The Burning Violin

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When Ambition Becomes Absurd: The Hidden Dangers of Over-Pushing High School Students

November 28, 2025

There’s something slightly deranged happening in modern schooling, wrapped in marketing gloss and sold as “excellence.” Somewhere between targets, dashboards and corporate cheerleading, academic ambition mutated into academic absurdity. The Distinction Arms Race Schools across the country now chase distinctions like commodities. Targets are set with all the humanity of a production quota, as if teenagers are microprocessors being upgraded, not actual people with limits. The latest craze? Forced extra classes. Mandatory extension programs. And the pièce de résistance: Saturday school. Every Saturday. From February to prelims. Imagine being 17 and realising your social life has been replaced by a timetable designed by a Soviet-era engineer. All in the name of “excellence”. What Happens in Real Classrooms It looks impressive on a PowerPoint slide - arrows shooting up, averages climbing. But on the ground? Students buckle. Pressure doesn’t motivate everyone; sometimes it simply crus...

The A+ Illusion: Why Grades Don’t Define Genius

October 17, 2025

Somewhere along the line, we decided that a child’s value could be summed up by a report card. That academic success - specifically, straight A’s - was the ultimate parenting trophy. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: getting straight A’s doesn’t prove your child is smart. It proves they’re compliant. Let’s be honest: Grades don’t measure creativity, resilience, emotional intelligence, or innovative thinking. They measure how well a child follows instructions, memorises content and regurgitates it at just the right moment. In fact, if you really think about it, they reward obedience, not intelligence. A child who colours inside the lines, ticks all the boxes, and never questions the "why" behind the work is more likely to succeed in a traditional grading system than the kid who dares to challenge the status quo. And yet, some of the brightest young minds I’ve ever encountered have been labelled “underachievers.” They’re the ones who get bored easily; who ask too many quest...

Mid-Fee Independent Schools: The Conundrum of Promise and Profit in South Africa’s Education Boom

September 18, 2025

South Africa’s schooling landscape is evolving fast. For middle-income families squeezed between overstretched public schools and pricey private options, mid-fee independent schools have emerged as the hopeful middle ground, offering smaller classes, better resources, and a values-driven ethos without needing to sell a kidney to pay tuition. At least, that’s the promise. These schools sprouted from noble intentions, make quality education affordable, individualised and human-centred. Initially, many succeeded in doing just that. They focused on experiential learning, emotional development and creating schools where children weren’t just seen but known. But as the popularity of these institutions grew, so too did the allure of expansion. And as we’ve seen before, when education meets corporate investment, things can get a bit... slippery. Picture a school that started out like a charming artisanal bakery and now resembles a discount chain store selling pre-packaged loaves that all...

Buzzwords, Banners & Broken Promises: When 21st Century Learning Becomes a Slogan

August 20, 2025

Walk into almost any school open day or browse through its website, and you’ll likely see the familiar phrases: “Future-ready.” “21st-century skills.” “Inquiry-based learning.” Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? But scratch beneath the surface, and you'll often find a very different reality; one where students are still locked into rigid timetables, textbook-driven lessons, and standardised assessments that haven’t changed in decades. We’re talking about a system still built on compliance, not creativity. Standardised Schooling: A Model from a Different Era Let’s be honest, standardised education was never designed for innovation. It was built for efficiency, for uniformity, for preparing children to follow instructions, not to ask big questions or navigate complexity. This model: Teaches to...

The Death of Standardised Schooling

July 24, 2025

Embracing a Scandinavian Model for the 4th Wave of Education Standardised schooling - the once-revered “great equaliser” - is on its last legs. Born from the industrial era, it was designed to prepare children for factory lines, not future frontiers. In a world driven by rapid technological change, emotional intelligence, and creativity, this system feels like trying to send a WhatsApp voice note with a Nokia 3310. We’re now standing at the edge of the 4th wave of education, a progressive, child-centred, curiosity-driven approach where adaptability and emotional well-being matter more than perfect spelling tests or knowing what a fronted adverbial is. The Factory Model: A System Past its Expiry Date Standardised education treats children like widgets on a conveyor belt: same pace, same content, same expectations. But let’s be honest: have you met children? They’re gloriously different, unpredictable, and bursting with potential that doesn't fit neatly into bubble sheets or ...

Where Has All the Kindness Gone?

