The 2025 April Holiday is here with us. Students are breaking from the rigmarole of academic work of the first term of the schools’ academic calendar. Splendid indeed, for both students and teachers, holiday is prime time to take a break and reflect. Actually, when students find time to rest, they do not rust like dust and dirt. In fact, home environment gives them a vast array of re-creational activities worth their time. While holed up at home, there are plenty of positive ways they can re-charge both body and mind batteries.
In fact, during the holiday, wise students engage in some serious soul-searching. This is in relation to academics, discipline, morality and spirituality. Also, while at home, wise students do not forget about their status as students. During the holiday, sedulous students strive to balance three things — home chores, personal study time and leisure or free time. Wise students also know that the holiday is the best time to bond better with family and friends. Firstly, they start by writing “thank you notes” to express their attitude of gratitude to parents and guardians; for robust support accorded to them while wrestling with academic work in school.
Likewise, wise students assist parents or guardians to attend to home chores. They may not be required to wake up in the wee hours as they do while in school, but the holiday is also not the time to “revenge” by competing with the dead in sleeping. Depending on their location — urban or rural — there will be plenty of work to do. During the holiday, serious students rise with the sun. Wisdom dictates that, in case the student knows how the family makes money, they should team up and make more moolah. This may enable the parents to find ways of defraying school fees and affording academic materials with a lot of ease in May 2025. More importantly, being on good terms with parents entices the favour factor. Paraphrasing Ephesians 6:1-3, Apostle Paul of Tarsus instructs children to honour their parents. For it is the first commandment with a promise — long life.
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It is also wise to know that the holiday is the best time students can cultivate a rich reading culture. There is ample time to nurture this culture by focusing on intensive and extensive reading. There is plenty of scope to read notes, core-course books, class readers, KCSE set texts, self-help books, reference books, newspapers, magazines, and any other print pieces worth poring over. This should happen for the umpteenth time. For Nassim Taleb observed, “A good book gets better at the second reading, a great book at the third reading. No book is quite the same when you read it again.”
As students break for holiday, teachers share shedloads of assignments and homework. Making wise use of the holiday means that they do not forget about academic work. Students, more so, Form Four candidates, should allot a lot of time to academic work because they are running the last lap — homestretch. There is no need of wasting time on issues that are void and devoid of value. During the holiday, it is possible to meet and greet peers from other schools. Advisedly, it is wise to compare notes with certain contemporaries. It is important to ascertain Best Academic Practices worth borrowing. Let there be positive peer influence — with a special focus on learning literate habits, hobbies, routines and rituals.
Then, entertainment is also important. For the impressionable minds of pre-teens (tweens) and teens are pre-occupied with Triple F — food, fun and fashion. They love a life rife with fun. Things that make people laugh loudly leave them in good mood. Therefore, I did not decide to write and dissuade them to stop such stuff. Albeit, I think that tweens and teens alike should choose edutainment instead of entertainment. Edutainment is entertainment replete and complete with education. During the holiday, wise students should choose music and movies that build character and enhance mental might. They should shun forms of entertainment encouraging amplitude of lassitude and laziness. Meaning: It is foolish to find fun in irresponsible sexual behaviour. It is doltish to find fun in drug abuse. It is wrong to find fun in hedonism. It is foolish to misuse different forms of media.
Media
In the distant past, Malcolm X, observed, “Media is the greatest entity on earth. It has the power to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent.” Therefore, students should make wise use of social sites such as TikTok. Students can receive or read useful materials on phones and tablets. They can attend lessons through online sites such as Zoom and Google Meets. They can follow informative programmes aired on educative TV channels. They can use special sites such as YouTube to watch phenomenal speeches, documentaries and learn some topics. Likewise, they can spare some time to watch news during prime time to keep abreast of current affairs and boost their verbal-linguistic intelligence as proposed by Prof Howard Gardener in his heroic book titled Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligence.
In addition, during the holiday, purpose-driven churches organise mentorship programmes in form of seminars, workshops, conferences and camps. It is important to attend such meetings and learn. Teens should attend church services to enhance their intimacy with God. It is important to participate in church charitable programmes; hence learn Life Skills such as empathy. They can attend missions organised by the church. It is wise to use the holiday for talent-and-gift development. It is wise to acquire useful skills. Talent is in-born ability. Gift is divine-driven ability. Skill is an acquired ability. During the long holiday, students should nurture their talents, lift their gifts and hone their skills — Upskill. In Proverbs 18:16, we read: “A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before great men.” Alongside hard skills they learn in school, they should use the holiday to develop soft skills, life skills, 21st century skills, transferable skills, employability skills and people skills.
Finally, it is wise to learn from right role models and mentors. Role models are people they can ape due to admirable qualities they evince. Mentors on the other hand, are trusted people who are more experienced in life that can inspire you to achieve your dreams in life. We read that from a heroic book titled Unstoppable: Achieving Excellence and Beyond, co-authored by Rosemary Kibui and Timothy Kipchumba. Sometimes, young people mess and miss the mark because of wrong choice of role models and mentors. Life is a journey, not a destination. It is a peregrination of self-discovery and recovery. Therefore, in case they want to know the way, they should ask those who are coming back. Laurent D. Daloz got it right, “Mentors are guides; they lead us a long a journey of our lives, we trust them because they have been there before us.”
By Victor Ochieng’
The writer rolls out talks and training services in schools. During the holiday, he does one-on-one academic and career mentorship for students. He also co-ordinates online lessons on Zoom webinar for high school (Forms 2-4) and CBC (Grades 7-9). Parents and Guardians interested in the programme can contact: vochieng.90@gmail.com. 0704420232
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