Zaitoon Academy Jos

"Arm yourself with courage today to face the challenges in your life. You will not defeat everything that you face, but nothing is defeated until it is faced.

Don't let the feelings of fear, uncertainty and discomfort stop you from making tough decisions.

Get out of bed. Turn off the television. Stop wasting time listening to negative conversations, including your own.

Limit your distractions. Cancel your pity party. Pull yourself together and take total ownership for everything in your life.

Don't waste your energy or take up space in your mind by blaming others or expecting them to rescue you. You are your knight in shining armor. You hold the key to unlocking your new future.

It doesn't matter how many times you have been knocked down. What matters most is that you continue to get back up.

It's time to get it on and move your life forward by taking your power back. Place all bets on you and get busy! You deserve more...much, much more"-LB

Jumat Mubarak

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
-Nelson Mandela, President of South Africa and political activist

Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world.
- Maria Montessori, Italian physician and educator

these are what we do at Zaitoon

I remember the historic football match between Nigeria and Brazil in Atlanta 1996. General Sani Abacha was the president of Nigeria, Jo. Bonfere was the Chief Coach of the dream team, Nwankwo Kanu fully on ground as the Captain of the team etc.

Brazil was the king of global football and they knew it. So, Nigeria losing to Brazil that night would not be a big deal.

Gosh! Brazil dealt with us that night. Till around 77th minutes (about 12 minutes to the end of the game) Brazil was obviously dominating the game. The score line was Brazil 3, Nigeria 1.
Despite the Brazil squad including star names such as Carlos, Rivaldo, Bebeto and Ronaldo, Nigerians watching the game still think Nigeria did not deserve such humiliation by Brazil boys, we had been beaten mercilessly. Nigerians became angry towards the end of the match; many had turned off their Television sets, some were shedding tears, while few hoped and prayed that we would not be further disgraced with yet another goal,
But the unimaginable happened in the game.
At about 78th minutes Victor Ikepba stroked from 20 meters to score the second goal, everything changed beyond the 3:2 score line. Pressure came upon Brazi and hope for the Nigeria players, they became more motivated and began to fire shots from every angle.
Then another miracle, at the 90th minute, just before the final whistle, Kanu Nwankwo turned and flipped the ball over Dida and it was another goal, the equalizer.
What a wonderful match.

There was a rule then, “the Golden Goal. That the first team to score in the extra time wins the game.

Then came the decisive goal from Papilo in just 3 minutes into the extra time… And that was how the messy game became a message.

A lot can still be done this year to make it a glorious year, the remaining part of the year is sufficient to define the whole year.
Don't lose hope now. It is too early to give up on your beautiful expectations for this year. The remaining days of this year, surely will be your best days of this year. It is not over until it is over, wipe off the mid-night tears as your JOY shall certainly come in the morning.
As we round-off the 10th month and enter the 11th month, be sure the God of the 11th hour will show up speedily in all that concerns you.
Thanks and God bless you.

Inspire365: Only 22 Years-Old and Already a NASA Engineer - Tiera Guinn, a 22 year old woman is already working for NASA as the Structural Rocket design and Analytical Engineer for a Space System that Boeing Company is constructing for NASA. Tiera says that the rocket part that she is in charge of analyzing and designing, will be among the very powerful and....

6 Differences Between Book Smarts And True Intelligence

You got top grades in school, you excelled through college, and you graduated with a first class degree from a tier one university. Surely that makes you intelligent, right?

There’s no doubting your academic abilities, and you’ve clearly been blessed with a very capable mind in many respects. But intelligent? Are you 100% sure about that?

Being amongst the standout performers on the educational front is certainly a sign that you’ve got a lot going on between your ears, but there are some major differences between having ‘book smarts’ and exhibiting true intelligence. These are:

1. Knowing Versus Understanding

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” – Albert Einstein

There is often a vast, gaping chasm between knowing something and understanding it in greater detail. You may know that combining chemical X with chemical Y produces a rather explosive result, but this knowledge is NOT the same as having a full, working grasp of why these particular chemicals react the way they do.

Knowing is superficial; it relies heavily on observation and memory. Understanding requires something altogether deeper; an inquisitive nature that seeks to explain why.
This why is an utterly essential part of understanding, it calls out to the truly intelligent minds, beckoning them to follow the clues to find it.

