It’s one of the oldest metaphors and it should be, since the job is never done in either case. After six years of formal study in philosophy, which followed more than a decade of religious indoctrination, I always wrongly believed I understood what it meant to “know thyself.” I probably did. But one must account for denial. No is often an overlooked necessity. I learned that when one joins a Buddhist monastery the first thing they hand you is not a manuscript of the Dhammapada, or any other scroll full of teachings. It’s a broom. I believed I had it figured out.
I took a week off, and the first few days were working; spent; spent working. I cleaned the toilets, but I failed, because I needed cleansers. I cleaned the tiles in the bathrooms, but this necessitated a new need. More failure. But things were cleaner. I vacuumed. I needed the machine for that; more needs: more failure. But things were cleaner. Dishes. Laundry. Folded clothes. Swept the hardwood floors. Wiped down the counters. Dusted the shelves. Brought out the window cleaner and did the windows. I wiped clean the framed pictures in the office, the place where poetry does not begin, but the place it passes through, on its way from wherever it once was, to wherever I was, and onto wherever a reader was reading it. I have pictures of others, for inspiration, perhaps, or just for the pure aesthetics of it, on the walls of that office. After some blue spray and some wiping, Charles Bukowski never looked better. Ezra Pound was never more clear. I did the sheets, and wished one could do the same with the sheets in the printer: just wash it all away and start over, leave new stains, with more beautiful patterns, patterns more indicative of life-making or love-making, and less indicative of waste.
It all looked very good as I walked about the place, though realizing it is never done, but realizing the joy and peace I experienced in just doing it. For 48 hours I held my metaphorical broom, and had found my place in my monastery.
Something felt incomplete still the same; something felt still; something felt the same. After cleaning off the glass that housed the framed images and art I moved on to the windows. And then I looked in the mirror. And I realized, my work here is not only unfinished, but that I had hardly begun.
It was a very dirty mirror, it still needed cleaning, but only when I looked into it. The surface was fine.
Problems in Today’s Education System and Their Possible Solutions
By: Hayotkhon Shermatova, Uzbekistan
Education is one of the most important pillars of any society’s progress and development. In today’s rapidly changing world, the education system faces a number of serious challenges that hinder the formation of an enlightened and skilled young generation. These problems are global in nature, yet they also have unique national aspects that demand attention and timely solutions.
Current Problems in the Education System
1. Outdated Teaching Methods
In many schools and universities, traditional, teacher-centered methods still dominate the classroom. Students are often passive listeners rather than active participants in the learning process. This approach limits critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills—qualities essential for the 21st century.
2. Insufficient Access to Quality Education
There remains a noticeable gap between urban and rural areas in terms of educational opportunities. While cities may have well-equipped schools and access to digital technologies, many rural regions still lack basic resources, qualified teachers, and modern facilities.
3. Lack of Practical Skills Training
Education in many countries, including developing ones, still focuses heavily on theoretical knowledge. As a result, graduates often find themselves unprepared for real-world challenges, leading to a mismatch between education and labor market needs.
4. Overload and Psychological Pressure on Students
Excessive workloads, frequent testing, and the constant race for high grades can lead to stress and burnout among students. In many cases, emotional intelligence and mental well-being are overlooked in favor of academic performance.
5. Low Teacher Motivation
Teachers play a crucial role in shaping the future generation. However, low salaries, lack of professional development opportunities, and social undervaluation of the teaching profession lead to declining motivation and quality of education.
Possible Solutions and Reforms
1. Modernizing Teaching Methods
Integrating interactive and student-centered learning, such as project-based learning and digital education platforms, can make lessons more engaging and effective. Teachers should be trained to use modern pedagogical technologies that encourage creativity and independent thinking.
2. Equal Opportunities for All Students
Governments and educational organizations should invest more in rural and disadvantaged schools, providing internet access, libraries, and teacher training. Education must be inclusive and equitable.
3. Linking Education with the Labor Market
Collaboration between educational institutions and industries is essential. Introducing internship programs, vocational training, and entrepreneurship education will help bridge the gap between theory and practice.
4. Focusing on Mental Health and Well-being
Schools should promote a healthy learning environment where students feel emotionally supported. Incorporating mental health education and counseling services can significantly improve both well-being and academic success.
5. Improving the Status and Support of Teachers
Raising teachers’ salaries, providing ongoing professional development, and recognizing their societal value are critical steps toward enhancing the overall quality of education.
Conclusion
The education system is the foundation of a nation’s future. Solving its existing problems requires a collective effort—of governments, teachers, parents, and students alike. By embracing innovation, equality, and holistic development, societies can nurture a generation that is not only knowledgeable but also creative, responsible, and ready to build a better world.
Shermatova Hayotkhon Tojiddin qizi was born on September 18, 2002, in Mingbuloq District, Namangan Region. She graduated from Secondary School No. 38 in her district and later completed her studies in the Uzbek Language Department at the Faculty of Philology, Namangan State University. Currently, she works as a teacher of the Uzbek language at Secondary School No. 29, located in the “Yangi Hayot” neighborhood of To‘raqo‘rg‘on District.
