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).