English is no better than Bahasa

Long ago when I was in primary school, English was introduced as a "menu" in the curriculum. Since then, surely, the business of English Courses widely spread promising the better mastery and fluency of English and many people were attracted, as if English is the best language and people had to master it. Well, it is actually not wrong to master English, but the idea of English is better than Bahasa Indonesia, which I personally think, is totally wrong.

 All languages are arguably equal in the sense that there is nothing intrinsically limiting, demeaning or handicapping about any of them. All languages meet the psychological and social needs of their speakers. They are equally deserving of a scientific study, and can provide us the valuable information about human nature and society. This statement is justified by the fact that all languages have both universal and complex grammar.

All languages must have a universal grammar: all languages must have subject and predicate. All languages must have a complex grammar: there may be relative simplicity in one respect, bet there seems always to be relative complexity in another.

Another case proving that all languages equal one another is the phenomenon between Bahasa and English. For some people, Bahasa is considered as lower level compared to English. However, this is simply wrong. In terms of economic values, English is indeed more powerful than Bahasa, but not linguistically. The obvious example is that English has only one word for rice. Bahasa, on the other hand, has numerous words for rice, such as “nasi”, “beras”, and “padi”. Therefore, linguistically, Bahasa Indonesia is equal to English, dan saya bangga bisa berbahasa Indonesia dengan baik dan benar. :-) Wallahu a'lam bi al-shawab.

Quantum: One Step Closer to Excellent Teacher

Being a teacher demands us to be creative, innovative, and dare to take any challenges to create a lively classroom. During the journey of seeking ideas and inspirations, I found an interesting book about Quantum teaching and Learning. To memorize the knowledge, I made this quantum teaching and learning as a topic to my article as a requirement of my study in college. It was long time ago when I composed this article and when I reread it, it reminded me to keep trying to be creative and innovative. Here I share you the article. FYI, this is not something new, but rather to be inspiration for us to be better teachers by time. Enjoy...  

Along with the development of education, there found a teaching method called Quantum Teaching.  Quantum teaching itself is originated from an effort by Dr. Georgi Lozanov, an educator from Bulgaria who firstly experimented with suggestology In further development, Bobbi DePorter who was one of the Lozanov’s students, developed the Lozanov’s  concept into  Quantum Learning.  He adopted this learning method from several theories: left and right brain theory, triune brain theory, the choice modalities (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic) and holistic education. The concept was successfully applied in the Super Camp, a course institution he built. It was proven by a study of doctoral dissertation conducted in that Super Camp in 1991. From this study, it was found that Quantum Teaching was able to boost the students’ potential skill. This fact is reasonable since it is reflected from its definition, principles, and advantages towards students.

Quantum Teaching is about to create an effective learning environment by using the existing elements on the students and learning environment through interaction that occurs in the classroom. It relies on the concept of 'Bring their world to our world, and delivered our world into their world. This shows that Quantum Teaching does not only offer materials that students should study, but also teaches how to create emotional connections in learning. Beside, quantum teaching also deals with the function of part of the brain.

            It is known that each part of the brain controls activities in different intellectual. The left brain handles numbers, composition, logic, organization, and anything else that requires rational thoughts, reasons, and deductive and analytical considerations. On the other hand, the right brain handles thoughts that require creativity, originality, creativity and artistic talent. With Quantum teaching, it is possible to teach by functioning both left and right brain respectively.

            Quantum Learning embodies five principles. These five principles can be a guideline to apply quantum method in class. First principle is everything speaks. Everything, from surroundings, environment, and materials, conveys an important message about learning. Second, everything is on purpose. Everything we do has an intended purpose, and students must know the purpose of what they study. Third is experience before label.  Students make meaning and transfer new content into long-term memory by connecting to existing schema. Learning is best facilitated when students experience the information in some aspect before they acquire labels for what is being learned. The next principle is acknowledge every effort. Acknowledgement of each student’s effort encourages learning and experimentation. The last principle is            If It’s Worth Learning, It’s Worth Celebrating!. Celebration provides feedback regarding progress and increases positive emotional associations with the learning.

