The Power of Words

"... words were consequential in a way ... [that] pictures were not. The pictures belonged to their instant; though they could serve memory, they were not the same as memory. You could not quarrel with the pictures. You could not change what they insistently and irremediably saw. But as the words rushed in in torrents, as they proliferated, becoming more and more various and removed, some broke through the gates of memory into the freer fields of parable, myth, analogy, symbol, story. And where memory was fastidious in honoring history, story turned to the other muses. Where memory was strict, fiction could be lenient, and sometimes lax. Where memory struggled for stringency of historical precision, fiction drifted toward history as a thing to be used, as imagination's stimulus and provocation."

From "The Rights of History and the Rights of Imagination", in Cynthia Ozick's "Quarrel & Quandary", 2000: 105.

On Indonesian (Higher) Education (Curriculums)

I attended a seminar today, a small part of which discussed about the state of Higher Education in Indonesia.

One of the speakers said that currently the Indonesian Higher Education aims to promote internationally-recognized programs. If any institutions are interested, they are encouraged to "copy the curriculum from overseas program".

The speaker continued in saying that he attended a meeting with Deans from Faculty of Economics throughout Indonesia, and some of them asked him a question of what kind of curriculum they should use.

The speaker noted in disbelief that these Deans from Faculty of Economics who didn't know how to do a curriculum reflect very well the state of Indonesian Higher Education. The audience laughed. Then the speaker told the audience how he more or less responded:

"Get a reference from curriculum overseas, which one does not really matter, then copy it [note that he mentioned this already]. This is better than trying to make your own curriculum."

That was the keynote speech (or rather, an impromptu talk) from the Director General of Higher Education from the Indonesian Ministry of Education.

Which one better reflect the sad state of (Higher) Education (curriculums) in Indonesia: the Deans or the Director General or both?

Too Difficult to Educate

On Wednesday, I went to two of the eighteen communities under Urban Poor Consortium’s network to observe their alternative educational programs. Both were located near Jakarta Kota. The first one was inside a small and rather dark but paved and clean alley. Here and there people were sitting, with some doors opening into small cramped rooms.

Fifty meters into the alley, the ambience got denser as mothers and children cluttered one of the doors that were opening out into the alley. And there was my first stop: a small living room turned into a class room during some parts of the day.

The two and a half by four meters room was already packed with twenty something children below six, some with their mothers, sitting on the floor in between long low benches turned into desks. As me and my two friends went into the room, some of the mothers had to leave. After we settled, though, more than few children entered their ‘classroom’ that some had to remain at the threshold. A TV that was tuned into a cartoon show was the center of children’s attention while they waited for the class to start.

Around half past nine, the class started. The children prayed and sang songs energetically amidst the overcrowded room. The walls reverberated their voices loudly into my ear drums I had to put my fingers on my left one. That was the first five minutes, followed by another five for calling the names of each one of them, checking for absences. The next five minutes was spent for introducing us the guests and discussing about their field trip to the beach.

Then came writing. The teacher recalled one word they already went over: ha-ti (heart). She asked one of her students to write the letter h on the board. Many raised their hands, but her son turned student who sat in the first row insisted he should get the privileged. She relented. Then came the second letter a. This time a girl, also from the first row, gave it a go.

Meanwhile, the rest of the thirty something students got restless. They had nothing to do. So they started talking to one another. The class was so cramped with children they practically had to move in sync with the others – a rather impossible task for children that young. Soon enough an elbow landed on another’s rib. A small cry followed by a fist on the other’s head. And they both cried.

The teacher, in the meantime, did not even notice what happened, as she was keen on the third letter t. This time she asked a boy from the back row to write on the board. He stepped on the bench turned desk, and landed on the floor closer to the board, on top of someone’s bag, just a centimeter away from a pinkie. He inched behind some backs, almost tumbled down if it was not for the support from a shoulder.

Finally he got to a small clearance big enough for his ankle to pass through and step on the second bench turned desk, and made it to the front. He wrote the letter t quickly and made his way back. The whole ordeal of moving forth and back must have taken five minutes.

I started to feel claustrophobic. To distract myself, I zoomed in on a group of children right in front of me who had been staring at the refrigerator this whole time with no view whatsoever towards the board. And I missed out on who wrote the fourth letter i.

Having four students finally completed the whole word ha-ti, the teacher called up everyone’s attention and asked them to spell out the word in rhyme. Her toddler, who had been on her lap throughout the lesson started acting up, and she seemed to suddenly realize that she had lost control of everyone. An exasperated look on her face.

Fortunately her assistant initiated another round of singing. And soon the class was dismissed for their trip to the beach. Thirty minutes of total racket that apparently happened almost everyday because of overcrowding.

The second community was even worse. It was literally built on garbage swamp. The community alternative learning center was a little better in a sense that it was dedicated for the purpose. It was smaller in size than the first one, with only one opening to a smaller alley, and a zinc roof that made the room unbearably hot.

While discussing afterwards the problems that we identified and what we could do to improve the situation, I remembered what had happened the first two days of the week. On Monday, my sixteen students from a private university were supposed to come for discussion of their projects. Only two turned up. On Tuesday, I was supposed to train fifteen students in another private university as part of a study, free of cost to the students, and none showed up.

I’m sure Goenawan Muhammad would have considered these cases, the first one being the circumstances, the second one being the students, “terlalu sulit, terlalu sulit” (too difficult, too difficult).

The Cost of Not Knowing

I always have a lot of interests, not only in what I do, but what I want to do. I am currently holding two part time, two freelance, and one volunteer jobs. It’s been like this for the past eight years, the last few of which I’ve grown restless and started thinking about going back to school. The problem is, with my diverse interests, I want to learn more about not just one subject. After much pondering, I managed to narrow it down to three areas: architecture, education, and society - which most people would consider as very wide still.

In 2004, I applied for the Fulbright scholarship and into a Ph.D. program in education, and I got rejected for both. In 2006, I tried my luck again with the Fulbright Ph.D. program, and this time I got through. I applied to 7 Ph.D. programs, six in architecture, one in education. I got rejected from all but accepted into two of my top choices, Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) and UCLA School of Architecture, though not the Ph.D. program, but the master’s program.

After going through all that, I realize that going to the Master’s program at HGSE is the choice that I really want at this point, even if I had been accepted into the Ph.D. program in architecture.

But here’s the catch: I couldn’t use the Fulbright scholarship because it was allocated for a Ph.D. program in architecture. And the cost of not knowing what I really want in the first place? I will have to reapply for both the scholarship and the master’s program again this year and hopefully will get a matched result in both ends next year. No guarantee on either end.

Although I realized that this is partly my own fault, I start questioning whether one should always know what one wants in life. It’s probably easier for those whose strengths and skills obviously point to one direction. Even when I graduated from high school I didn’t know I was going to study architecture. But I was fortunate because the educational system I was in enabled me to test out my own strengths and skills.

Although I have diverse interests, they are means to a goal. So my life since graduation day has been about juggling in the in-between areas. And I must say I have again been very fortunate to stumble upon jobs that could accommodate my changing interests. Until I hit this wall.

And I realize that in most parts, our world and the systems build on, in, around, within, and beyond it, is still very much compartmentalized that it doesn’t leave room for changes. But considering that many things could happen (especially when we talk about a year), should not change be accommodated in systems?