Lomba Blog Depok - Top 10 -

Tulisan yang sama, dalam Bahasa Indonesia

I didn't make it to the TOP 10! But I'm not disappointed at all because through this event, I have met many great bloggers and it means so much more to me than winning the competition.. :-)

However.. Mother made it to the TOP 10! And she is rounding everyone up to vote for her.. well, I AM rounding everyone up to vote for her.. ;-)

Don't vote blindly.. Go to her BLOG

and read her POST that is in the TOP 10..

Then, you can VOTE for her in the competition website.

Mother's post being competed under the group 'IBU RUMAH TANGGA' and her post title is "B.H. Yess." It is shown like this on the voting list:

http://binmas.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post.html 

By voting for mother's post, you are not only supporting her to win the competition, but also supporting the activities of the Senior Citizens Group 'Dahlia Senja.' Mother always posts activities of the group on the blog. So far, the blog has intrigued the interests of the local government and elderly care support organization. Your visit will spread the interests further and hopefully will bring new and brighter future of elderly care program in our country.

Happy voting!

A quick observation..

In this post, I would like to put forward some thoughts to continue my previous post about specialisation in high school education.

At the end of 1st year senior high school, I was selected to be in a student exchange program. Ten students from my senior high school were sent to a private school in Australia to study there for one month. Upon our return, selected students from the Australian high school would come to our school also for one month.

During the exchange program, I learned about the different things about the 'school-life' of Australian and Indonesian students.

The most obvious difference was of course the moving-class system.. which we found tiring.. :-P

There was also a time when the student who was paired with me was not well for a couple of days, and for those days, I successfully got lost in-between classes..

The positive thing was, we realised that having a moving-class system, students can have more freedom and independence in deciding the subjects they want to specialise on.

At that time, we only thought that it was the main advantage of the moving-class system, but as I started university, I understood the bigger picture..

I had to face reality when I graduated from high school of not being able to enter national university. The differing opinions between my parents' and my own about which university I should choose led me to an 'unusual' path taken by a child in my extended family.

The national universities my parents asked me to take entrance exam to rarely accepted students from social-science stream into their Accounting faculty. As expected, I didn't pass the Math exam for one reason only.. I did not do 'Science Math' in high school.. which of course I didn't, since I chose social-science stream and I did 'Economic Math' instead (as prescribed by the curriculum)!

At the same time, I couldn't accept the offer from another national university, which accepted students from social-science stream into its Accounting faculty, because my parents considered the university was too far from Jakarta (with my final grades, I was entitled for school's endorsement for a place in a national university out of Jakarta -about 12 hours travel time- without entrance exam).

Having denied the chance to enter three national universities (with two being the closest ones to home), I had to consider private universities, which I managed to enter without difficulties.

However, the better option was still waiting for me..

When I was asked by my high school to deliver a talk about experience in studying in university, a few representatives from an Australian college were also there at my high school. They were introducing a new program for overseas students who wanted to study in Australian universities.

My English teacher quickly introduced us, and after a quick interview, the representatives decided that I was fit as a candidate and they would like to meet my parents to follow up the enrollment process.

Despite the distance between Indonesia and Australia, when I told my parents that I was accepted as a student in an Australian university, they quickly agreed! I was really glad about that.. :-)

Anyway.. this led to another observation about a different education system, compared to the one I was used to in my own country.

Once I started studying in Australia as a university student, I saw something interesting.. very interesting..

Some students were not only doing one degree at one time, but two.. Some of them were doing 'Commerce/Law', 'Law/Medicine', 'Agriculture Science/Economics', 'Accounting/Computing'.. etc. ..

Combinations that could not happen, with the way high school curriculum was structured in Indonesia at that time..

When I asked local students, how did they structure their high school subjects to be able to do that? They answered me that they discussed their interests and strength with their academic counselor to decide which subjects to take in high school, to enable them to pursue more than one major in university, so that they would have comparative advantage once they graduated from university.

WOW!

So, it was not only about moving-class system, but also an education system where students are treated individually, depending on their strengths and interests, so that they could achieve their highest potential in the future.

In Australian high schools, when students want to major in science, they can still take an elective subjects from social science area, such as, Economics, History, Anthropology, etc. Therefore, their observation and people skills are developing throughout high school years along with their scientific analysis skills.

Similar situation with the students who want to major in social-science, they can still take an elective from science area, such as, Science Math, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, etc. Therefore, their scientific analysis skills are also developing throughout high school years along with their observation and people skills.