July 10, 2025

There was a time, not long ago, when holding the door open for someone was a reflex, not a performance. When people greeted strangers in the lift, let others into traffic, or gave up their seat for someone who looked like they’d had a day. But lately, there’s been a noticeable shift in society’s moral compass. Kindness is no longer the currency it once was. Instead, we seem to be transacting in something colder: self-interest, entitlement, and the slow creep of narcissism. We don’t need a scientific study to confirm what we see and feel daily, at the shops, on the roads, on social media, and even in schools and workplaces. It's as if kindness has become optional. A “nice-to-have” in a world that's increasingly in a hurry, angry, distracted, or just… indifferent. Everyday Examples: A Slow Fade In traffic, someone cuts you off, then gives you the finger. In a queue, someone talks loudly on their phone, ignoring the elderly person struggling behind them. On social media, a post ...

The Homework Hoax: Why Primary Schools Should Put Down the Pencil

June 13, 2025

Let’s get straight to it: homework, that sacred cow of the school system, might just be the most overrated educational tool ever invented. For decades, we’ve asked children, some barely out of nappies, to drag their weary little bodies home after six hours of school, only to sit down and… do more school. But is this actually doing anything helpful? Or have we simply confused busywork with brilliance? Spoiler alert: it’s the latter. Where’s the Evidence? The great irony of homework is that it’s often defended in the name of “academic rigour,” yet the actual evidence supporting it is flimsier than a Grade 1 glue stick. Alfie Kohn, one of education’s most notorious myth-busters, points out that there’s virtually no evidence that homework improves academic outcomes in primary school. And he’s not alone. Harris Cooper, who has churned out more meta-analyses on the subject than most of us have had hot dinners, found that homework has little to no impact on younger learners’ achie...

Taxageddon: The Slow, Painful Death of the South African Wallet

June 04, 2025

Let’s just get straight to it: South Africans are being taxed to death. Not the neat kind of death with a eulogy and some finger food. No, we’re talking about a slow, grinding, Kafkaesque financial asphyxiation where you wake up every year to a new reason the state has to mug you again, but this time with more paperwork. It used to be simple. You worked, you paid income tax. Fair enough. Roads need building. Hospitals need funding. Someone has to keep Eskom’s lights off. But somewhere in the last three decades, the folks in charge had a eureka moment: Why not tax absolutely everything? And so, they did. The Classic Rinse-and-Repeat Let’s begin with VAT, that sneaky little 15% that’s tacked on to everything except bread and heartbreak. It used to be 14%. Then, with the subtlety of a falling grand piano, the government nudged it up to 15% and never looked back. It’s amazing how something so small can cause such national despair. Then there’s personal income tax. For top ear...

Surviving the Generational Battlefield: A Guide to Working with Everyone from Baby Boomers to Gen Z

May 23, 2025

Working in a multigenerational workplace is a bit like being forced into a family reunion where no one knows why they’re there, what they have in common, or how they’re even related. Each generation has its quirks, habits, and pet peeves, and when they all converge in one office space, the results are… let’s call it interesting. If you’re brave enough to navigate the minefield of Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zs, buckle up – here’s the cheat sheet you never knew you needed. Baby Boomers: The OGs of the Office Ah, Baby Boomers – the original gangsters of the workplace. They’re the ones who remember when “work-life balance” was called “working until you dropped.” For Boomers, work isn’t just a job; it’s a badge of honour, a ritual. Many of them are still around, not because they have to be, but because they’re simply not sure what else to do with themselves. Retirement? No, thanks. They’ll retire when they’re ready, which is apparently “never.” Boomers come wit...

South Africa’s Sports Obsession: Our Last Shred of Sanity

May 13, 2025

My blog from last week has me thinking more about where this school sport obsession in South Africa might originate. And what I do know is that our sport obsession is our last shred of sanity! If you want to understand South Africa, forget politics, forget the economy, and forget trying to figure out why we have 700 state-owned disasters still standing. Just watch a sports match. It doesn’t even matter what sport, rugby, cricket, soccer, even netball, when South Africans watch a game, something magical happens. The power cuts, potholes, and tax hikes fade into the background, and for 80-odd minutes, we’re not a collapsing economy, we’re a sports-mad, flag-waving, beer-drinking powerhouse. Because let’s be honest: without sport, we’d probably be throwing things at the government instead of the TV. The Great Escape For a country that lives in a constant state of crisis, sport is our one great escape. Other nations unwind with long walks in the park, reliable public transport, or (i...