My Story of Why We should #MakeEducationFashionable.

I feel compelled to join the moria (multitudes) of graduates and/or professionals across the globe to pen a personal reflection story about, and why we must #MakeEducationFashionable, much more so, now than ever before. I will narrate a personal account of what education has done for me and continues to do for me post graduation and attaining my qualification/s. As and when I share the story, I hope to juxtapose and share a culmination of multiple experiences, a holistic view that is balanced, and indeed a nuanced perspective.?

I tell this tale with the hope and wish that it inspires, heals and touches the hearts, souls, minds, and spirits of those who may stumble across this narrative. My story, like yours, and many others you will read matters, and are? equally valid. The stories have to be heard and embraced in the manner they unfold. I also tell the story being cognizant that it is still unfolding, and indeed the best pages are yet to be written. After all, the best days of our lives lie ahead.?

The genesis of my story is at a village called Thabampshe Ga-Masemola in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, where I grew up taking care of cattle and goats, fast forward years later after completing matric, I made it to University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg? at the time it was the top institution in Africa. I eventually graduated from the same institution with a Masters of Science in Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Sciences (2018). This is where I had the privilege and honour of being hooded by the proponent of #MakeEducationFashiobale. That moment was special for many reasons. First, having her give a farewell message to the graduating class was the first time in my University career having a black South African academic speak to me, it spoke to representation. Second, her speech inspired me to continue postgraduate qualifications and will remain by far the most inspirational moments of my life.

It was the education and qualifications I obtained at Wits university that set me up for the greatest opportunity life can offer, one of the opportunities was becoming the first African to take the role of Graduate Teaching Assistant between 2019 and 2020, at Staley School of Leadership Studies, Kansas State University, the first operational land-grant university of the American people. Education turned me into a global citizen, a traveller, leadership educator, storyteller, researcher, thinker,author, leader, and an activist. Education enabled me to enter doors and seize opportunities I would never have had access to.?

No one could have predicted and/or convinced me that growing up in the rural village of Thabampshe of Ga-Masemola I would go on to teach people from different parts of the world about leadership at Kansas State University, but it happened because of education. It was not magic or luck, it was education, hence we have to make education fashionable. I know many stories of people who have gone on to achieve the unthinkable and unimaginable. The people who have shattered the class ceiling, in their majority, they did it because of education.

It is because of education that I am able to write and sell books. It is because of education that I am able to lead and build institutions. It is because of education that I am able to rub shoulders with some of the greatest people in the world. It is because of education that I am getting certain platforms. In sum, I am suggesting that education has given me privilege, depending who you are, that is the fortune of being educated. It is from this backdrop that I will encourage anyone to be educated, and pursue the qualification of their choice.

Through education I have found that which sets my soul on fire and makes me come alive. I have found what makes me tick. I have found that which makes my heart skip a bit. For me, I have come to realise that thinking, reading, and writing are what set souls on fire. I have come to learn that teaching and research are what makes my heart skip a bit. I have come to realise that leading is core and central to my being. I have achieved my ancestors' wildest dreams because of education, and I know who I am and I am clear of where I am going because of education. I may not know when and how I will get to where I am going, however, my view is that education is both the direction and tool to get me where I am going. It is an enabler.

It is from this background that I say, let us make education fashionable, the very thing that our ancestors were denied, the very thing the oppressor used to oppress us, let us use the tool and mix it with a bit of magic here and there to achieve total emancipation of Afrikans in Afrika and diaspora, let us rise to the call of leadership and address the complex challenges of the 21st century that characterise the fast changing world we live in driven by 21st century digital technologies.

The time has come to lead, to learn, and above all to love. When we love, we must love with every fibre of our being, we must love with all that we have and all that we are, we must love unconditionally. We must love from the deep button of our hearts. I know we can love, because I met Bell Hooks and Paulo Freire in the space of higher education through their body of work and they? inspired me to be a radical and revolutionary lover.

Education has empowered me to never let someone tell me I cannot do anything, as Ntate Nelson Rolihlala Mandela once said, “"Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another."?

I love telling stories, and indeed it does not matter how long or short the story is, the most important thing is, every story matters, I hope this one and many you have read ignites something in you.

#MakeEducationFashionable

Mafule Moswane writes in his personal capacity

He is an author, leader, thinker, researcher, activist, and an aspiring singer.

02 December 2022