Beside those five principles, there are many elements that factor the learning experience. These elements can be classified into two categories: context and content. Context is the setting for the learning experience. It focuses on the environment, the atmosphere, the foundation, and the design of the classroom. All these elements blend together, creating the learning experience. It is the goal to make the learning experience a positive one. Therefore, it is important to work hard to create an effective learning environment that will allow all students a chance to learn. Content is equally important as the context. Learning process occurs when skills are revealed when students are allowed to explore and discover the wonders of the material being taught to them. In Quantum Teaching, teachers do not act as “distributors of fact and knowledge”, but rather as “facilitators who can help a child extend their learning”.

However, being quantum teachers should be different from common teachers. Quantum teachers commonly have distinct characteristics to communicate, e.g.: enthusiastic, sociable, humorous, charismatic, flexible, and fluent. Enthusiastic means that the teachers should feel energetic interest in a classroom and eager to involve students to take part in the classroom. Consequently, students are eager and encouraged to receive knowledge from the teacher.

Quantum teachers should also be sociable. They should be easy to establish relationships with diverse characteristics of students. So the students will like the teacher. Consequently, the learning will be smoothly done. To be humorous is also important for quantum teachers. Quantum teachers can get the students’ attention easily if they are not too strict to their students. They should also be eager to recognize mistakes and be brave to apologize whenever they make mistakes or errors. By being humorous, students will consider the teachers as fair men.

Another characteristic is charismatic. It is able to influence students and attract their attention and admiration. It is no doubt that charismatic teachers will get respect from their students. This will bring impact toward the teaching learning process which is more conducive.

Flexible is the next characteristic that the quantum teachers should have. By being flexible, teachers are able to find alternatives to gain goals.

Quantum teachers should also be fluent. They have to be able to communicate clearly, concisely, and honestly, so that the communication between the teachers and students will go smoothly.

However, applying quantum method in teaching will bring many advantages towards students. One of them is that students are able to discover their own learning styles. From this advantage, students learn to be independent learners. Beside, students are able to develop their life skills that will help them take greater responsibility for the choices they make. It allows students to be brave and responsible of what they have decided and taken. Another advantage is that the students’ level of confidence rises up. It can help students to build their self-esteem.

Finally, from applying quantum method, students will be excited in learning and no longer consider teaching-learning in the class as a boring activity. Wallahu a'lam bi al-shawab.

Re-post: I am a Teacher, and I am Proud of it!

hello everyone... This article is an old post of my blog. Here I post it again to remind us all how noble it is to be a teacher! Enjoy...

An Ideal Teacher

Prophet Muhammad is the examples of those great teachers who changed the world and still, their teachings are affecting people throughout the world. Of course, he was not easily accepted in their society in the beginning. It took years for him to struggle. Yet he succeeded to survive and able to enlighten people with what he shared: knowledge. This acknowledges us that to be a teacher is in fact a great responsibility and he should try to possess the qualities of such great people though he knows, it is not an easy job to do.
Besides having fabulous and fine knowledge at least in his discipline, which is in my opinion this is a core provision a teacher must have, he also must have great moral values because he is one being followed by the students. He must not make himself to stay with his lectures and study stuff only but he must also play a vital role in students’ counseling. He must make his personality friendly and polite so that students do not give another thought to the idea of sharing something regarding studies or daily life problems. For instance, providing constant care and being a good listener for the students’ concern are the keys.
A teacher should be able to communicate well. Good mastery in knowledge will mean nothing without good delivery. Many college teachers can be taken as examples for this matter, and this goes to the fact that their students get nothing from him. Only a few college teachers, that so far I only met one, who are eager to take care of the students, pay attention to the students’ concern, be fully tolerable, and even, which I am remarkably amazed, eager to take notes in the student’s seminar only for the student’s interest.
There are so many small and big things that must be considered while being a great teacher as a great teacher gets too much love and respect by whole society. However, that illustration above is just the ideal characteristics of a good teacher. For me, what is more important is that a teacher must have something special. That something which differs him from other good teachers, something that will motivate and encourage his students to be distinctive and acquire more character.
The fact is, many of Indonesian teachers only know how to teach. They never think of other things beyond their responsibility to teach. In fact, being a good example for the students is a part of education as well. To my opinion, being a good, distinctive teacher is how to get myself to write well.


