In the month of February, MAN 2 Kota Malang held the exciting and long-awaited WORDS competition. This anticipated event took place on February 25, 2020 bright and early in the morning.

As students filed in, the trophies were placed on the front table, the order of the contestants was finalized, and the judges arrived from the surrounding areas including ETA Blake Lapin. Nineteen tenth graders had signed up for the competition and had prepared stories, props, and creative costumes.

The event began with a brief introduction from the judges, ETA Shanze “Aisha” Tahir, and Ibu Anita and Pak Yoga. Students were asked to step outside the hall while their peers were performing.

Aisha was very impressed by the confidence, charisma, and content of her students’ stories, which were also based on this year’s theme of heroes. The stories varied from a retelling of Rapunzel in which her stepmother ends up finding the princess on the streets of a nearby city in the presence of robbers and saves the day using a lucky frying pan to knock them unconscious, to a story on a bat that started a worldwide viral pandemic who becomes a hero and saves everyone affected, to a story on how a baby penguin born to divorced parents learns how to be their own hero.

In the end, the judges decided that a story titled “The Library” would win the competition for its “simple but unforgettable” nature. The winning student was overjoyed when she heard the news and was incredibly excited to travel to Jakarta in April. The teachers, judges, and Aisha were grateful for the students and their courage to share their ideas and inspired by their creativity.

Shanze “Aisha” Tahir is currently teaching at MAN 2 Malang, East Java.