Diak kalae, christo mak solok
Hotu-hotu basa liman
ho dia tu du bain
Tebe ho ain los
tebe ho ain karuk
hadula ba mai, Ho di buka belun seluk
This is our students’ most favorite song. We always sing it in the beginning of our Peace School class. Though we sing it over and over again every single day, but they are always seemed so enthusiast. And their enthusiasm always makes me struck with amazement. Not only for singing, but also for following every activity in the class. Being a little children’s teacher is amazing. I see so many wonderful things they’ve done. And yes, I’ve learned so many things from them. I heard so many times, parents I know say that their children are bad, because they’re being naughty or do some mistakes. Now, I don’t believe it, from what I’ve seen here, a child is like a piece of white paper, they are innocent. And if I may say, children are angels. In our Peace School’s class, I see so many moments that made me thinking a lot about being an adult.
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On one our Peace school day, I saw two boys, Joao Gospar and Mariano Xavier, sitting side by side. Both of them seemed so busy drawing on a piece of paper that I gave to them. In the middle of their activities, suddenly Mariano interrupted Joao, he asked Joao who is a little older that Mariano to help him finish his drawing. What made me very amazed was the way Joao help Mariano. He left his business right away without any hesitations; then patiently he held Mariano’s hand which was holding a stick of crayon, and lead this little hand of Mariano to draw a boat. After the boat is finished, Mariano said thank you to Joao. Mariano and Joao showed me not to be individualist living in the society. Sometime, adults think about themselves more than thinking about others.
….
Aje, a little boy was a bit naughty came to our Peace School. He always punches his other friends. Every time I tried to greet him, he just ignored me, or looked up and acted as if he wanted to punch me. He also showed the attitude not interesting with our peace school subjects. But I never stopped trying, I kept greeting him and gave him attentions. Little by little, day by day, he started to reply my greetings, even though it seemed like he didn’t do it wholeheartedly. But I saw a change in his attitude, he treated his friends better than before and he started to pay more attentions every time I taught in the class. What surprised me a lot was on the singing competition that was held in the last day of Peace School. Aje, bravely, stood up, walked to the front of the class and sang out so loudly. His other friends were not like that, they were too shy to sing. Aje taught me that actually, children are good impersonators, they will copy whatever they see from their surroundings. If they see something bad, they will surely copy it, if they see the nice attitudes, of course, they, too, will copy these attitudes.
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Antonino and Ameta are siblings. When we were doing our playing activities in the class, accidentally Antonino hit Ameta’s chin. Ameta’s first spontaneous reaction was hitting Antonino back, until he cried so loud. Seeing his brother crying, Ameta whilst hugged Antonino tight, said “I am so sorry, I won’t do it again.”. Antonino replied,” I forgive you, brother. I love you.”. Antonino and Ameta made me learn about forgiveness. Adults should be like that, hurting back will never solve any problems.
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On the last day of Peace School I made so many competitions and prepared the prizes for winners. There were singing competitions, drawing competitions, and bringing marbles with spoon competition. To make it more challenging, I made the rules : they should bring the spoon with their mouth and the other rule was, whoever dropped the marble, should start over from the beginning. There was one girl, Aluma, joined the bringing marbles competition. She tried hard to keep her marble in the spoon, too bad, she dropped it several times. But she never gave up, every time she dropped her marble, she will start over without any complaints. Again and again. She kept trying with all her energy and walking slowly. She never felt intimidated even though the other friends who was competed with her had passed her by. Her other friends also dropped their marbles several times, one of them even gave up and decided to leave the competition. Aluma, who was being persistent, finally reached the finish line, and achieved the 2nd place. She really taught me about never giving up. I believe that if we want some thing, we need to keep trying. Even though we feel it is hard to continue, but every step we make is meaningful and sooner or later will show the outcome. It’s much much better than stop or don’t do anything.
…
Even tough I was the Peace School’s teacher, but I’ve learned a lot from all of my students. And I become more and more sure that actually, all children are such heaven-sent. We may not underestimate them.
Artikel ini pernah dimuat di News letter "diak kalae" The Frontiers Timor Leste.
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