School teaches you less than the life, when I was at high school, my history teacher said to us that. At that time, it is nonsense for me. I just knew that I have to study, study hard, study as much as possible to achieve the best result that I could and enter the University I wanted. Almost all of my friends thought so, we didn’t take part in many activities. Of course studying is very important for us, we should try our best but beside that we should keep balance our life. However I didn’t think a lot about it. And now, rethink of my teacher’s saying, it is true. Here we don’t deny the role of the school. School gives us much useful knowledge but not all of them are applied in our life and in life there are many things but don’t have in school. Life is a great teacher, life teaches us by practicing with many fierce challenges even with the pain, tears and failure but no less of fun and happiness.
Today I received a meaningful lesson from life. This afternoon my friends and I walked around and incidentally had an opportunity to participate in a skill activity for the orphans. Almost parents of the children here died because of HIV. They grew up with the love of people in Smile group, a group was established by a man who was the victim of HIV and he addicted drug too. Finally he found the right way from his mistakes, he had lived the rest of his life with meaning jobs for the society. He has died but the Smile group is still alive to bring the smile to the unhappy children. One thing that is worth excited here is the children are respectful and obey to adults, that was what I saw through this class. They are very well behaved with us. Every month, they have a skill activity. I learned a very funny and useful game from it. The topic was “ Discover yourself”. The guide gave every child a big paper, scissors and a pen. She asked us to design a dress for ourselves. Then she said: “The dress has 2 sides: outside and inside. You take the inside out and write the good points you think you have on the front of this side and the bad points you think you have on the back of this site. You have 15 minutes to do that”. We started immediately after the guide finished her guide. I helped two girls to make their dress. (I didn’t have a camera so I couldn’t take any photos of our results :D). It seemed that designing is easier than writing good points and bad points very much. The boys and the girls hesitated to write them. They thought fully before write down something. The guider urged them “Hurry up, hury up! Time’s up”. “Sister please give us more time to put our thinking cap on. It is hard for us” – answered they. Time was up and everyone finished their job, they put their dress on following guide’s require. They went around and wrote the good points of their friends on the front of outside and the bad points on the back of outside. They had 15 minutes for writing for each other. Everyone wrote truly what they thought about their friends. After all, their dresses are decorated with their good and bad points. The guide asked them to put their dress off and watch what others wrote about them, compare to theirs in the inside of the dress. Everyone was surprised of their good and bad points written by their friends and thought why they didn’t recognize it.
This game brought to us a big bag of fun and a very useful lesson. You do not always realize the good points and bad points in yourself so listen to the honest feedback from everyone to complete yourself. That doesn’t mean you have to change yourself to satisfy someone but you change to be better. I never took part in any funny class like this at school and I think it is useful for me. School teaches us a period of time, life teaches us all time.
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Comment by Blue Peace on September 14, 2012 at 17:58 You are welcome Nyan :)
Comment by Nyan Nissara on September 14, 2012 at 17:08 Thank you, Blue Peace, for sharing your experience! School teaches us a period at a time, life teaches us all the time. Blue Peace, 2012.
Comment by Nancy on August 16, 2012 at 15:23 Hi blue, Sorry for have been quiet as I have been busy. But from now I will try my best to follow FE topic more than before. I also miss you guys here too. And again " well done " for this blog I love it very much.

Comment by Blue Peace on August 16, 2012 at 15:19 Hi Nancy, thanks for leaving comment. I miss you much, were you busy? Hope to meet you soon on FE.
Comment by Nancy on August 16, 2012 at 11:24 Its very nice to be shared your experience blue. I have not been here for a while but today I have sometime then just try to read each blog and visit some blog that I missed it. So and one of them is your blog. Its very true that the lesson in the school will be different in real life. I also was thinking same as you and was think that " what and why teacher said that " but till now I have been knowing and got a lot of experience also the lesson everyday as different by each single day. I think the experience of each people will be different by work , family , education , and people around. However I am happy to learn everyday and happy to get to know new thing every single day to fill up my spirit and my happiness. :)

Comment by Blue Peace on August 8, 2012 at 15:43 Thanks teacher and Vero, :)) A quote from Blue Peace???? That's out of the blue! And that's out of Blue's ability. You gave me many good words teacher and Vero :))
@Teacher: Thanks for your quote from Seneca. I'll write it in my notebook. Yes, my teacher has many experiences and she often shared with us her experiences in her life. I remembered her story about life more than history. :D. I don't know much about Smile group. I just know that they help the children whose parents passed away because of HIV. They have many sponsors both in domestic and foreign, especially from France. Some French people came to Vietnam to do volunteer in Smile group. I'm impressed by those who can remain happy and positive despite tragedies too. I admire them. I haven't played this game before. It was very interesting to me when seeing the children playing this game. :)
@Vero: Yes, they did very well to help these innocent children. I also hope so. Hope they will find their bright future and the smile always on their lips.

Another amazing blog Blue. I'm always excited to see what you are writing about. You have a very interesting and rewarding way of life.
We learn not in school, but in life. A quote from Seneca, a Roman philosopher. I think your history teacher was very wise. You are very right when you say we must find the right balance. I think you've found the right balance Blue.
The Smile group sounds wonderful. Are they a big charity? I always find it impressive how young children can remain happy and positive despite tragedies they may have faced in life.
The lesson sounds very interesting! I think it would be useful to learn how we are seen by other people. Have you ever played this game?
School teaches us a period at a time, life teaches us all the time. Blue Peace, 2012 - What a great quote!
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