Which do you prefer, Moment or Winning?

Upon writing this article, I was really emotional to brought up this 'what I believed was my greatest achievement of being a teacher back then.

Before the instance happened, I never thought of comparing these two "Moment or Winning" for my students. I only thought of doing it because I believe it will mark a print in their hearts forever.

I handled 1st grade that time, which was a tough class as I could imagined. I considered as "hetero class (mixed children)". I have 3/4's of advanced level students and a few was beginner level.

Every year the school will have a Quiz Bee Competition per grade level. The same happened to this year challenged, all criteria was announced and prices were publicly displayed in the school campus for students to strive for winning

As I noticed all advisory teacher in 1st grade, preparing their advanced level students to compete for Quiz Bee Challenge. They have prepared the students well and reviewed everything they can to win the challenge as ofcourse could win prices.

While seeing all of those preparations, it was really predictable and this had been the trend already and it is the reality even nowadays. As always, teachers will choose advanced level students to compete for the challenge, and one of the motivations was the prices being displayed. I defined this as for "WINNING".

When I started to think that time, I felt pity to those who were in the beginner level who had all the energy and wanted to join the competition as well, but cannot join for the fact that they can't compete with those who were in the advanced level students.

After few minutes, before the submission of the lists of students to join. I asked the whole class, "Who wants to join the Quiz Bee Challenge? A lot of students, wanted to join but I only need 3 from my class.

What I did was, I chose the (bottom-ranked) beginner level students but had enthusiasm and energy to try to compete. All three students from my class were the only (bottom-ranked) beginner level who joined the challenge.

And the result, they were very happy, I can see their happiness right through their hearts. I defined this as "MOMENT". And I felt fulfilled.

Well, as expected "they did not win" not even the lowest award. And absolutely I and my chosen students did not care about it, and my chosen students really know that they can't win. Surprisingly, they were just jumping for joy since they experience the feeling to compete. I was fulfilled again and I realized, that experience from my students made my greatest achievement being a teacher back then.

Do you know my reasons why I chose beginner level to compete? Well, I hope to convince you here:

• I want them to experience the feeling of, what is like to compete.

• I want them to experience this kind of competition at this early age because I know prices is just part of the competition. Children especially 1st grade doesn't really care about prices. What they care the most is the experience to at least try.

• The very reason that I chose them was, In my thought, since they were labelled as (bottom-ranked) beginner level students, no one might choose them to compete in the future and might never experience this kind of challenge

If the students happened to be not really in excellent for competition, at least they have tried it once in their childhood.

I did not worry my advanced level students because I know some teachers will choose them to compete in the future. 

I hope this article inspires to everyone!