Breakthroughs are not born from knowledge; they come about through curiosity and the courage to make leaps of faith into the dark void of mystery. We’d still be living in caves if our ancestors hadn’t explored and expanded their capabilities by pursuing their inquisitive nature.

2. Taking Context Into Account

A fact is useless in isolation. Until you are able to explain how that fact relates to the many other threads that weave their way through a greater context, your intelligence remains limited.

I could tell you that ocean acidification is adversely affecting the ability of corals to form their skeletons. An interesting observation, no doubt, but not very helpful when taken in isolation. Until you look at the wider context and explain how this will impact the complex and diverse ecosystems that rely on these vital coral habitats, the standalone fact means little.

Intelligent people are more acutely aware of how a single piece of information relates to the bigger picture. They understand (there’s that word again) the relationship between things; or if they don’t, they try to figure it out. Book smart people tend not to worry so much about anything that falls outside the scope of their narrow field of thought.

3. The Emotional Perspective

There are, without doubt, many people out there who can wage a decent argument and defend their point of view against an opponent. Despite this, there are times when you’d be better off ceding your ground and defusing a situation with your humility and good grace.

Truly intelligent people can recognize these times and act accordingly. Those limited to book smarts aren’t always able to do so.

But why does it matter, you may be wondering? Well, it comes down to the interaction between knowledge and emotion. The key word here is balance. When your inner state is one of equilibrium, you are equipped to utilize your knowledge to its best effect. When you are overcome with emotion, the knowledge makes way for arrogance and stubbornness – traits that many would consider negative.

In a friendly debate, the truly intelligent person will be able to sense rising tensions and bring things to a close in a diplomatic way. In the absence of this emotional awareness, a debate can quickly spill over into a heated argument that serves neither party.

4. Consider The Other Person

The emotional acuity mentioned above plays another role in intelligence – it allows a person to consider the impact of their actions on others. Call it empathy, call it theory of mind, call it what you like, this ability to understand how one’s actions influence the outside world is not something you can learn from a book.

This aspect of intelligence is more natural, more innate than that of pure knowledge alone. It asks the individual to step into the shoes of another being and to see how they are feeling. This is then fed back into the decision-making process.

Without this pivotal aspect of a rounded intelligence, you end up with a blundering buffoon who relentlessly pursues his cause at the expense of all others. The type of person who says and does things that upset others and then can’t understand why they react in such a way.

5. Implementation

Book smarts can only take someone so far in life. After all, only through action and implementation of knowledge can anything be achieved. This step is where some rather academically bright people fall down. They simply do not have the wherewithal to put things into practice.

At this point they tend to find that their lives plateau and stagnate. They don’t have the practical or emotional nous to push themselves higher up the corporate ladder, and they lack the raw ambition and determination to forge their own path in business or otherwise.

Their gift for absorbing and recalling information cannot make up for their shortfall when it comes to putting plans into action.

6. Knowing You Know Nothing

Socrates is often, and incorrectly, quoted as saying “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.” This idea points towards the final piece in the puzzle of true intelligence. You see, intelligence knows its own limits and, therefore, to rightly claim that you are intelligent, you must, in essence, be willing to admit that you know nothing at all.

This Socratic Paradox is a concept that those with book smarts alone often cannot fathom. To them it seems almost ludicrous to fill their heads with bites of information, only to then surrender them all to doubt. For that is essentially what an intelligent person does when they renounce their full understanding of the things they claim to understand.

Intelligence says: “I understand from my very limited point of view, but I yield the unequivocal understanding to the universe alone.”

So there you have it. If you ever need to decide whether someone is truly intelligent or merely book smart, you can refer to these six points. The components are interlinked in such a way that intelligence requires all of them to be present to some degree or another.

This post was republished with permission from

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We are still making progress, we want to build a citadel of learning based on Montessori thought in a conducive environment with %100 security, ventilated and less populated classrooms, up-to-date curricula, sound, standard, qualified and child-friendly teaching and non-teaching staff. A school will be built on a solid background with solid management, up-to-date learning and teaching equipments, out-of-the classroom engagement and many more. Rest assured, its a place your child will love to be