In 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded a song that soon became an anthem for the anti-war movement in America as well as a commercial hit – ‘Give Peace a Chance’. It begins with, and frequently repeats, the line “Everybody’s talking about” and goes on to speak of “This-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism”; it mentions people talking about “Minister, Sinister, Banisters and Canisters. Bishops, Fishops, Rabbis, and Pop Eyes, Bye bye, Bye byes” as well as, later, “Revolution, Evolution, Flagellation, Regulation, Integrations, mediations, United Nations, congratulations”. And at the end of each outburst on what everybody is talking about, they sing “All we are saying is give peace a chance”. That is all we are saying.

In 2026, here in Zimbabwe, we might be tempted to recall the song as “everybody’s talking about” curricula, data, AI, sustainability, systems, infrastructure, STEM, innovation, safeguarding, heritage – yet through it all, all we are saying is give kids a chance. The question is: how can we do that? How can we give our kids a chance? The answer is not in AI; the answer is in “ALL”. The answer is in the refrain: “All we are saying”. We are saying the answer to giving our kids a chance is in the “all”.

Let us not talk cryptically anymore but cut to the chase. What we are saying (not talking about) is that the curriculum that we provide for our children must be holistic; it must include all aspects of a child’s life. It is not purely about academics; that is only one small component of a child’s life. The education that we offer our children must cover all parts of a child. They need the physical to help them with their intellectual while the cultural adds an important dimension that is complemented further by social and spiritual development. Leave any of those out and the child is less able to fulfil their role in nation building. They need all parts of their very being to be developed.

We cannot afford to pay lip service to holistic education and have an occasional festival together for some children or a once-a-term inter-house event or events where a few chosen or interested children are involved. We rightly have swimming in the curriculum and yet over ninety percent of schools in this country do not have a swimming pool where they can learn – that is not holistic education. That is not developing the whole child. We need to talk about, and do, holistic education.

What we are also saying is that holistic education must be for all children, not just for those who are keen on sport or music or other cultural activities. All children must have the opportunity to play sport; all children must have the opportunity to play competitive sport as the world is competitive and children need to learn how to do that. All children must have the opportunity to play team sport as the workplace and society are all about collaboration. They all need to learn how to win and how to lose, how to handle winning and how to handle losing, when to be competitive and when not to be competitive, how to collaborate with others, be that in team sport or musical groups. Education is for all; holistic education must be for all.

Not enabling all children to have an all-round, holistic education could be seen as crimin-all; in fact, holistic education is critic-all. It is ment-all (meant for all), intellectu-all, physic-all, cultur-all, soci-all, emotion-all, spiritu-all. It is all about all. Furthermore, education that is holistic, that is catering for the whole child, for all parts of the child, must be intention-all, practic-all, development-all, occupation-all, recreation-all, commun-all, substanti-all, essenti-all. It is fundament-all. It is for the whole body and it is for the whole school.

Hear the refrain: all we are saying is education must be holistic; we do not need to go ballistic about that. Rather we need to be realistic, altruistic, humanistic, without being simplistic or bombastic – though we might even go supercalifragilistic (-expialidocious)! Holistic is about the whole child, the all-round child, all parts of the child, and indeed all children. All in all, education must be holistic. In other words, we must stick it!  

So, all we are saying is give our kids a chance. Soccer fans often chant, “All we are saying is give us a goal!” We must too. Our children are crying out for a goal and that goal for us is that all go, go all – goal! Then they will win. They must all be given an all-round education. That is all!