“More important than innate disposition, objective experience, and environment is the subjective evaluation of these. Furthermore, this evaluation stands in a certain, often strange, relation to reality.”

As stated by Winston Churchill (1874-1965), a British Orator, Author and Prime Minister during the World War II above, the predominantly most important thing in a process of learning is evaluation. Evaluation needs to be conducted regularly to measure whether or not the Learning and Teaching activity applied has been effective enough.

Considering that evaluation is unerringly an essential yet substantial key of achieving a better quality of a learning and teaching process , Indonesian Future Leaders inevitably does not forget to conduct one in the Children Behind Us activity. On Saturday, the 23rd of January, we gave the children exam to evaluate their understandings of the all the materials taught all this time.

Starting at 1 pm, when we, Muhamad Iman Usman (Iman), Rafika Primadesti (Fika), Siward Mandira (Stu), Niwa Rahmad Dwitama (Tama), Stephanie Hardjo (Stephie), Nathaniel Rayestu (Rayestu), Samia Safa (Samia), and Fatya Junissa Azlika (Fatya) arrived, the children had already been separated into two groups as usual: the pre-school one and the school-aged one. The pre-school one was placed at the spot where the school-aged one had usually been placed at, while the school-aged one itself was placed at the Rubik (Rumah Belajar Ilmu dan Kreativitas; House of Science and Creativity). Rubik is a hut we, the Indonesian Future Leaders in cooperation with the British International School, had built in order to provide a place to use not only for the Children Behind Us activity, but also for the villagers’ purposes.

The exam consisted of the materials that had been taught until that day. As for the pre-school students, the exam was just in the form of colorless pictures of numbers that were then to be colored and determined what numbers the pictures had the shape of. The students looked so happy when doing the exam, especially when colouring. There were some older students in the class who were given a different form of exam from the younger ones, though. Those older students’ exam was basically about colouring too, but the object was not numbers, and there were names of colours typed on each part of the object that they had to colour each of those object parts with the same colors as written on those object parts. If the colours they applied matched the hints, then they got their works right. And most of their works were right!

The exam for the school-aged students was practically more serious; there was no colouring or drawing for them, but they still had a lot of fun. The exam consisted of questions about all the materials they had learned, and most of them got their answers right. They were also told to write up their suggestions for the class, and those their inputs were really great.

As usual, the class was dismissed at 3 pm. The conclusion we got from the evaluation that day was that the Learning-and-Teaching Activity all this time had been quite effec tive, and that the Fun Learning Method was a good way of teaching that it should keep being applied.

That’s all for this week’s report, see you on the Children Behind Us activity next week!