She woke up with the thrill of starting high school. Her parents had told her so many times:
These words had been echoing in Fatma’s mind lately. It was the first day of school, and she was filled with excitement. She put on her new uniform, placed a notebook and her pencil case in her bag, and before leaving the house, she reminded herself once more:
“Let your actions bring benefit to yourself and to others.”
All the students lined up in the schoolyard. After the ceremony and speeches, they were sent off to their classes. It would be her first time meeting her new classmates. She looked around for a familiar face from her old school — there was none. She sat somewhere in the middle rows and began observing. A few moments later, a girl named Necla greeted her and sat beside her. Then their teacher entered the room, introduced herself, and began having the students introduce themselves one by one.
When people meet someone for the first time, they instinctively look for traces of people they already know — because a person feels safe and comfortable in the presence of what is familiar.
Fatma, too, tried to find classmates beside whom she could feel at ease. Each time someone stood up to introduce themselves, she searched their features for similarities with her old friends — someone’s voice, another’s smile, someone’s hair, someone’s eyes. Little by little, she began to feel more comfortable.
She hadn’t wanted to be separated from her old classmates. But after the exams, everyone had received different scores and had chosen different schools. She thought of the joyful times they had during recess — how, after every exam, they would share their answers and analyze them together; how they told each other about their weekend adventures; how they sometimes shared their sorrows and sometimes their laughter.
Would she ever reach that same warmth again in this new class?
When the bell rang and class ended, everyone scattered in different directions. Some formed little groups, teasing and laughing together; some went to the canteen to grab a snack; others stayed at their desks, busy with something else. Fatma heard Necla calling her and went over. A group of seven or eight students were in the middle of a lively conversation. They were talking about the Sumud Flotilla, which had set sail the day before to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. One of them said,
“We should also find a way to support them.”
Another asked,
“Does anyone have a good idea?”
Someone replied,
“We could follow their social media accounts and share their posts. Maybe we can help keep the eyes on them — to support their effort to break the blockade on Palestine. I know we don’t have many followers, but at least we can do something useful for others.”
Then another voice spoke up:
“Boycott! That’s one of the best ways to help. We can talk to our parents about it and install boycott-checking apps on their phones.”
On her very first day, Fatma learned what it meant to take someone else’s pain as her own. In a world where so many adults said, “What difference can my small effort make?”, she learned the value of small steps. The more they thought, the more solutions their minds began to produce.
How easily people underestimated themselves. If they wished, they could turn a single snowflake into a great snowball. By coming together, they could become stronger.
She recalled once more the advice her parents had given her, and a sweet warmth spread inside her chest. They had been right — high school was indeed different from middle school. In just one day, she felt she had grown up — that she had stepped out of childhood into maturity.
School was a space of transformation. With every lesson, students stepped into a different world, acquiring new knowledge on every subject. Yet there was one truth often overlooked: Recesses — short yet piercing — sometimes left deeper marks than lessons themselves. Those fleeting moments could leave lasting traces, for it was during recess that people are shaped: where they first met the real face of life, and where their true character began to take shape.
***
Experiental Desing Teaching is a body of knowledge that generates strategies for designing our future, drawing on past experiences.
It offers methods for people to be happier, more successful, and have better relationships.
The programs, which begin with "Who is Who" and continue with "Mastery in Relationships" and "Success Psyhology" help people become happier and more successful than they were yesterday.
***
"Among billions of people, what could possibly be important about 'one' person?
Ask that 'one' person!"
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