When I taught them, there were 15 of them but now there are only 11 left. My little heroes!
I could still remember their names. From the left standing: Aidil (a very athletic person), Hafid (a very shy but strong-willed student. He is also very diligent), Idham (who happens to be my neighbour, Cikgu Bibah’s son), Hakim (Mr Handsome-guy and the most popular among the girls because of his look and mannerism), Farouq (the champion to fall asleep in my class), Ammar (the quiet with lots of self-doubt boy). On the front: Aidit (an easily-influenced-by-others boy), Hazim (a rebel in searching his identity), Yasser (a very timid and needs lots of assurance), Baqir (who is very talented and artistic) and Halim (Daud’s and Annuar’s brother. A shy boy who thinks that I like to tease him in class by calling his name frequently)
Why do they look so happy?
At first they were thinking that I might give them an ang pau envelope. No. It is a letter that I wrote to each and every one of them. Individualised and personalised message from me. I have given the same thing to my former form 4 Sapphire class (which include the girls). This time around, due to time constraint, I only managed to complete the letters to the boys. I will do so for the girls In sha Allah in the future.
With the formal UTM envelope, I hope it might give them a sense of importance. Receiving a letter with important message. Yup. That’s my intention. I hope that the heart-felt message would reach to their heart. I pray May Allah Bless them with understanding and good memory to remember what I wrote to them.
Well, I went to the school yesterday to drop the letters to Teacher Ita (one of the English teacher) and some of them saw me walking with the letters on my hand. I bumped into Halim inside the teacher’s room but he was too shy to greet me.
So, what happened to another four?
Two students changed schools after PT3. Another two? They changed school because of “a little” incident. Due to the nature of the issue, let’s just say that they did something. I am sad when I know about the incident. I never thought that as young as 16 years old would do something like that. This is the reality that I wish to ignore and yet, I know that I have to do something about it. Thus, I wrote the letters to the rest. I don’t want to punish them because of what has happened even though some of them are involved in that incident indirectly. Yet, I think I need to let them know how I feel about them. It does resonate with this saying
“Students don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care”
I know is never too late to show how much I care even though I am no longer physically at school with them.