Internet signal almost never reaches the village where she lives. Whenever she needs to look for teaching materials or prepare her work as a teacher, Asmia Halawa — or Mia, as she is warmly called — has to walk about a thousand meters to the shoreline. There, among the sound of waves, children playing in the water, and the occasional off-key karaoke blaring from loudspeakers, she opens her laptop and waits for the signal icon to appear. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But she keeps sitting there, staring at the dim screen under the harsh sunlight, jotting down small ideas for lessons, occasionally catching her own tired, waiting reflection in the glass.
That beach, which people often compare to the Dead Sea in Jordan because of its high salt level, has become both her workspace and a place to calm her mind. Mia is a teacher at a madrasah ibtidaiyah (Islamic primary school) in Nias Utara, and at the same time a single parent to her two children.
During the day she teaches, at night she helps her children study. Her life is simple, but never truly calm. There is a constant anxiety about being left behind—about having to design learning methods with incomplete materials, and about feeling outpaced by many things.
Before joining trainings under the Program of KREASI, Mia taught the way she had learned from her former teachers: copying from textbooks, asking children to write on the blackboard, giving assignments, then waiting for the results.
“The children were often passive,” she recalled. “When I asked questions, it went silent. I thought they were lazy.” Sometimes she felt exhausted, because whatever she taught seemed not to stick. “I once thought, maybe I’m not a good teacher,” she said quietly, pausing to hide a long, heavy breath.
News came a few months ago, when Mia was invited to attend a training in Lotu, the capital of Nias Utara. When she heard there would only be twelve participants, she almost backed out.
“Me? Seriously? My knowledge is still lacking, even speaking in front of people is not easy for me,” she said with an awkward laugh, covering her lack of confidence.
But the days in Lotu changed the way she saw things: that learning does not always come from books, and teaching does not always mean sitting in front of a classroom. From that training, she learned about “alive” learning — about playing, dialoguing, and making children part of the process, not just listeners.
After coming back from the training, she tried putting it into practice in class. At first, she wasn’t sure, but she started with small things: inviting the children outside, picking up leaves, introducing numeracy using objects around them, and telling stories about their everyday lives. “I just realized,” she said, “the reason they didn’t understand was not because they were lazy, but because I hadn’t yet reached the way they understand the world.”
That realization was tested when she dealt with Sahrul, a second grader known as the most difficult to handle. He hardly ever sat still, often disturbed his friends, and refused to write. Mia felt frustrated, almost giving up. But one day, she refused to surrender and tried a different approach — not by scolding him, but by greeting him sincerely every day and giving him small roles. Each morning, Sahrul was asked to help arrange the learning space and distribute stationery to his friends.
“Slowly, he changed,” Mia recalled. “He still wasn’t fluent in reading, but he started to listen, and he started to try.”
One morning, during class, Mia took the children outside. They walked to the school yard and practiced basic English, such as arranging the letters of animal names using sand, colorful used bottles, seeds, and other objects. The children scrambled around, entering their own little adventures.
Since then, Mia has often linked her lessons with things around them. “I want children to learn through their own senses,” she said. “Because for them, the world starts from what they can touch and feel.”
A few years ago, the learning atmosphere at the school was far from ideal. Her principal, Ahmad Nasir, recalled how distant and rigid things felt back then.
“Our teachers at that time didn’t really understand what a good learning process looked like,” he said. “Lessons were delivered as they were, following the books and modules, with little room for exploration.”
He noticed a shift after the teachers, including Mia, attended trainings that introduced creative and participatory approaches. “Now teachers can treat students as learning partners. They don’t just receive, they also understand and experience the learning process,” he explained. For Nasir, this change is no small thing. “Innovation is important,” he added, “because if teachers don’t update themselves, students will also be trapped in the same place.”
That different atmosphere in class can be felt through the way Mia teaches. Children often rush to take part in every learning session. Sometimes you can hear them imitating animal sounds; other times the blackboard is full of pictures from their interactions. Her classroom is not always neat, but it is always alive.
She realizes that creativity is not a luxury — it is a way to survive amid scarcity and lack. “If we just wait for materials from the city, we might end up not teaching at all. So I just make the materials myself,” she said. On the wall hang folded origami papers, a color wheel made from bottle caps, a hand-drawn map. All of this comes from the time she spends sitting by the sea, waiting for signal while thinking about how to make learning feel close to the children’s lives.
The principal emphasizes that the madrasah continues to support steps like these. “We support not only through funding, but also by giving space to think,” Nasir said. He mentioned a plan to form teacher learning groups so they can share their innovations. “If one teacher can create something fresh, we bring them together. So that knowledge doesn’t stop in just one classroom.”
For Mia, that support makes her steps lighter. But she knows that no conviction is truly tested without time and hardship. Being a teacher in a place like Lahewa in Nias Utara means having to tame many things: limited access, long distances, unstable signal, and sometimes a biting loneliness. Yet she rarely calls them “difficulties.” “When the children come and smile, all the tiredness disappears,” she said softly, her voice blending with the noisy fan blades pushing away the midday heat.
When asked what keeps her going, her answer is simple: “I want the children to know the world is vast. But to be able to explore it, they must start from here—by learning.”
At night, after her children fall asleep, Mia opens her laptop again on a small table near the window. The glow of the screen reflects on her face. Outside, the sound of crickets mixes with the sea breeze coming from the coast of Nias Utara — the same beach where she usually sits to find signal. On the screen is an open lesson plan for the next morning: about how plants grow in beach sand.
“Sometimes I just write the ideas there,” she said, pointing to the blank screen. “Tomorrow I turn them into activities for the children.”
From the outside, the changes at this school may look simple: a livelier classroom, a more colorful blackboard, and teachers who begin to share ideas without being asked. But behind that, there is a subtler shift — in how they see their students, and how they see themselves as educators. What Mia passes on is not just about methods, but about the courage to step outside the comfort of old routines. After all, big changes often grow from the quietest of places: a single teacher who keeps learning when others stop, and never feels “good enough” to stop trying.
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The Program of KREASI or Kolaborasi untuk Edukasi Anak Indonesia (Collaboration for the Education of Indonesian Children) is funded by the Global Partnership for Education, developed by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, and the Ministry of Religious Affairs. KREASI is being implemented by Save the Children with Article 33 Indonesia nd support by the Government of Nias Utara. KREASI aims to improve the quality of education in Nias Utara by strengthening teaching, learning, and student development.
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Writer: Adzwari Ridzki | Editor: Andika Ramadhan | Photo: Adzwari Ridzki/KREASI/Article 33 Indonesia/Save the Children