Rumi's blog

*) No more teachers???

2011-01-06T18:18:00.001-08:00

It is said that with technology students can study practically anywhere without having to meet a teacher. Teacher could podcast lessons using interactive whiteboard without actually being in the classroom, assignment will be emailed and the teacher would correct them and return them by email.

I don’t agree with that statement. In my opinion, even though computer technology have been developed so much and implemented in education, teachers are still needed in learning process. Students still need to meet with teacher and learning together with their friends in the class. If students have never had class, they will lose some advantages, since there are several things in students-teacher and student-student relationship which can not be replaced by machine.

Since the purpose of education is not only to develop knowledge, but also life skills, so students have to understand about how to deal with human, which different with machine. Class can be a good place for students to practice and build social skills. In this case, by having class and met with teacher and other students, a student can learn about how to deal with teacher and their friends as human being which are needed appropriate attention and respect. In addition, by having class, student benefit from study in group with other students, in which he/she learns about how to present opinion orally, how to response other students opinions, and how to have discussion in order to reach satisfying conclusion.

Moreover, teacher is needed in learning process, since they can recognizes students deficiencies, students problems in learning process, and then give suggestion about how to solve those problems. Teacher can give motivation and spirit to student when he/she doesn’t understand about the lesson and want to give up or stop to learn. Machine can not do that. Machine only provides knowledge and presents it in repetitive ways. Machine can not understand that some students have different kind of needs.

However, I agree that computer technology can be used in classroom in the future. This gives opportunity to students and teacher to get “the most” in learning process, in example, teacher can give students several tasks using internet and then they discuss it in the class or students can keep in touch with their teacher every time using email, but it doesn’t mean that teacher doesn’t need to meet with their students in the class.

*) This s my short essay after reading an article in Kang GURU Radio English March 2007.

Critical thinking

2011-01-06T18:16:00.001-08:00

It is not only about thinking critically

According to Tim Moore, since it is learned intuitively, critical thinking is easier to recognize rather than to define precisely. However, Australian university students need to know about critical thinking because it is everywhere during university study, in reading, writing and assignments. This talk purposes to present what critical thinking means in academics views. They are lecturers of history, philosophy and cultural studies in faculty of arts, Monash University.

Critical thinking can be divided into 6 broad things:

1. critical thinking as judgment
Being critical means able to evaluate whether an argument is valid or invalid, rubbish or value and finding the truth about it. Truth in this case means can be accepted by reasonable person.

2. critical thinking as skeptical and questioning attitude
Being critical means wonders about an idea, he/she stops, thinks and asks questions about this idea, not just accepting straightway whatever people say. However it is not enough just to have critical thought, someone has to produce something or say something about this idea, to argue: agree or disagree.

3. critical thinking as making an argument
Being critical means makes an argument, give reasons for this argument and making conclusion for his/her own view. This is not just “beat around the bush” which means talk about things indirectly, not stating exactly what he/she means.

4. critical thinking as a facility with language
Being critical means uses language precisely, knowing and worrying the meaning of words and use the terms exactly in the right way, so he/she is able to write in an appropriate way, to show that she/he is actually able to think.

5. critical thinking as social responsibility
Being critical means looks around oneself, concerned and bothered by what he/she sees and not necessary satisfied with status quo. He/she feels responsible for the state of the world and wants to help people life to be better. The purpose of being critical is not only to make the lecturer satisfied.

6. critical thinking as reading
Being critical means be able to read something well. Before criticize something, such as a piece of reading, someone has to understand the text or the sources. Someone can’t be a good thinker without being a good reader.

Note: I am not sure whether this is a note or a summary or an annotated bibliography from video number 0846, IALF resource centre February 2007, The Mystery of Critical Thinking, a talk by Tim Moore, lecturer for Monash University. However, I write this as a source for my contemplation about “what critical thinking is and whether it is value or useless”.

Positive Attitude

2011-01-06T18:15:00.001-08:00

Positive attitudes are good attitudes which support positive things such as successfulness, happiness, mental welfare etc. I remember a short word, “You are what you think”, which means that “whatever you think about yourself, it can be true”. It is like a forecast for our destiny. I read several books in the past about how positive attitude affect the result of our efforts, such as “chicken soup for the soul”. This book provides several inspiring stories about “how to reach your goals by change your way of thinking”.

People who have positive attitude KNOW what they want and how to get it. They are ready and understand the price of their wish. Positive attitude doesn’t mean that they don’t aware about their strengths and weaknesses. In the contrary, they know about those, so they use their strengths such weapons to reach their goal. In the same time, they accept that they have weaknesses in some areas, but they do the best efforts to change those weaknesses to be better ability.

People who have positive attitude don’t mean that they have to always success in the long process to get the ultimate goal, but they understand that failure just a temporary. Failure will not make them stop to try and try again. There are many true stories about people who not give up even though they were faced by many difficulties and in the end they reached their own goal, such as Honda, Bill Gates, Abraham Lincoln, etc. So, positive people are ready for every possible result in their process to reach goal, but understand that successfulness is just the matter of time; it must be happened in the future. If they are in temporary failure or unsatisfied result, they think that “the best is yet to be” *).

