Such a question has always bothered a lot of people, either because they wanted to find a key to true happiness or simply understand the meaning of happiness. Pupils from several Brno primary schools also tried to answer this very question and came to some pretty interesting conclusions.
International School of Brno organised the 3rd literary competition under the auspices of British Chamber of Commerce. There were 31 participants in total, from these selected primary schools and gymnasiums with extensive English language teaching:
- Moravské Gymnázium
- ZŠ Bakalovo nábřeží
- Klasické a španělské gymnázium (Classical and Spanish gymnasium)
- Gymnázium J.G. Mendela
- Gymnázium Slovanské nám.
- ZŠ Slovanské nám.
Literary works were rated by the commission consisted of the final year students from ISB secondary school, under the tutelage Robin Smithe. An extra prize for creativity was granted by ISB director. Here is a brief comment and evaluation by the commission: The overall standard this year was very high. The variety of interpretations and creativity of the entries was impressive. The judges had a difficult time reducing the choices down to three winners and we deliberated long and hard over our final choices. The judges want to thank you for your efforts and for your wonderful poems, cartoons, short stories and essays.
Let’s take a look at winners and short extracts from their pieces:
The first place went to Nella Durčáková, ZŠ Bakalovo nábřeží: … So how is it possible that we still struggle every day to even put a smile on our face and at least pretend to be OK? Well… As we all know: without the bad there would be no good. Which means that if we were born happy and never experienced any other emotions, we wouldn’t even know that being happy is a good thing. We have to have our bad days to have the good ones.
Ester Ráčková from ZŠ Slovanské nám got the second prize: … Happiness means a lot of different things to different people. So I thought about moments when I felt happy. What I realized is that the reasons that I felt that way weren’t huge. They were tiny. The things that made me the happiest were little. Of course if something amazing and huge happens I do at first feel happy. But then I catch myself not knowing what to do.
Kristýna Vyskočilová, Moravské Gymnázium ended up at the third place: … To me happiness also means making someone else happy, like make a stupid joke to a depressed or tired friend, or if I see somebody who looks sad or just has a bothered look on their face I sometimes come up to them and compliment their outfit or something or just smile at them when I’m walking by or sitting close to them in a bus. If it helps somehow or I can just see their faces relaxed a bit it makes my heart super warm just knowing that I made someone’s day better is the best thing in the entire world.
Anna Kotásková, Klasické a Španělské Gymnázium Vejrostova, got the “ISB Director’s Award for Creativity”. You can see her comics throughout this whole article.
