Anak anak ...

Assalamualaikum wbt ...

we used to run an English medium kindergarten ... we had two branches ... due to various commitments we retired ourselves from this activity ...

many things i have learned from the children ... and managing a small team of human resource

but the children were awesome ... let me share some stories ...

~

Farhan ... the caring ... 5 years old (3 years with us since 4)

he was second in a family of boys ... his older brother (6) was also with us ... 

something happened a day earlier in the kindergarten and i had a small cut on my lips ... quite obvious but healing and not too bad ...

the next day i visited the children again ... and while sitting and talking with the children Farhan came to me and touched my face ... Puan* sakit lagi ke ni he asked with such concern on his face that it was etched in my memory ... and thus my first story ...

suami wears white shirt most of the time ... shades of light yellow or blue sometimes ... but white 90% of the time ... 

so whenever he visited the kindergartens ... he would be in white ... 

one day this same Farhan came to him who was sitting on the floor, pegang pegang his shirt and dengan penuh kesiannya bertanya ...

dr ... dr ... dr tak ada baju lain ye ...

oh Farhan ... we love you very much ...

~

Najibah ... 5 years old (2 years with us, 5 and 6)

she was the daughter of a teacher ... and the youngest in the family ... she was a fast learner and somehow could not tolerate the others too much ... because from her perspective they were lambat ... so she did not kawan with the children much ... only with the teacher ... she talked easily with the teachers ... like she was an adult herself ...

she understood quickly the teacher's instruction and could do things independently and quickly and could assist the teacher and other children when she wanted to ... a thinking girl, she was best at being the class manager ...

~

Ali ... on the less side of 4 years old (3 years with us, 4, 5 & 6)

when we moved to Shah Alam, we left the management and running of the kindergartens to the teachers ... we did not have much time for the children ... but once in a while we would visit ... we sat and talked with the children ... 

part of our training ... teachers are to print names of the children on the colouring worksheets for the younger children who had not learned to write yet ...  

and that day somehow Ali's was not there ... a boy Nabil was absent ... so i said to the teacher to give him Nabil's worksheet instead so that he could start his activity ...

we gave Ali the worksheet ... and one look he said  ... 

tak ndak ... tak ndak ni ... ni bukan Ali punya he cried ... teacher jawab ni Ali punya ... 

membohong sikit thinking that anak tu belum pandai baca ...

tak ... bukan ... ini bukan Ali punya ... nama Ali pendek ... ini panjang ... he cried lagi ...

my goodness! ... i learned a major lesson that day ... 

never take short cut with children ...

they have their own methods of assessing and understanding ...

~

... cukup ye ... 

tiga antara ramai anak-anak from whom we have learned so much ...

~

* this was part of the children's training ... 

they addressed me as Puan, and Suami as Dr to give them confidence to interact with adults of the real world ... beyond home and school ...