From an early age, Hayotkhon has been fond of literature and reading. To date, she has read nearly 300 books. Her goal is to become a highly qualified professional in her field and to share her valuable knowledge and experience with the younger generation.
What we can learn from Trump and thinkers, leaders from Africa
Africa’s troubles are lessons to be learned from. They are meant to be experiences that will inform our future. Afrika’s future, Azania’s future, this continent’s future.
What will you be remembered for, what will your legacy be is the question I want to pose to the youth, each and every individual, male and female, poet and politician on the African continent?
I am beginning to understand the components of the promulgation of the Group Areas Act and the early role of the missionaries in South Africa, I am also beginning to understand the role of the mission schools in early education in South Africa, the role that it played in shaping the psyche and intellectual faculties of our leaders. Leaders who came out of Robben Island and the University of Fort Hare.
We must understand the past, in order to revise the history books, in order to write about the Black majority we must come to terms with the psychotic and brutal regime of apartheid, the heinous crimes and atrocities committed during that time. Colonialism is indigenous genocide, ignorance is intellectual genocide.
The ANC leaders have shown us that leaders are human. Donald Trump has also shown that he is only human. Leaders are also capable of making mistakes, of appearing arrogant and corrupt and flouting the law but it is leaders that must remember that it is the citizens that have the vote, and that it is the vote that puts them into power.
I have a Pan Africanist outlook now, Pan Africanist point of view, a Pan Africanist perspective. It was the father of the PAC and movement, Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe, who said that there is only one race, the human race. What can be learned in a contemporary South Africa from the political organisations that went underground during apartheid? Where are those leaders now? What is important for the boy child and girl child to remember, and here I am speaking about our future historians, is that we as the African continent, and as South Africa (see not a divided South Africa, but a united country), can no longer rely on the West.
Trump humiliated Cyril, and in effect he was also saying that he wasn’t going to acknowledge what took place to the Black majority of this country during apartheid, and neither was he going to acknowledge the Cradock Four, Vlakplaas, assassinations, and the imprisonment, detainment and torture of political activists and freedom fighters. I wondered to myself if Trump even knew of the existence of George Botha, Steve Biko and Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe as he sat across from Ramaphosa.
Trump had the attitude of a White Supremacist but I still admire him. I admire his work ethic. But I reiterate this, that the leaders that come to power when there are always tensions and geopolitical transitions taking place in a global scenario that have been left over from a previous administration are not perfect. Trump wasn’t in that moment operating like the leader of the free world, he was instead behaving like a school bully on the playground.
I look at Trump’s history. I look at his childhood. I look at his brother Fred Trump Junior. I look at the brother that Trump said in his own words in a speech that had a better personality than he did. Time and time again you will find that in the lives of remarkable men who change the course of history by sheer will, tenacity, determination and vision there has been some occurrence or incident of pain and suffering that has radically transformed their thinking and outlook on life. (I also abhor smoking and the drinking of alcohol just like the American President.)
It is time now for South Africa to stand on its own two feet and no longer can we rely on the West, or look to Europe. As I have said before, this is the time of the African Renaissance, for African leadership to revise the history books. The African continent needs South Africa, and organisations like NWASA (the National Writers Association of South Africa), we need to remember intellectuals and thinkers past and present like Lebogang Lancelot Nawa, Credo Mutwa, Patrice Lumumba, Frantz Fanon, Ibrahim Traore
It is time for our future revolutionaries to pick up the pen and not the gun. Education for the nation starts with the imagination, the most important nation on earth.
(Lean me against your marrow like a giant midget jumbo shrimp. Hold my poor minute against all infinity like any other parasol you’d prop against a hurricane. A gossamer-armored middleaged scholar in swimming trunks, let my steady frailty hold the frailty of your own, let my cardboard walls withstand the world’s assault.)
Look at me: bold, fat as an apple.
Look at me, bald just like an apple.
Don’t value the goods just by their wrapper.
If you break your compass, I am true north.
You lose direction, here I am, true north.
And when you end your wanders I’m fire in your hearth.
If I’m silent, don’t have much to say.
I’m kind of silent, not a lot to say.
Just like my violence, words left yesterday.
Horny old bastard, last grape on the vine.
Horny old bastard, the end of the line.
Wrinkled and blasted grape a-makes the sweetest wine.
a groaning mid-afternoon loss of Thou
beginning to suspect he's not the target audience
before expulsion
a bit
of the Pater Noster
'don't write that down...you're the only one
who doesn't know it'
discovering another Jovian moon in the ice cream truck's jingle
when children are eating the wild grasses
scent of crushed sage off the bare shoulders of a stranger
above the skeevy gas-station urinal
a tally-ho senryu
when the lime-green hummingbird thrummed in the air between us
before Les Mots
I could play Wipe Out
on the surface of the sun
Milarepa...
when she says
'rebuild over there'
