Search results for ""Author Jonathan Jansen""

Ways of speaking can help heal or they can provoke; they can inflame passions or settle nerves.' Professor Jonathan Jansen is fast becoming a household name in South Africa, for his critical and at times inconvenient voice. In this collection of articles previously published in The Times Jansen highlights the issues that confront our country -- the issues we need to talk about. With humour, humility, occasional anger and a good dose of common sense Jansen discusses education, race and identity, the state of our nation, leadership and even sport. When asked what the secret of his controversial columns is, he answers, 'A good column upsets half of your readers; the secret is that it should be a different half each time.' Jansen takes his inspiration from a diverse group of people -- statesmen, teachers, students, children and everyday South Africans he meets -- and introduces us to them through these stories to bring us a vision of the South Africa we can build, if only we pull together and work to heal the wounds of the past. A book to make you stop and think ... and then talk about his ideas around the dinner table, in the staffroom, in the classroom or on the bus. All the royalties from this book will go to the No Student Hungry campaign at the University of the Free State.

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It started as advice to his own two children entering adulthood, it spread to his students at the University of the Free State and now tens of thousands of his followers of Twitter and Facebook wait for Jonathan Jansen's words of wisdom every day. Each day Jansen (@JJ_UFS) writes a Letter to my children -- a nugget of advice on life, love and becoming a compassionate, thinking human being. Jansen has become South Africa's moral barometer in a time when leadership seems to be sorely lacking in many areas of our country which explains why this project has struck such a chord with South Africans young and old alike. Jansen talks to young people using new media but continues to give them good old fashioned advice about how to conduct their lives as strong and caring citizens who live life to the fullest. In this book, Jansen explains his thinking behind his wildly popular Twitter campaign and shares the first 160 Tweets with his readers. The Tweets range in subject from politics, to love and relationships, to being a student and ensuring that you question the status quo. They include the following examples: condoms break; never under any circumstances become a politician; choose public service instead ; here is the secret to dealing with peer pressure--choose the right peers; go to university to screw-up; how else will you learn?

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'I believe that citizen action is vitally necessary as we come out of the heady days of post-apartheid euphoria.' Professor Jonathan Jansen has become a trusted commentator on the state of South Africa -- reminding us of our past and asking citizens to leave their comfort zones and contribute to righting the wrongs of our society. Why should we get involved? Jansen gives seven compelling reasons: If ordinary citizens do nothing, we face even greater social instability in the light of stubborn unemployment and crises in the poorest of schools. If we do nothing we become part of the narrative of hopelessness. Without our action, millions of marginalised people could be doomed. If we do nothing we fail to demonstrate to the next generation how to live full lives. We must serve to compensate for the wrongs of our shared past. We must give back once we have been able to move ahead. We must take our places in the long chain of activists who have over centuries opposed poverty, illiteracy, government and gangs to give us this tender young democracy to work with. The articles in this collection, previously published in The Times, focus on education and the social realities of South African society. Jansen by turn horrifies us, inspires us and reminds us of the power of individual action.

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Can racism and intimacy co-exist? Can love and friendship form and flourish across South Africa's imposed colour lines?Who better to engage on the subject of hazardous liaisons than the students Jonathan Jansen served over seven years as Vice Chancellor of the University of the Free State, in South Africa. The context is the University campus in Bloemfontein, the City of Roses, the Mississippi of South Africa. Rural, agricultural, insular, religious and conservative, this is not a place for breaking out. But over the years, Jansen observed shifts in campus life and noticed more and more openly interracial friendships and couples, and he began having conversations with these students with burning questions in mind.Ten interracial couples tell their stories of love and friendship in their own words, with a focus on how these students experience the world of interracial relationships, and how flawed, outdated laws and customs set limits on human relationships, and the long shadow they cast on learning, living and loving on university campuses to this day.

