be more involved in the school and it’s going on’s. I am particularly against private catholic schools coz i don’t want my child to undergo any religious indoctrinations (i will be the only teacher on religious matters period…LOL…another topic for another day). I might consider a charter school…..
Yikes….sorry for rabbling…blogging on your blog @mwangi
@seinlife: Blogging on my blog is more than encouraged my friend, plus,it’s not like I was writing one sentence responses on your blog either ;).
Sadly I have nothing much I can add to the debate about American public schools as I am on the other side of the world in a place where my sister’s public school that is of such a high caliber that they actually managed to send spiders to space by collaborating with NASA – needless to say my sister’s school looks like a mesh between the Indian subcontinent and Asia with a sprinkling of Caucasians, Africans, Arabs and Mediterraneans thrown in for good measure.
The only thing I would add to is I would actually support private catholic schools, if for no other reason because of my experience going to one in Kenya and also because of the experiences I have heard from other people who went to Starehe in Kenya -which may not be a strictly private catholic school but is really close.
Say what you will but these schools actually strove and to a large extent managed to raise up better rounded men and women who were not just academic beings but involved in all aspects of life such as sport, poetry and yes religion. So, purely from my experiences of being in four very different high schools – and two Christian schools- I would chose to keep religion centered high schools in the community any day.
i just re-read my post and i don’t want to be misunderstood – am not anti-catholic just anti school mixing with religion period. So am anti-all religious links to school (am an equal opportunity disliker of them all..LOL)
So @mwangi et.al. i totally respect your views and appreciate what you express based on your experiences.:-)
@seinlife: No, I think I understood what you were saying. You don’t like schools that are based around a religion and indoctrinate the youths into their faith. My response was pretty much in response to that – I may have agreed were it not for my experiences in a Catholic based (Opus Dei no less) school. Thank you for respecting my views man, respect yours too 😀
I am not Catholic, but I attended a Catholic school. I do not have any intention of converting to Catholicism as there are a lot of things in which I don’t agree, but I would not have a problem sending my child to a Catholic school.
[…] PostsAfter asking for help last week, I am glad to say some of you gladly obliged. I will be releasing the guest posts that have been […]
Hey?
I like your blog a lot. Now if only you could try and liase with the African community here in Australia. I reckon you should provide a platform for all African communities represented in Oz e.g. the Sudanese, East Africans, Ugandans, West Africans, Southern Africans, all of them basically. Its great to connect with you on your insights on the Africans in the diaspora. However also do consider serving your readership with a platform to share their views and experiences on your blog or simply through other links.
@Bambam: I fully intend to make this an Africa wide tool – which is one of the reasons I have tried as hard as possible since day one to speak about subject matter that’s relevant to all Africans in the diaspora. Any ideas for how I should set up this platform? Should I set up a forum? Set up a section of the blog where people can contribute. Get more people to send guest posts?