This way, either side loses less than if the curriculum is strictly prescribed.. :-)

Moreover, students can have more options in their life later, long after they graduated from high school.

I am not saying that the Australian system in the perfect one, because each system would only best applied in respective country, after considering skills and knowledge in demand in each country. I am only saying that each country should really consider treating students as separate-entity from others, special in characteristics, interests and strengths. Because these students want different things in life.

These days, I have seen many positive developments in Indonesian education system. For one, specialisation is now only introduced in final year of high school. Therefore, students up to 2nd year (year 11) are doing the full set of high school subjects. I have to admit that on one hand, this might be a burden for some students, but on the other hand, it gives students wider options, as they would be studying both sides of streams for the whole 2nd year (in Indonesia, 2nd year of high school is where the study load is the heaviest , because half of 3rd year is focused for preparation for university).

The only consideration for both high school and university is to make their expectation gap narrower. High schools need to prepare their students to be up to the university's expectation, while universities need to make some adjustment programs available for high school students to catch up with subjects they did not have the chance to study in high school.

The example I learned from university system in Australia was that they have TAFE (Diploma programs) and Foundation program, where students can have one to two years preparation to enter university, if they lack a background subject. For example, a student whose major was in social science in high school, but he/she wants to study 'Computer Science'. The student can enter a TAFE or foundation program that offers science subjects, then, once he/she has the certificate of the program, the student can enter the university program he/she wants.

Indonesia also have diploma programs, but the structure is a little different from Australian TAFE. However, this is not the purpose of my post.. ;-)

Two, there have been many more technical school and colleges for students who are confident of what they want to pursue in life and want to focus from a young age. These schools and colleges are, in a way, a much better alternative to the 'science' and 'social-science' streams in high school.

The consideration for industries is to open as many options as possible for the technical schools and colleges graduates to pursue their career from the path they have chosen.

While the consideration for universities is that they should have a system where students from these technical schools and colleges can continue their education in university much later than high school graduates, if they choose to, considering that they already have the necessary background skills and experience needed for the degree pursued.

Three, students are now more proactive in searching for the skills and knowledge they need. It is evident by the existence of many out-of-school courses, such as, foreign languages, computer programs, arts, business and management, science clubs, etc., and the quantity of students enrolling in various programs offered by those course places.

In the future, if these course places can certify and guarantee the level of competency acquired by their students, then universities can also develop a system to take their certifications into consideration for students enrolling in their degree programs.

Learning is really a never-ending process in our life, including improving the education system itself..

I was just an average student in university, but throughout my study time in Australia, I saw so many Indonesian students excelled in their studies (in Indonesia and in Australia). It opened my eyes that with each step of improvement in Indonesian education system, the younger generations who are more critical in thinking and learning, will have far better chances in gaining a better future.. :-)

Go Indonesian Education!!

Specialisation of skills or limiting knowledge transfers..

People often say that education system every where in the world needs improvement.. lots of improvement.. Well, I can say that education system in Indonesia really needs lots of improvement.. It is currently going through a lot of changing as a process of trying to improve, and I hope each change will lead to a significant improvement.. :-)

One of the things I've noticed since I graduated from high school is the knowledge and skills gap between the students graduated from science stream and social-science stream in high school. This gap, in my personal opinion, is completely unnecessary and avoidable (at least to some degree).

This gap I'm talking about is probably felt by a lot of Indonesian high school graduates, but unknown to high school graduates in other countries.. This is because of the structure of senior high school curriculum in Indonesia.

In Indonesia, in 2nd year of senior high school -equivalent to year 11- (now from 3rd year of senior high school -equivalent to year 12-), students must choose whether they would like to take science stream or social-science stream. At a glance, this was a good thing, to help students focus on the areas they want to pursue in further education. However, their are downsides of this structure..

Both science stream and social-science stream are conducted as fixed-packages, where all subjects have been strictly prescribed by the Department of Education and there is no elective (either from the chosen stream or cross-stream).. Moreover, in national-standard schools, students stay in one particular classroom, where the teacher of the subjects will come to when the subjects take place. Therefore, it is impractical to have elective subjects.

This strict specialisation, at the end of the day, presents several problems.

The first problem, it forces students to have strict limitations in choosing the area they want to pursue in university.

In most cases, graduates of science stream are considered 'fit' to choose any area in university, including economics, accounting and finance, and social studies, having the strong mathematical-analytical skills.

At the same time, graduates of social-science stream are considered only 'fit' to choose areas related to humanities, social studies and languages.

