The education in Indonesia takes a bitter pill because of the pandemic of Covid 19. The virus bring fear to everyone for its spread not only in cities but also villages. The Lainjanji village and its surroundings were not free from the news, either news of increasing patients or death due to Covid-19.

The Education Office of East Sumba regency issued reccomendation for the pre-school education, elementary school and junior high school in East Sumba for running the Study from Home (BDR) at the end of April. The schools will open as usual if the pandemic subsided. Since July 2020 Indonesia implemented a ‘New Normal’ and the people restarted their activities comply with health protocols.

The learning process at school has been suspended and replaced with learning from home. The school principal of Junior State School of Wulla Waijelu (SMP Negeri 2 Wulla Waijilu) where I teach, received news via telephone from the Education Office and at that time the class IX was in the fifth day of mid-semester test. Then, the students implemented Learning from Home with offline method. They did not go to school but study at home instead. On Monday and Wednesday the teacher delivered materials to their home and picked up the assignments. The challenge is actually not too difficult even though located in hilly area. The problem is the damaged condition of the roads among villages. Then, the teacher held evaluation meeting on Friday. This activity was regularly done until the ‘New Normal’ set up.

During the New Normal, I designed learning by dividing the students into 4 groups according to their house clusters, namely the Lainjanji group, the Lumbumanggit group, the Latena group and the Laipandak group. In e

ach cluster consists of students in grade 7, 8, and 9 where the gathering points are at the church, village office, residents' house, and possibly under a tree. Actually, I face no hard challenges in teaching the students because they were enthusiastic in participating in it. It felt hard to manage 7th grade students who tend to run and play during the shift between classes.

Actually the process of study from home has been done since the end of April 2020 and many sweet and bitter cases experienced by the teachers and students related to teaching and learning activities. Teachers were not satisfied with the delivering and picking up assignments due to lack of time to explain the material, and on the other hand, students found difficulties to learn by their own, especially English and Mathematics which require more in-depth explanation, however, they stayed optimistic and completed the assignments. Meanwhile, the parents complained that their children will get dumb because they spent their time a lot with silly things because they were not at school, but the teachers gave understanding and explanations that the teacher had given them assignments, including asked the parents for good cooperation by assisting their children while doing assignments.

Indeed, pandemic of Covid 19 has changed everything but with sincere motivation and good thoughts, everything will be fine and will get the best solution. Let us fight the Covid by staying at home, wearing masks, maintaining health protocols and having optimism for a better situation in the future. Keep up the passion for teachers, students and parents. ***