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South Africa has an education crisis, despite the fact that the government spends the biggest slice of its budget on education, more than any other African country. And yet the crisis persists. Jansen and Blank looked at South African schools that work, in spite of adverse conditions schools in poor communities, schools with overcrowded classrooms, schools in both rural and urban environments and have drawn out the practical strategies that make them successful. 19 short films (included on DVD or available for streaming or download in digital editions) let you visit these schools and understand in the words of their principals, teachers and learners what makes them succeed. Then take look at the 10 key strategies identified and see how to implement them in other schools to effect transformation. As we have come to expect from Jansen, there are no complicated theories, not difficult to implement solutions just lots of common sense!

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‘It is probably the question I get asked most often by students: how did you achieve what you did? There is an urgency to the question and more than a little self-interest. If I can figure out how he made it, the student reasons, then maybe I will know how to chart my own path. It was always difficult to provide a simple answer to a long and complex journey. So I often leave the inquiring student with a pointer here or a caution there. Never enough to really account for lessons from learning and life…’ —Jonathan Jansen. Jonathan Jansen doesn’t regard the achievements he has made in academia and his contributions to public intellectual life as his own—rather, he sees these accomplishments as a product of the hard work and sacrifices of family, friends, teachers, colleagues, and mentors around him. Jansen recounts, in his indomitable way, how the people in his life invested love, direction, encouragement (and even money) to make his journey possible—in the hope that his story may give inspiration and direction to generations of young people taking their first steps in adult life.

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In this, Jansen's most personal and intimate book to date, South Africa's beloved Professor contemplates the stereotypes and stigma so readily applied to Cape Flats mothers as bawdy, lusty and gap-toothed - and offers this endearing antidote as a praise song to mothers everywhere who raise families and build communities in difficult places. As a young man, Jansen questioned how mothers managed to raise children in trying circumstances - and then realised that the answer was right in front of him in the form of Sarah Jansen, his own mother. Tracing her early life in Montagu and the consequences of apartheid's forced removals, Jansen unpacks how strong women managed to not only keep families together, but raise them with integrity. With his trademark delicacy, humour and frankness, Jansen follows his mother's life story as a young nurse and mother to five children, and shows how mothers dealt with their pasts, organised their homes, made sense of politics, managed affection, communicated core values - how they led their lives. As a balance to his own recollections, Jansen has called on his sister, Naomi, to offer her own insights and memories, adding special value to this touching personal memoir.

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At a time when newspapers are full of the woes of the South African education system and stories of teachers who let the children in their classes down, this book shows that this is not the whole picture; it is a celebration of heroic teachers who have struggled against great odds to give their students a chance of success. Great South African Teachers celebrates the massive contribution of remarkable teachers, both past and present, working in South African schools. The stories, sent in by over 100 South Africans in response to advertisements placed in the Sunday Times, pay tribute to teachers who have changed lives through their passion for their subject, their dedication to the dignity of the teaching profession, and above all their determination to see the children in their classes succeed. The contributions reflect the full range of South African schools -- rich schools, poor schools, white schools under apartheid, black schools under apartheid, urban schools and rural schools, schools today and schools in the past. And the contributors come from varied backgrounds: privileged children exposed to the realities of apartheid South Africa through their teachers, poor children motivated to work to break the bonds of poverty, angry children and shy children, bright children stretched to achieve their full potential and others taught the value of hard work in the pursuit of success. Jonathan Jansen, assisted by Lihlumelo Toyana and Nangamso Koza, introduces the collection of contributions with a thought-provoking commentary on the lessons to be learnt from the tributes. Jansen identifies seven types of inspiring teacher, showing how each type works differently to bring out the best in the children in their charge. Great South African Teachers thanks our inspiring teachers and hopes to motivate the next generation of teachers to dedicate themselves to changing lives, to changing the future. All the royalties from this book go towards pre-service teacher bursaries at universities in South Africa. The first recipient of a bursary funded by the royalties from this book is currently studying for his Bachelor of Education degree at the University of the Free State. He will be the first graduate in his family.

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