Some universities do accept social-science stream graduates with good grades into their economics or accounting/finance faculties, but some others only accept science graduates, even though for a fact, economics and accounting are only taught in social-science stream (not in science stream).

The first problem leads to the second, where the structure misleads students in guiding them in choosing the right path in high school. A lot of students felt that it was safer for them to choose science stream if they are considering to do economics or accounting in university.

At the same time, students who decide to choose social-science stream (or are forced by the schools to take it) have to bear almost 'a life time' consequence, of being considered a '2nd class graduates' for not having the necessary scientific skills and knowledge. Of course in reality of life this mindset is questionable, but in academic world, this is causing a big problem!

The real situation is, which I see as the third problem, the gap between expectation and real competency level of university students and graduates.

Often, students are not satisfied with their own skills, ability and knowledge because of the lack of complete set of knowledge they need to have in pursuing their life.

On one hand, science stream graduates often feel that they are struggling in the 'management side' of working life. The struggle is hard in university for the ones end up choosing economics, accounting/finance or business/management at university level, and for the ones who choose the scientific areas in university, the struggle is felt once they enter working life.

On the other hand, social-science stream graduates often feel the frustration of not understanding the 'too-focused scientists/technical people' whom they have to work with in their every day life..

University is a learning place for people who have already gone past their crucial 'development' stage. Lecturers and tutors do not transfer mindset and psychological encouragement as much as school teachers because the learning stage of the students they teach are obviously different.

What we lack in learning at school level, CAN NEVER be replaced at university level or after!

It is a good thing that nowadays there are postgraduate business/management programs for employees from non-business background who are pursuing further career in management areas. However, the change of mindset is harder when we are already an adult and are used to a certain style of thinking structure for a long time, but at least there are ways to catch up with the lack of skills.

The final problem now is, for the social-science stream graduates, there are no postgraduate programs that offer science programs!

When I decided to choose social-science stream, not only I had to face opposition from the school and family -because I had the sufficient grades to enter science stream-, I also had to give up my favourite science subject, Chemistry.. and this meant for life..

Business degree graduates might excel in writing essays, conducting surveys, doing presentations and leading a discussion/meeting, but, whenever I read a research paper done by a science graduate, I can clearly see a difference!

Science stream graduates possess a highly structured thinking process that it is almost 'written on their faces'.. while social-science stream graduates are very open to 'open-ended' discussions..

There should be a balance in there somewhere to make sure that high school graduates are 'all round' people who are ready to take the challenge of the real world!

I believe that one subject.. just one subject.. from cross-stream can change this problem, -maybe not entirely, but at least to some extent-, to create a better life in Indonesia.

I try to imagine, if in science stream, students are given a chance to have a feel of the 'open-ended' mindset -conducting surveys, having open project discussion, calculating business budgets and marketing products- .. it might help them to understand the 'other side' of the their world.. Subjects like macro economics would definitely show science students how things in life often happen outside expectations and people need to be ready for those things..

Then, I try to imagine too, if social-science students are given a chance to take up one science subject by choice, -physiscs, biology or chemistry-.. it might help them (including me) in understanding the thinking process of scientists/technical people.. A careful, thorough and detailed observation is needed to complement the 'risk-taking' approach in business world..

I know that there are some students who are mature enough to understand their upcoming needs in future life and try to equip themselves with skills and knowledge they are not given by school, but in most cases, high school students -being children at final stage, if I may say-, still need assistance in preparing them to face their future and it is the adults' responsibility to provide them such skills and knowledge (by adults I mean, parents, teachers and Department of Education).

Providing a more balanced education is what education system in Indonesia needs to do -among other things-, and I would really love to see this come true in the future.. :-)

Have a nice day, everyone!

About Indonesian Language

I never really thought much about it, until just recently, in a comment to my last post (About Batak), Elinjo (in Blogit) mentioned that Indonesian language, as Indonesian official language is planned and relatively new. It struck my mind that it is not a common case in the world, so, there must be something interesting about it..

Come to thing of it.. now I realise why it is often difficult to translate an expression from other languages to Indonesian. Also, the grammar is so technical that there is almost no irregularity.

To make sense of what I'm trying to say here, I will start from the beginning..

The different languages and culture of each ethnic group made the inhabitants of the archipelago, although living side-by-side, were always staying at their own localities (at that time, were still in forms of Kingdoms) and sticking to their own people. Only tradesmen and scholars would travel around to other Kingdoms (these people would even travel to Middle East and India).

