More Words…

Kalau aku menjadi seperti dia..Siapa yang akan menjadi aku?

Heran..

Saya merasa heran..aneh..melihat keadaan anak2 bangsa sekarang..
Sekarang, dan sepanjang Ramadhan kemarin, saya melihat anak2 dan remaja di negeri yang mayoritas Islam ini berlomba2 menghafalkan lagu2 untuk dilombakan pada acara2 macam missing lyrics dkk..

Padahal dulu, ketika saya tinggal di amerika, anak2 bule, anak2 muallaf berlomba2 untuk menghafalkan Al-Quran di bulan Ramadhan yang suci itu..Mereka memadati mesjid, bukan stasiun televisi, untuk menghafalkan Al-Quran..Sampai-sampai, disana, rata2 umur 12 tahun sudah hafal seluruh Al-Quran..Pertama, saya malu dan iri tidak bisa seperti mereka..Saya juga malu melihat bangsa sendiri kalah dengan bule2 di luar sana, padahal populasi umat Islam terbesar ada di Indonesia..

Ya, semoga di masa yang akan datang, acara2 missing lyric dkk berubah jadi missing ayatlah..semoga ramadhan tahun depan, mesjid-mesjidlah yang dipadati oleh anak2 dan remaja bangsa ini..Amin..

Another one…

“Don’t be a small fish in a big pond, be the big fish in a small pond and make the pond larger”

Words of Wisdom..

“People who cease to grow can’t inspire others. Leadership begins with challenging oneself.”

Words for Today…

“Kalau aku jadi seperti mereka, siapa yang jadi aku?”
-Anonymous

Tidur…

niat ikut evaluasi PLO hari pertama gagal…
ketiduran di HME…
alasannya…ya jelas…
NGANTUK…

Just yesterday…

Just yesterday I participated in a small training, Training for Trainers, held by the staff of PLO..The topic was really interesting and the speakers that spoke made it thought-provoking. They spoke about education in Indonesia, how it was not ideal, how it failed to reach the goal that it was meant to reach, and how it affects the nation, my nation, now and will affect my nation in the future. Thinking over the things they spoke of reminded me of how I have become a victim of this so called educational system. It also made me realize that I actually have become a pigeon in a cage that the Department of Education has created around me and my fellow students.

Ka Jaka said yesterday in his speech that, in Indonesia, the system that has many incredible, outstanding goals has not reach, but one of those goals, that is educating the nation’s youth to be intellect. Besides that, little from the rest of what is supposed to be taught in the years of formal education has been acceptably received by the majority of the students. As if, the students here in Indonesia are just receiving education as training for the world of work and labor to come. In other words, we are trained to be robots in the vast and expanding industrial world. Because of that, all we receive are the science, the math, the languange, and the skills to become that perfect laboring machine. And, horribly, in my view, that is most likely the case.

I believe that a big part of what the speakers in the training explained is true. I believe his because all around me, I can see the failure in the system, even in one of the so called best institutions in the country. And I admit, in some cases, I have become part of this failure.

I cannot understand, why, in the one of the best institutions in the country, many students still skip classes for no reason at all. A few weeks ago, I found out that, even students who have just entered the institution, who have not even spent one full year studying, are already very fond of skipping classes. This I found out from one of students whom I lecture every week. Every time I meet to give him lessons, I always ask, “What have you studied in your classes?” And he always answers the same way, “I don’t know, me and my friends don’t go to classes very often. We rarely get anything from it.” What say you to that?

Again, I cannot understand, why, in one of the best departments in one of the best institutions in the country, there are students who believe that games that are meant to be played in casinos are a more productive way of spending time in campus than listening to their professors teach. I guess, in their minds, playing the games directly is a much better way to count the probability of a card coming out than studying it in a Probability and Statistics class.

And again, I cannot understand, why, in one of the best departments in one of the best institutions in the country, answers to assignments done by a genius and generous friend seem to be the best answer to finishing an assignment. Maybe in their mind, “so what? Everyone is doing the same thing. All are copying from the same source. They must be the right answers. Anyway, its one hour till dead line. It’s too late think it over.” In my mind, when I see this mass plagirisme ritual around me, I often think to myself, why? Why are so many like this?

All this makes me wonder…

Whose fault is it that so many students, even the most intelligent students in the country, still stick to this procastinating plagirising ritual? Does the system give them so little time so that they have no time, but the last hours to do their assignments? 

Whose fault is it that so many students, from so many degrees in education, elementary, junior high, high school, even college, do not have the confident that their work, the work they do on their assignments is the best that they can give, even if the answers they give are not all correct?

Whose fault is it that, in our own country, our own beloved Indonesia, there are still people, in fact many people, who believe that our nation’s education has not achieved what it was meant to achieve?

Change…Change…Change…

A Dream Deffered
by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

What does happen to a dream deferred? A dream postponed?
What happens to the person, the people, the child whose dreams are put on hold? Even worse, forced to be put on hold, not by them, but by the environment around them?
What do you think?