In the recent past, I taught English language and Literature in a private school in Nairobi. During that time, I also ventured into magazine production.
Fortunately, when I shared the brilliant thought with the school arrowheads, they did not dare to dither. Instead, they quickly obliged.
They did not impede the speed of a viable idea whose time had come. The big shots who held the purse strings gave me the green light. It became a monumental milestone.
I realised that I needed to form a formidable team of energetic and enthusiastic editors.
I braced myself to be the Editor-in-Chief of Eagles Magazine and looped in two serious scribes to give me a hand in the project.
Somewhat, I relied on joint effort because I had read in a heroic book by Dr John C. Maxwell that for the dream to work there must be teamwork. TEAM is Together Everyone Achieves More.
Chiefly, the production of Eagles Magazine put us on the epic peak of the mountain of possibility.
No wonder, I take a mental flight back to that small project, I feel that I should write to schools to give room to the provenance of such projects.
I am sure several schools have been producing magazines. Albeit, some initiate it but remain stuck in the mud of procrastination.
Consequently, when I asked a certain scribe to describe the quality of content and form of a school magazine, he said the document should dedicate 70 per cent to scintillating stories and 30 per cent to pictorials with high levels of resolution.
Moreover, magazines should accept contributions from all stakeholders to enhance a strong sense of belonging. Head honchos, staff, students, parents and alumni should be featured.
Ideally, schools should take magazines seriously and use them to hit several birds with a single stone. It should spawn in the Department of Languages.
Somehow, the teaching of a language should transcend the four walls of classrooms.
Language teachers should explore admirable ways of honing the four major skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing or else, learners will just be replete with theoretical knowledge without core competencies about good grammar and its usage.
Teachers of any language should not enjoy bragging rights when their students scoop good grades like A’s, yet they have not mastered reading and writing.
Using my lenses, I see reading and writing as close cognates. Reading is breathing in, while writing is breathing out.
Teachers should focus on pragmatic ways of making students become avid readers and better writers.
We can introduce learners to extensive reading and intensive writing through Keeping It Simple and Smart. It is easier to read puny but pithy pieces penned in magazines.
Let them savour scintillating stories presented in pictorial forms. Those who have studied Children’s Literature know that young ones are picture-smart.
Similarly, teachers can use school magazines to cultivate a rich reading culture in learners.
Preceptors can use magazines to create the desire for the written word in learners.
Apart from reading their well-written notes, core-course books, KCSE set texts, class readers, self-help books and sacred scriptures they should find time to enjoy magazines and newspapers.
Before magazine production, teachers of languages should implore students to contribute creative works, which should include essays, poetry, short stories, jokes and puzzles.
It should be a stiff competition, where meritorious pieces invite coveted prizes then featured in the latest edition of the magazine.
This is the only way schools can raise putative writers who will publish the best books or bag big writing prizes like Commonwealth Prize and Nobel Prize.
Institutions can use magazines to enhance their corporate image and build brands with brilliance.
Magazines sell schools in umpteen ways.
People, who access magazines out there, fall in love with the school if its image captivates the mind like a lawn of closely-cropped green grass.
Schools can use magazines to entice potential clients the way nectar seduces a swarm of bees.
We should never forget those good guests who want to know more about institutions will get fantastic facts from the school brochures, prospectus and magazines.
Schools that venture into magazine production use them to generate comely income. They sell magazines in key events like academic clinics, prize giving days, annual general meetings and prayer days.
Finally, during production, magazine managers raise handsome income by attracting companies to advertise on some tracts of the magazines.
The writer is an editor, orator and author
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