The Dutch came and applied the perfect strategy in conquering the multi-ethnic archipelago. Their strategy was called 'Devide et Impera' (Divide and conquer). With that strategy, the Dutch was successful in ruling archipelago for 350 years (the exception were Malaysia and Singapore, which were taken over by the British).

As always, military occupation was never necessarily meant a nation's intention. Throughout the time, there were always scholars who made it to do their higher education in Holland. There, they met scholars from other archipelago kingdoms and realised that to be able to overthrow Dutch ruling, they needed to unite, and to be able to unite, they needed a common ground.

They communicated it to their people back in their localities and the idea was well-reciprocated. They tried to gather all youth from around the archipelago.

The first congress was not successful as not many representatives came and they could not came up with a plan. They didn't give up though, on the 28th of October 1928, they held the 2nd youth congress and finally they came up with the common grounds they were looking for: One Land, One Nation and One Language.. Indonesia!

That was how Indonesian language was agreed to be the national language. Along with that agreement, there were no more little kingdoms in the archipelago. Everyone, every nationality was dissolved into one. Each person must put aside their differences, their pride of their background, to be able to become one part of the big future.. one united country.. one freedom.

What is Indonesian language anyway?

Well, it was originally taken from the language of the Malay ethnic group (another ethnic group from North Sumatra apart from Batak). These ethnic group is closely related with the people around the Malacca Strait (Singapore and Malaysia area around the Strait). Their language came from the same root and can easily be associated with/translated to other archipelago languages.

The downside, however, the newly-born language, definitely lack attachment to cultural development, as it was never really attached to any particular culture. The expressions are forms of grammatically correct sentences. It is a good language to teach as it has been made simple (no tenses and verbs are completed by suffixes), but it bears no deep cultural identity, apart from the spirit of united Indonesia.

The fast development of Indonesia language happened during Japanese occupation, between 1942-1945 (when the Dutch surrendered their position in Indonesia to the Japanese). The Japanese banned Dutch language from being used in Indonesia and encouraged Indonesian to use Indonesian language.

The development of communication finally led Indonesian people to the full-scale of unity, where finally, they successfully proclaimed their independence on the 17th of August 1945.

How are ethnic groups and ethnic languages in Indonesia nowadays?

For families which marriages are still within their own ethnic group (not necessarily arranged marriage, just by personal preference), they usually still speak their ethnic language at home. Indonesian language is learned and spoken mostly at school and at work. Whenever people enrol their children to school, the form always asks, 'Mother Tongue' or 'Home Language' .. so, ethnic languages are still recognised and practiced.

For families which marriages are of mixed culture, usually the mother's ethnic language is more strongly used (although not always), if the family practices the use of ethnic language at home. In a lot of cases though, these mix families use Indonesian at home.

The good thing about this, Indonesian language is beginning to be attach to cultural development as it is being used as a family/every day language.

The downside though, ethnic language in these families are disappearing (by being replaced with Indonesian).

It is a sad reality, but the truth is.. natural disappearance and extinction are inevitable in a lot of aspects in life. The only thing we can try is to avoid it from happening by force.

During the time I lived in Melbourne, I met Australians who spoke perfect Javanese in perfect Jogjakarta accent. I also met Australians who knew more of Indonesian culture than I did (I actually met a Pencak Silat -Indonesian traditional martial arts- teacher, who had travelled around Indonesia to learn all the original branches of the traditional martial arts).

I have also heard from people who have travelled to Holland that finding Indonesian food or culture there was easy. A lot of people know about it and a lot of people speak Indonesian or Indonesian ethnic languages.

Reading the news and watching TV, I've come to learn that nowadays, even the most hidden culture and language can be deciphered by experts!

I think this is really amazing..

Culture and language might extinct from being practiced, but they never really disappeared from the face of the earth.

Curiosity and Unity have brought us all closer together..

The world has become so big but also so small at the same time.. Our culture have become the world's culture.. Our knowledge has become the world's knowledge..

Each of us is a little part of the big world of culture and knowledge..

-20 October 2009-

Indonesian Folklores and Legends

Indonesia consists of more than 250 ethnic groups, which speak more than 500 different languages.

From all these ethnic groups, a lot of folklores and legends have arisen. Many books have been published to spread the knowledge of these stories to the young generations, and now, there are also blogs that attempt to collect those stories for people to read.

I believe that there are a lot of people who would like to read these stories, so I put a link to a good blog that I recently found while looking for folklores to tell my son, Ariq.

