Over the past few weeks, many of us have spent time transforming a patch of land into Nusa Alam’s new garden. We’ve dug, planted, watered, and watched the first signs of life emerge. As I’ve worked alongside students and staff, I found myself thinking—not just about gardens, but about cucumber plants.
Unlike many plants, cucumbers don’t simply grow straight towards the sun. Instead, they send out delicate tendrils, slowly searching the space around them. They reach in different directions, testing the air until they find something strong enough to hold on to. Only then do they begin to climb.
Watching those tiny tendrils has made me think about the children who fill our classrooms each day.
Our garden is already a picture of different stages of growth. In one corner, tiny seedlings have only just broken through the soil. Elsewhere, established plants are climbing confidently, producing flowers and beginning to bear fruit. A school is much the same. Our youngest learners arrive bursting with curiosity but still looking for stability, while our Year 12 students stand on the edge of adulthood, preparing to continue their journey beyond our gates. Between those two moments lie years of growth—steady, perhaps unnoticed, but deeply important.
Not every student knows exactly where they’re heading, and that’s perfectly normal. Childhood and adolescence are full of exploration. Students test new ideas, discover interests they never expected, and gradually work out who they are becoming. They aren’t simply learning mathematics, languages or science; they’re discovering what challenges them, what excites them, and where they belong.
Our role as educators isn’t to decide that journey for them. It is to create an environment where they feel safe enough to explore and strong enough to grow. Like the trellis in the garden, we’re there when they need something to lean on—not to control their direction, but to support it.
Preparing the garden also reminded me how easy it is to overlook what we don’t yet understand. At first glance, cucumber flowers all appear much the same. Only when you look closely do you notice that some carry the tiny beginnings of fruit hidden behind their petals. The promise of what is to come is already there, even if it isn’t immediately obvious.
Children are remarkably similar. The quiet student isn’t necessarily disengaged. The child who struggles to meet deadlines may be wrestling with ideas more deeply than anyone realises. The confident speaker isn’t always the one growing the most. Real growth is often happening beneath the surface, long before anyone else can see it.
A trellis never makes a cucumber plant grow. It cannot force the plant upwards or decide where each vine will reach. Yet without that support, the plant often sprawls across the ground, where its fruit is more vulnerable and its growth more difficult.
Schools serve a similar purpose. We don’t create our students’ potential—that potential already exists within them. Our responsibility is to provide the encouragement, guidance, opportunities and stability that allow each child to discover just how high they can climb.
Some years, the harvest is obvious. Achievements are celebrated, goals are reached, and growth is visible for everyone to see. Other years require patience. We continue watering, nurturing and believing, trusting that unseen roots are growing stronger beneath the surface.
That is the kind of school we aspire to be at Nusa Alam.
We’ll keep planting. We’ll keep nurturing. And, perhaps most importantly, we’ll keep building trellises—steady enough that whenever a child reaches out for something to hold onto, they’ll always find it.
Pak Jason
