First Task: To Teach and Be Teached

Hey!

It's kinda weird right? I post my first task after I posted my first post. Therefore, I think the title should be.. um.. Second First Task? But that would be weirder, so I'll stop talking about it.

So, first task. Our first task in second semester was to be a teacher. A history teacher to be specific. We had to teach our fellow friends about historical events which they haven't learned before. Every one of us had to do that task in pairs, including me. So after thinking and rethinking, I chose Yohana. We argued a little about what we should teach the students, but then we agreed to talk about the Spartan War, or more accurately, The Battle of Thermopylae.

The Battle of Thermopylae occurred at the Thermopylae narrow coastal pass. It was the Greeks versus the Persians. The battle started because some of the Greek city-states refused to obey to the Persian Empire, which was the biggest Empire of that era. Persian's plan to make Greece their colonies quickly changed into conquering them. Then here goes the war.

The people of Sparta knew from the start that this battle was a death toll. They were outnumbered. VERY outnumbered. The battle was hundred of thousands Persian men against seven thousand Greek troops. Not to mention many of them ran away of fear. However, the Spartans did not, thus came the movie titled "300", referring to the 300 men of Sparta that stood and fight.

In the end, the Greeks lost, obviously. But this battle cost the Persians so much that they lost to Greece the following year. This battle underlined the importance of strategical use of terrain and training. By choosing the narrow Thermopylae pass, the numbers of the Persians are not highly significant since there were only some of them were able to fight at one time.

After all, this event didn't teach us about winning. Sometimes, there's so much more dignity in defeat than in the brightest victory. There are so many moral values we can relate to from this event. We have to be brave, we have to fight for what we think is right, we have to hold on until we can't anymore, we have to be willing to sacrifice ourselves for a greater good, those are amongst any other moral values that we can learn from it.

They were naked!

Enough of the topic. Let's talk about the class. I thought that they were pretty good. They weren't too noisy, not too quiet either. They asked things. They understood. And most of all, I didn't really have to "shush" them all the time to keep their attention on our topic. And I was happy with it since they are SUPER NOISY in everyday life.

That was me as the teacher. How about me as the student? The listener?
Yeah, I can't say that I'm the most "angelic' student here. On some of their presentations, I did another homework, I talked and chatted about things unrelated to the topic, I ate, I slept, I daydreamed (sorry Ma'am Agnes ^^v), but most of the time I kept my attention of them. Partly because I like the topic, partly because I wanted to get the food prize ;)

All in all, what I can really learn from this teaching task weren't only about Spartans, or Cold War, or Nazis. I learn how hard it is to draw student's attention, especially when the subject is as boring as history. It's even harder to listen to boring topics and keep my eyes open.
So, dear teachers, I now have understand your difficulties to make your boring subjects less boring, and I'll try to listen to your lesson more.

I'll try ;)