01
Dec
2014
Dec
2014
I recently handed in my dissertation. Fifty-eight thousand words left a trail of sweat and blood on the keyboard for near twelve months, but I finally finished it. It’s quite a feeling knowing that a year long journey has finally come to an end…
If you think about it though, it’s not really just a “year long journey”. This dissertation, within the bigger picture, was the product of a five year stay at college. And before that, twelve years at high school, and before that still, a stint in pre-school, as well as all those “teaching moments” we experience in-between, all of which, in an indirect way, contributed to me walking up onto stage and being handed a degree in recognition of said sweat and blood (the guy behind the podium put it a little more delicately). All cards on the table, I had quite the night after graduation, compliments of the amenities of Silver Woods. But back to the academic excellence that produced said night.
What I’m getting at, is that education is not something that starts at grade R. It’s not something that begins at eight am and ends at 3pm daily, five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year (minus public holidays, semester breaks, inter-term vacations – I’m starting to realise that as students we really did get a lot of time off). It is not compartmentalised into grades to the point where work is understood for the sake progressing to a next level, and then forgotten. Education is something that we go through both formally and informally every day of our lives, building upon itself in creating an understanding, and opening that understanding for new things to come. My degree was, and is, a symbol of everything I have worked towards for near two decades, and belongs just as much to me as it does to my teachers, my lecturers, my sports coaches and of course, my parents, without whom none of this would have been possible. It has made me realise the importance of a strong start, if anything, is to be achieved in the years of varsity and beyond. It is something that I, and I’m sure many of you, appreciate to its full extent. And it is something that Silver Woods Estate has certainly taken into consideration in providing you with a quality of living that extends beyond mere habitation, to encompass all faucets of the needs required of us by modern society in building a successful future, for ourselves, for our families, and for those to come.
Gorgeous backdrop aside – who am I kidding, there’s no getting around the fact that the Estate is one of the most beautifully executed neighbourhoods to date, constructed in keeping with a post-modern mind-set that still rings of lost traditions with regards to the architecture and construction of properties in Silver Woods Estate, the medley of local and foreign flora giving you the feeling of being in a distant land that you still somehow call home. So yes, that backdrop aside, the area that it does so well to augment in social status is peppered with some of the top schools in the nation, no doubt the continent. And in keeping up, not with the Kardashians thank gods, but rather with the academic standards that that entire family seems to lack, these schools do deliver in terms of the tools and skills necessary to set your child up for a path to success, the described ethos of education of building upon current knowledge so as to prepare young minds for the trials of tomorrow held strong within these wonderful institutions that propagate it.
There are two of said institutions that really grab me with regards to an uninterrupted workflow, of huge importance to the earlier mentioned philosophy of education building upon itself – Hatfield Christian School, and Doxa Deo and the knowledge of an excellent academic career provides just as much security of mind as the security at Silver Woods itself.
The former is a college of the spirit, as well as of the mind and body. With a strong emphasis on religious growth, academic teachings are coupled with movement towards fearlessness through faith. The vast and varied sports program (upon, honestly, what must be some of the most well-kept facilities I’ve ever laid eyes on), means that just as the mind and spirit grow, so does the body in strength and health. But perhaps the most advantageous aspect of this particular academy is shared with the latter mentioned Doxa Deo, in that it provides an uninterrupted year-by-year succession from the first grade all the way to matric, meaning that students are undisturbed in the furthering of said precious education both on and off the sports fields, and both in and of the heart and mind.
And speaking of the latter…
Doxa Deo provides just as much spiritual guidance as Hatfield Christian School (but then again, all the best do), in conjunction with a global outlook in seeing their graduates experience the world through the eyes of their twelve campuses worldwide, meaning that a religious outlook on life is complimented with an international understanding of just how important faith is to our growth as a society. And, as with Hatfield Christian School – for the best certainly know how to do it – a twelve-grade system means that no interruptions, irritations or readjustments will interfere with your child’s educational upbringing. The liberty allowed to students at Doxa Deo sees adolescents reach adulthood with a maturity that far surpasses that of their age, and honesty, honour and a responsibility for one’s actions is an ideology that is instilled in all that experience the finest that modern education has to offer.
And when the day comes, when you or I see our child walk up onto that stage, cap upon head and diploma in hand, we will know that this particular achievement didn’t start this year, or last year, or the year before that. It started with the choice that we made, to give them the very best in living and learning – it started with Silver Woods.