And last, people who have positive attitude sometimes are allowed to be “down”… allowed to be hesitated…allowed to complaining, but, they have to know how to manage all this bad feeling. They have to know the way to release their “worried and depression”, and they must not let themselves to buried in the “negative feeling’, forever.

*) i don't remember where i found this sentence

The Luxury of Education*)

2011-01-06T18:13:00.001-08:00

What is education for? There is no single definite answer for this look like simple question. An interesting answer came from Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania in the workshop on education and poverty eradication Kampala, August 2001.1)
He said that, "Education is not a way to escape poverty - It is a way of fighting it."

As one of the developing countries, Indonesia has about 17.8% people who life below poverty line2), in other words there are more than 40 million Indonesian people live under proper condition with less than $2 a day. Poor people usually work as farmers or laborers. It is very hard for them to think about education and the future of their children while they spend all their time to work hard in order to fulfill their basic daily needs. Education seems only a luxury for rich people or at least people from the middle economic class.

Government may be proud of all those statistic evidences that the enrolment rate in primary school is 95%3), but there are still many questions behind that successfulness.
Have they provided enough resources for students to study? It is an ironic when the numbers of hours that students spend in school are long but there are not enough textbooks, teaching aid and resources for them. So, what did they do in school? Chatting? Playing? Or just wasting time?

It is said that education is one way to promote social justice. Education is one of the human rights, so every children/people should have appropriate access to education. However, it is a reality that children from rich family get better opportunities to be success in school, while children from poor families always threatened to be drop out. The lack of support from their family, the lack of equipment, such as note book, pencil, eraser, bag, and proper uniform, the lack of motivation, are disadvantages factors for them to remain in school.

Children from rich family have more access to any extra help when they have difficulties in their lesson. Their parents have enough money to send them to additional private courses, call private tutors or provide other study aids such as calculator, computer, internet, etc. Children from poor family are likely choose to left school as soon as possible when they find themselves difficult to coping the lesson. Only few exceptional poor students who really study hard can exist in the school competition and continue their study to the higher level.

1) http://www.unesco.org/education/poverty/news.shtmlInternational
2) http://www. CIA/The World Factbook //Indonesia.htm
3) http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HH31Ae01.html
*) A short note after chatted with Ika about the differences in thinking between educated and non educated person and heard Anan saying that having time for writing is a luxury for him.

Different Way of Thinking

2011-01-06T18:03:00.000-08:00

Is it true that people from different cultures "think" in different way?*)
I think yes, if they didn't "think" in different way, they would have acted in same way. The reality is that people from different cultures approach matter variously.

I always wonder about how different people react for the same fact. In example, their attitude about suicide. Japanese think that suicide is good thing, this is a respectful way to die, in the contrary other people think that it is coward.

In Javanese culture (my culture), patient is regarded as very graceful manner. If someone do bad things to you or something bad happen to you, and then you react to it calmly, you stand and not angry, it means that you have reached the highest level of self control. You are a very good person. But, in the other culture, patient is not good at all, it means that you are loser, you don't want to defense yourself, and you will lost your self pride.

The most respectful person in my culture is not people who talk much. In their opinion talking much means that you will very easy to get into trouble. The more you talk, the easier you get into trouble. Silent is gold.

My culture doesn't encourage opinion differences. You should think about what other person feel. If you disagree with other person opinion, it is not wise to tell it directly. It is rude to say directly,"I disagree". If you disagree, you have to explain the reasons first, in other words, you have to give persuasion that his/her opinion is wrong, and let he/she makes his/her own conclusion about your opinion. It is a great successful if you can lead this person to change his/her opinion to be same with you.

I am lucky that i have opportunity to learn about another culture which is very different with mine. I just start about that and i find it is very nice and interesting. I think, this "cultural differences knowledge" should be taught in schools, so people around the world can understand each other. It is one way to support world peace.

Education: It is a World Matter

2011-01-06T17:57:00.000-08:00

Education is always a big matter. It entangles many components. Nowadays, globalization becomes a big issue and education no longer only an ethnic, regional or nation matter, it is becoming a world matter.

One of the inherent questions in education is: how a child has to be prepared to live in the future? It is not easy to describe how the future will be; however, future still can be foreseen from now, by understanding world situation, world environment and world problems.

If human want to survive and live in peace, they should start to think about what kind of education which is promoting international understanding. It is a reality, that human are various, human are created in different color of skin, they use different languages, they have different cultures, they follow different religions/beliefs, and they live in different countries. Children should be made to aware about that. They have to be educated to respect those variations. Rather than promote education which is only talk about narcissism, self pride and egoism, education should be emphasized to develop children' awareness about how they can give good contribution to the global community.

Living in world community is not about competition. It is impossible to a country to survive alone, without any relation with their neighbors. All countries depends each other. They live in the same earth. They must solve several same problems, such as limited of natural sources, global warming, environment problem, population, poverty and demography. Children should be aware about those problems.