Thursday, March 10, 2016

What is a teacher?

In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.

In large part, we are teachers precisely because we remember what it was like to be a student. 
Someone inspired us. 
Someone influenced us. 
Or someone hurt us. 
We have channeled that joy or pain into our own unique philosophies on life and learning. We are always looking for an opportunity to share them, with each other, our students, parents, or in our communities. 
That is why teaching is not a profession, but rather it is a gift.

It is the questions we cannot answer that teach us the most. 
They teach us how to think.

It does not matter what you teach, but how you inspire your students to give their best in order to discover what they already know.

SBY.10.03.2016
#laviniaelysia


To teach is to learn, to learn is to teach (Image courtesy: Austin Kleon)




Monday, March 7, 2016

Eventually Everything Connects

Thanks to this durian lady. Without her, I may not remember I had a blog to continue.



"Sis!"

Sounds like I'm going to shop on an online shop, right? But that's how we call her, Fransisca Callista, that is her name, at least that is what I read on her Facebook. 


2014
By that time, I still had no idea why I joined this ICVR (International Conference of Village Revitalization) and ICDS (International Conference of Design for Sustainability) in Temanggung, Central Java, a place I even never know existed on this island. All I can remember was that I had a huge curiosity on sustainability, and I still had no idea why this urge had never left me since I entered my university life. This was the reason I took Sustainable Design class in my interior design majoir, and this was the main point that brought to ICVR & ICDS. It never crossed my mind that a simple conference registration form had successfully brought my memory back to 2011, a year of crazy decisions.

2011
As I write this down, I recall that interior design was never truly my calling, but sustainability always had, since 2011. People said that finishing high school is nice, because afterward you can just choose to learn only what you love, in a simpler classes, in your own major of passion, which worldly known a university life. I remember applying a sustainability-related majors in some public university in Indonesia, I also remember granted a full-scholarship abroad for an environmental design major, the only thing I loved back then. But since I never granted the permission to leave home too far, so I browsed for a closer one, and I found one here in Surabaya, a city up north just two hours away from my home at Malang. Why interior design? Trust me, simply because it was the only major under The Art and Design Faculty which did not sound so hard, and I need only to pass a surprise drawing test (which I had no idea it was exactly the test day when I submitted my form). If I pass the test, my parents are going to pay for me, to draw people's houses all day long, for four years, and I will get a degree for that. Seriously, why the hell not?

2016
This year I met this Sis once again. Unexpectedly, exactly in the same place where we first met last two years ago. I guess the love of sustainability has brought us back again. We had helped Spedagi built up this Pasar Papringan with other volunteers, a market as a village responsibility and as a bamboo forest revitalization. We had shared many things during the event and Sis told me one day, "Promise me one thing before you go home. Follow your passion, keep sketching, explore sketchbooks, share what you have, make a blog, whatever! Try everything you love. And if you have your blog published, make sure I have the link". Now everything is starting to make sense, the puzzle is completed. Joining that conference was the best thing ever. Because it led me to this Sis. Because it led me to realize that eventually everything connectsGuess what, it led me to this old blog I had since 2007

That day I wrote as an escape from my crazy life. 
Today I am writing this down, not to escape it again. 
As life is crazy anyway, so I will write anyway.

SBY.07.03.2016
#laviniaelysia