Do you believe in the magic of language?

I do believe that words have power. I also believe that language has magic. The way it works can be seen in several phenomena. How we, moslems, get peace by reciting hamdalah,  how fathers (or trustee, muezzin) wed their children by asking sacred questions to the groom, and how Adolf Hitler can ‘hypnotized’ his followers are the phenomena of magic of language. 

Other phenomenon of the magic of language is how Thomas Jefferson, known as the 3rd president of United States of America, considered Al Quran as  his reading reference. He considered the Quran a law book more than a book of scripture because Muslim leaders claimed that the book was not only the word of God, but the supreme source of Islamic law. 

Well, do you believe in the magic of language?

Character : an Old Obsolete Concept

Long time ago the concept of character building or Pendidikan Karakter "reverberated" among schools in our country. What about now? To me, though the existence of the 1st core competence (read: KI 1 or Kompetensi Inti 1) in K-13 shows that we still agree and implement the character, it is still "defeated" with the existence of KI 2. Consequently, what we can hear nowadays is only about PISA and TIMMS... What we see is the phenomena of "high level" National Exam or UNAS. About the noble character? (I hardly hear it.. especially when It comes to UNAS )

Character building is not something new, but somehow we must admit that this is what we need now and later.Character building is proven effectively change the colonized nation into advanced nation. Korea is the great example regarding to this issue. 30 years long colonized by Japan, this country nowadays is able to be Japan’s competitor by applying character education towards its citizens.

            Character is a system of building the character values to the students that include components of knowledge, awareness or volition, and actions to implement those values. In character education in schools, all components (stakeholders) should be involved, including the components of education itself, such as the content of curriculum, learning and assessment process, the quality of relationships, school management, implementation of the activity or extra-curricular activities , the empowerment of infrastructure, financing, and work ethic of all citizens of the school.

            In spite of various shortcomings in the practice of education in Indonesia, character building education must be included in the material should be taught and mastered as well as implemented by the students in daily life. The problem comes out when character building education in school so far is only taught on the level of norms’ or values’ introduction, and yet at the level of internalization and action in daily life.

Not only each subject, but also extra-curricular activity is integrated with character building. Extracurricular activities are educational activities outside of subjects to assist the development of students in accordance with the needs, potential, talent, and their interests through activities that are specifically organized by educators and / or education personnel are capable in school. Through extra-curricular activities, students are expected to develop their ability and sense of social responsibility, potential and achievements. Those plans about character education seem virtuous, but can the government make sure that those are easily implemented?

The other problem is that the educators as the model for students are not yet proper. As character education’s definition is a national movement creating schools that foster ethical, responsible and caring young people by modeling and teaching good character through emphasis on universal values, many of educators in Indonesia are morally below the standard. Moreover, some educators in certain districts commit crimes such as: adultery, bullying, and even child molestation.  This may justify that we are not yet ready to implement character education in school.

There are many other things should be highlighted in implementation of character building in Indonesia. Hopefully, with the new minister of education, come new practical and feasible concept of implementing character building in this contry. Wallahu a’lam bi al shawab.

Making Online Learners

     Here in STKIP, students are facilitated with laptop, a device which can connect them with world wide web: it is a great access to knowledge, reference, network, and others. It is a pity if this great facility is not followed by  great effort by both students and teachers. Surely, this requires teachers and students to do many activities with technology. And this issue leads us to having online class as a necessity. Then I read a good article about  ‘How I became a Convert to Online Learning’ by Nick Kremer (He is a language arts teacher at Oakland Junior High School and a doctoral student at the University of Missouri–Columbia)  which enlighten me to have a new perspective of teaching.

     Nick Kremer, the writer, argues that on line class or virtual education refers to instruction in a learning environment where teacher and student are separated by time or space, or both. The teacher provides course content through the use of methods, such as course management applications, multimedia resources, the internet, and videoconferencing, whereas the students receive the content and communicate with the teacher via the same technologies. Indeed, for teachers it is very helpful for them to have online classroom because the procedure and requirement are quite simple. However, he claimed that during the implementation of on line class there lie some pitfalls and ways how to overcome them.

No.	Pitfalls	Solution
1.	In online class the attendance cannot be regulated well because they work at their own pace. In fact, students’ attendance in every meeting is considered important since it is to retain knowledge and skills.	Allotting a certain time for the students to spend learning and create various and more assignments for online class in order to demand the learners work more in online lessons.
2.	On line classroom provide lack of meaningful interaction.	It can become a challenge for developing community interaction by raising a certain interesting topic in online class. Teachers can assign his students to have peer revision and ask a transcript of their discussion.
3.	Online class enlarges the opportunity for students to cheat	-         taking major tests in person (with ID). -          soliciting frequent writing samples from students. -          beginning with an enrollment essay to check for consistency in their work, and designing personal, in-depth assignments.
4.	A paradigm: ‘online class is discriminatory: online class is almost impossible for the students who do not have computer  and internet access (not in our institution for sure) and skills to operate it’	-          Enabling media center lab or in public library. -          Providing an easy-accessing  guiding program.

     Regarding to the Kremer’s opinion, actually there is no big deal in applying online class in school since although there are pitfalls; there still are the solutions for them. However, when the discussion goes to the implementation of online class in Indonesia, I would say that for the time being, on line class is unlikely applicable.

      The corrupt system of government especially in education affair makes the fund distribution from central government to regions ruined. Consequently, this causes many crucial problems. One of them is that regions cannot have fund to buy the means which makes regional students cannot feel the benefit of technology.  May be for those students who study in cities or ‘expensive’ private schools would have no problems in using online class, yet, the students from the lower economy background fill meet difficulty in using it.  

     Indeed, I do not say that this is expression of pessimism, rather to focus on ways how this can be dealt with. Of course, seminars, workshops, and campaigns about using on line class would be useless without good system of the government. For instance, the initial action to take will be to create supporting and conducive situation for it. Due to the fact that students nowadays are digital natives, actually it would not be that difficult to introduce the students how to use online class. As long as the teachers, whom most of them are digital immigrants, are eager to learn something new about technology. Otherwise, that would be another problem. At least one of the first steps is to form a good system of the government so that the fund distribution will be well managed (meaning no corruption), and not only the uptown students can feel the technology, but also regional students as well. If such condition can exist, I am optimistic about on line class will be successfully implemented in Indonesia. Wallahu a’lam bi al shawab.

Inspired from Article:  ‘How I became a Convert to Online Learning’ by Nick Kremer  (http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb11/vol68/num05/How-I-Became-a-Convert-to-Online-Learning.aspx)