2024 MWCC Essays
Winners of the 2024 Max Warburg Courage Curriculum Essay Contest 2024
Sung Tao Hour
When I was 8 years old, I started to study at primary school. Sometimes I went to school with an empty stomach and sometimes I ate very little breakfast because my family couldn’t afford to make enough for everyone. Even though that happened often in my childhood, I still pushed myself to go to school every day.
At school the teacher always began class with the previous lesson and asked some questions. Some of the students raised their hands to answer, but I didn’t,because I wasn’t good at learning, so I often didn’t know how to answer. When the teacher asked me why I didn’t raise my hand to answer, I replied that it was because I didn’t know any of the answers. And everyone just laughed out loud at me.
When recess time came, some students looked down on me. I told myself I must not give up. When I arrived home, I asked my mother why do people like looking down on me? My mother told me not to care when people say bad words to me. Since then I told myself I must overcome my laziness and try to remember all the lessons every day at school. Even though I went through many obstacles at school and faced many more after that, I told myself that I won’t give up!
When I turned 13 years old I asked myself to be a monk and live in a pagoda because I wished to be grateful to my parents and honor them in this way. After a few days of monkhood life, the head monk taught me and the other monks how to say the prayers. He limited the days for us to memorize the prayers and when the day came to speak them I couldn’t remember them all. So the head monk hit me three times. I was so ashamed in front of the other monks. I got punished every day until I could remember all the prayer lessons.
I went to ask my mother if I could quit monkhood at the pagoda, but my parents didn’t allow me to do so. They said joining the monkhood has to be like this, my dear. I thought a long time about all of this and then I understood something about myself. I told myself that I must not give up!!! I must overcome this obstacle, I must win over my laziness no matter how big the obstacles, I must be brave, and I must give great effort to study as in the monkhood for a long time.
I have tried to study the dharma prayers for four years now. I became skillful in learning the dharma prayers since those early days of struggle. This is what my courage was and is. Courage made me give much effort, try hard, and win over all the obstacles no matter how big or small they were. I know I could and can overcome them with my effort for sure.
Khon Dalis
I was a student who was very weak in my studies before. My family finances are not so rich, so we don’t have enough money to spend daily on breakfast. I always tell myself to have the courage to study with goodwill and to make good plans or goals. Even though my family doesn’t have a lot of money, after my free time from school I always have the courage to help my mom do the chores to relieve her from that work.
There is a pagoda a little far from my home. It’s called the Tol Tol pagoda. The head monk there helps teach English for free in classes after school. Because my family is poor we can’t afford to buy a bike so I must walk to school and to my lessons at the pagoda, about 6 miles every day. I also wanted to help my mom to save more to support the family needs instead of buying a bike. So I committed myself to set a goal of walking to study English in an extra class at that pagoda after school and chores.
It has almost a month that I’ve been learning like this because I trusted myself and I have the courage to be very patient to walk to the pagoda every day after I finish my classes at school. It’s late so it’s usually dark when I walk, without even a flashlight. I am always very thirsty because of the long, hot road. But it doesn’t matter that’s okay for me because I beat my fear of walking in the dark. That is my energy of courage. This made me brave enough to reach my goal of taking classes in the pagoda. The courage has transformed me into trusting my own self, no matter how big or small the problems are, I can do everything. But I should do it in a good and positive way only. Good deeds are rightful ones. That courage will bring me to success one day in the future.