Teacher as a Writer 

Everyone must be able to write. Although a person indirectly writes by dictating what he is thinking to another person, he is a real writer, because it is he who has the idea and pours it into the written form. It is not the person, who is dictated to write, is the real writer.
Everyone can write. What makes it different is only about the fact that he can make a good or bad writing. What makes an article good or bad is the way it is delivered. The method of delivery also varies according to the material /content of the writing, the intended reader group, and the era. The way of writing a literary work is, of course, different from a work on fish farming. How to write for young readers and for adult readers must also be different. The demands of the times demand different ways of delivery as well. Besides, each author must have a different way of writing.
Among writers, there is a teacher, lecturer and storyteller, which means, all writers are teachers. However, not all teachers are writers. Someone, who composes books, is a teacher for those who read it. The materials and the ideas he advances or ideas contained in the book that he writes is a lesson to its readers, no matter what the theme is. On the contrary, not all teachers can be writers because most teachers, especially in Indonesia, are only to convey what’s in the book, which is actually the work of others’, so that the real teacher for students is the author of the textbook while the teacher in the classroom just explains or convey what is in it.
A writer is someone who certainly has the hobby of reading, and that someone certainly has extensive knowledge and loves to seek new information. As a good writer, he would take more and more references to be included in a work, ro that it betters the quality of the work. The better the references the better the quality will be, he will think. More references make the work better, the high quantity of references can also bring the writer to look at a material from various directions and points of view, and of course this will create a work to be objective.
A good teacher is, of course, a good writer. Someone will be able to explain a work better than others when it is his own work, because he is an expert in that field and really understands the contents. Because he really understands the content of his work, then he will be good in front of his students. However, most teachers simply explain what they understand in a textbook without knowing the real meaning or purpose of the author. This is what will make the teacher lake of understanding and the make students more and more confused,
As an example, take the course of a junior high school history book, A study of early humans. This lesson explains that there was a man, similar to a monkey, who later evolved over millions of years and eventually became a human, like us today. Using evidences, such as fossils and scientific computations, evolutionary scientists argued that we were descended from apes. That theory had been believed by us until recently the theory is successfully refuted by scientists who argue that humans are not descended from apes. All theories about the evolution theory turns out to be “approximation” and even the originator of this theory, Charles Darwin, actually admitted that he was not so sure about this theory. One by one, fossil findings, reinforcing the theory of evolution, have been proven wrong, where most of the fossils are hoaxes and engineered by attaching a few bones of apes and pigs to cover the shortage of the fossils. Early human fossils found are actually just a type of ape fossils that has been extinct. the theory of evolution finally becomes the laughingstock of the whole world.
The fact that a book about ancient human history and the lessons are still taught in schools today remains there, however. If the teacher who teaches the history of this subject still discusses this, and he is not up to date with new knowledge, he will teach ancient humans blindly to his disciples, and this will cause new errors to the students. This is what I mean by not understanding about what is taught.
However, a teacher who is also a writer will understand if something goes wrong in what he teaches, because a teacher, who is also an author, has a lot of information, especially about what he’s learned and taught. A history teacher, who is also an author, has more information about the history than a history teacher who is not a writer. An English teacher who is also a writer in English will have a higher capacity than a teacher who just sticks on a book he uses to teach in the classroom.
By writing, a person will be required to have a lot of information about what he Teaches, because he will be prosecuted to the accountability of what he has written for any errors. By having a lot of information related to what he writes, the writer will be able to minimize the mistakes he makes in his writing. Thus, this author at least has owned a lot of information about what he writes and teaches.
The teacher who is also a writer will be able to explain many things related to what he teaches and is able to explain clearly to students from various points of view. Such teachers will be able to master the class and of course able to control the students. He will be able to explain with his own language, which is flexible and not rigid. Teachers will also be able to explain the material in with fun and certainly with different methods from the methods used by a teacher who is not a writer. Of course this way will be more effective in delivering lessons to students. Wallahu a'lam bi al-shawab.