This particular blog is written in Indonesian, and I am thinking (I'm trying not to disappoint anyone by saying 'seriously planning') to translate these stories to English. I am also still trying to find if there is any blog for Indonesian folklores and legends that is written in English.

Here is the link.. http://legendakita.wordpress.com .

Wish me luck, and enjoy the stories

Learning History from Extraordinary Books

For a few days, I have been reading two books about history. First is, Dee Brown's book, 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee'. It is a very good book. Even though the book is about history, it is not boring at all. Some reviews stated that the book was based a lot on the Native Americans' memory and comments, but since I came from a country who suffered colonialisation, I can understand the story. Some statements might have been exaggerated (as the author stated), but the idea of two completely different cultures that clashed in the worst possible way, when their contradicting needs collided, made the same sense with Indonesian history.

From reading this book, I begin to understand that Indonesia did not suffer the worst of the world's conquest story, in a way. The culture clash between Indonesian and Portuguese, English and Dutch was not as extreme as the clash that happened between the Native Americans with the Spanish and English

Before the Europeans came to Indonesia, Indonesians were already living as kingdoms (there were a lot of small kingdoms around archipelago), with the structure of a country, only in small areas. There were tribal groups, but these tribes were considerably untouched by the Europeanse anyway, since they live far from the shores. Some of these tribes are still living very traditionally to this day.

More than that, Indonesians at that time were already aware of outsiders as we were in the end of 'Silk Road' trading route which went from Middle East to India, to China and to the archipelago (several different kingdoms at that time, around Sulawesi, Java and Sumatra).

The arrival of Europeans who at first intended to buy spices took Indonesians off guard. Trading was not a new thing for them, plus the distinguished features of the Europeans (compared to Indians and Middle Eastern traders who were reasonably physically similar) awed the local people. Once the trade started to turn into something else completely different (like land transferring, etc.), then it was already too late for Indonesians to defend themselves.

Yes, we were colonialised, but the previous encounters with outsiders gave Indonesians a different way of fighting (to combine with the physical fight). In the old days, great kingdoms of Sriwijaya (Sumatra) and Majapahit (Java), had their golden times of being the centre of Hindu and Budha learning of the world after their elders came back from India to learn from the sources of the religion. Many students from other parts of the world had come to learn in the two kingdoms. So, having visitors was not a new thing for the local peole.

Some other people had also gone to India and Middle East, to learn about Islam. So, going overseas to study was not a new thing either for the people of the archipelago.

This is the way that was taken by some of financially-able Indonesians during the Dutch ruling too. They went to Holland to study (not kidnapped), then they brought back their knowledge and motivation to strengthen their fight towards independence.

'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee' was written and published about 200 years after the war. Now, a lot of the native tribes have vanished forever without any descendant. The culture clash was too extreme to overcome when it was happening.. It was a very sad reality..

The second book I have been reading is Langit Kresna Hariadi's book, 'Gajah Mada' (the first of 4-series novel). This book is a fiction based on true events and timeline of Majapahit Kingdom, where Gajah Mada was an advisor (position of Prime Minister and War Advisor of the Kingdom). He was famous for his pledge to bring the archipelago together under one nation. He started off his career as a soldier but because of his personality, skills and wisdom, he became a well-respected person in the entire Indonesian history, even better known than some kings.

The series told the stories of the culture, politics and strategies in Majapahit Kingdom, including the rebellions and treacheries occurred. Even though the additional characters are fictional, the timeline of occurring events, characters of history and overall plots were based on known real history. Additional details were added to fill in the holes, based on best estimates putting local cultures and viewpoints into considerations. These made the whole story told was as close as possible to the real history.

Indonesia has only been a free country for 60 years (after the declaration of independence from colonialisation).. so, it might take more than a century for something similar to this book to surface from people's memories and comments. A lot of parts of the culture and traditions would probably have vanished by that time too (although the population is nowhere near extinction).

Indonesians are taught Indonesian History as a compulsory subject at school, from Primary to Senior High School. However, they way history is introduced to students is not in the way which can motivate young generations to keep fighting for growth and development.

Moreover, the way World History is taught to students is as if the world is a completely separate place to where we are (that's probably how most history books are written).

In general, I believe that if history teachers (and students) read these two books (and other books written in similar manner), they will be able to give students a better chance to relate to Indonesian and world's history, to learn better from the history.

In the case of education in Indonesia, I believe that this approach will have a good chance to bring back the greatness of the old kingdoms, learn from the mistakes that people did and create a better future for Indonesia.