{"id":5071,"date":"2015-09-18T06:21:06","date_gmt":"2015-09-18T06:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/empowering-students-to-tell-their-stories\/"},"modified":"2015-09-18T06:21:06","modified_gmt":"2015-09-18T06:21:06","slug":"empowering-students-to-tell-their-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/empowering-students-to-tell-their-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Empowering students to tell their stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s not so much what you do, it\u2019s about being there for people and listening to them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

A reflection by Jonathan Dason.<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Campus Leader and black-and-white photographer Justin Lim\u00a0mooted the idea for a Merdeka and Malaysia Day project, I was really excited.\u00a0He\u2019d be the photographer, I\u2019d be the writer.<\/p>\n

\"Student<\/a>The plan was simple; empower students to tell their stories through photography. We wanted to show people the potential in every child, not just what they can be in the future, but who they are today \u2013 their ideas, their interests, their courage to learn.<\/p>\n

During the two-day workshop, I realised that it was not just about what I was able to give the students, it was about the valuable lessons I learned through interacting\u00a0with them and the school community.<\/p>\n

Justin and I had just finished day one of the workshop when a student came up to us and asked if Justin played Dota. He\u2019d seen the icon on Justin\u2019s computer. Perhaps it was his way of starting a conversation with us.<\/p>\n

He\u00a0told us about himself and the issues he faced both at school and at home. The conversation lasted for an hour. Later, his teacher told us his story and we realised that we had shared a rare moment and connection with him. We didn\u2019t expect him to open up to us, yet for some reason he did. Maybe he wanted to get some things off his chest.<\/p>\n

Looking back, I think this experience taught me that sometimes it\u2019s not so much what you do, it\u2019s about being there for people and listening to them. And by simply doing so, we allow our students\u2019 voices to be heard.<\/p>\n

\"Jon_merdeka<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Though I can think of many reasons to treasure my time as an intern at Teach For Malaysia, it was conversations like the one I had with that student that will stay with me for many more years to come.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s not so much what you do, it\u2019s about being there for people and listening to them.\u201d A reflection by Jonathan Dason. When\u00a0Campus Leader and black-and-white photographer Justin Lim\u00a0mooted the…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,113],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-community-movement-2","7":"category-movement"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}