Governmental Reaction Towards Multiethnicity in Indonesia

by 

Virgiawan Adi & Widya Kusu

Multiethnic as one component of national identity is complex problem which remains unsolved. The complexity here means a result of number ethnic group and race amongst the nation. From Sabang to Merauke, we can see that Indonesia has around 700 ethnic groups (Tilaar, 2007, p.xvii) where each ethnic group has different social and cultural activity. Of course, the government sees this phenomenon as a trigger to disunity or tribalism in which the fanatics to their own ethnic may create prejudice (Tilaar, 2007, p.xxv) and conflict. As long as we concern, since its independence day around 67 years ago government has created many policies to carry this nation from that aforementioned issue. One big question is then raised up. How does the government react towards this multiethnic phenomenon from time to time? 

Indonesia Mengajar: A Program for Social Justice in Education

Social justice for the whole people of Indonesia. This is the fifth principle of our ideology, Pancasila. This principle is symbolized by the image of rice paddy and cotton which means that every single person shares the same happiness which emphasizes an egalitarian relationship for majority and minority groups. This idea was basically from our founding father, the first president – Soekarno. He encouraged Indonesian people to have equality in many aspects such as education. Since the very beginning of our nation’s independence, the principle of social justice in education was elaborated in the constitution, Undang-Undang Dasar (UUD) 1945. For example, UUD 1945 article 30 emphasizes a national education system in which “Each citizen has the right to an education”. Unfortunately, this principle remains distant, since the right to education is only for those who afford to buy it, while the others, who cannot afford it, can only peek in and see the class interactions from outside the windows, like the main character in the movie “Denias”. This is symbolic of many other Deniases in remote areas spreading from Sabang to Merauke who have a passion for studying and are intelligent but cannot afford these opportunities. Do they deserve an inferior education? Do only Javanese people merit a good education? No.

I Let my Orphanage Students to speak

Every kid needs to speak up and every teacher needs to listen. This idea is clearly the emphasis in Campano’s (2007) article “Honoring Student Stories”. This “kernel” of idea leads to a rapid popcorn explosion of questions. How do you get those kids to speak about their feelings? How do you invite them? How do you support them?

Enhancing Professional Growth of Pre-service Teachers in Indonesia: An Adoption of the U.S. Professional Development School

1. Introduction

Pre-service teachers are long term investment and asset in educational context. They are prepared to be professional teachers to respond poor quality in education. They function as agent of change in society to reform education better. In the forthcoming years, they occupy themselves as teachers who fill the retired teacher’ positions. They hold great responsibility in which education demands more to solve unanswered problems. They are asked to widen their knowledge, skills and abilities by conducting field experiences. Just like in the US, pre-service teachers in Indonesia also need to accomplish field experiences. Despite of some similarities, field experiences in the US and Indonesia are different in many ways. I assume that field experiences in the US have better perspectives and practices than in Indonesia. The US has implemented Professional Development School (PDS) approach, in which this approach has ideal characteristics of teacher education programs, strong policy which creates relation between universities and schools seen from the worldwide perspective. In this paper, I adopt the PDS model to enhance the pre-service teacher’s professionalism in Indonesia. 

No Child Left Behind: An Act of Good and Bad

Since the federal government issued No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, many pros and cons spread among the nation. This arguable issue, of course, triggers not only the federal concerns but also local and parents. Some may leave question, why should it be nationalized schooling system? What is the aim for having the system? An article of “Power and Control at the State and National Level by Joy Spring” drives me to an idea of ‘A Nation at Risk 1983’ about quality of the educational system’ (Spring, 2008, p.226). I did not understand what the quality of education system that the nation mean until I watched ABC TV video entitled ‘Master Teacher’. Some scenes lead me to questions. How could a grade four student not understand the word ‘out’? How could the girl write ‘betaus’ instead of ‘because’? Indeed, these scenes opened my eyes about the reasons of No Child left Behind. However, some still refute the Act and others show their agreement. By making a clear line on the positive and negative points on funding, academic standard and assessment, I will bring this paper into concise conclusion.

Charter Schools: No One Size Fits All

Since the first time the idea proposed by Ray Budde in 1970, charter schools become hot topic to be discussed. These schools attract parents’ interests. It is fairly easy to understand that parents, who want better life for their kids, feel very ambivalent towards the school choice. Thus, this idea triggers pros and cons spread among the society. By describing positive and negative points on benefits and drawbacks, I will bring this discussion into concise conclusion.

Grammar of Schooling: A Conservative Idea fits for Indonesia

Having glimpse title of an article “Why the Grammar of Schooling Persists by David Tyack & Larry Cuban” questions me why most western people doubt it. I am thinking and contemplating that its system gives more benefits to Indonesia rather than John Dewey’s idea about progressive education. Why I say so?

Local Content Curriculum: Immature program for Teachers

LCC is a way of educational reform. Since its coming the existence of LCC influenced to the teachers’ contribution in the education system. Teachers are not only demanded to revise their teachers’ identity but also need to transform it. I assume that it needs a very hard work and an extra energy to erase the assumption of teachers as civil servants in which they need to be loyal to the country and change the primary duty related to the instruction. I see this as this program is immature for teachers seen from facts about teachers based on my own experiences.

Local Content Curriculum: Why does MOEC Need to Persist it?

Discussing with the colleagues about the Local Content Curriculum (LCC) has brought my thinking to 1994. Released by the MOEC, this program has puzzled teachers. Some maybe refute the curriculum, but I personally support the existence of the curriculum. I will show the reasonable arguments seen from 2 perspectives why I agree that the policy makers continue the notion principles of LCC in current curriculum.

The Ungaran Farm School

SCHOOL PROFILE

• School Name           :    The Ungaran Farm School
• Institution type         :    Secondary Vocational School – Vocational Education and Training (VET)
• Academic Program :    Agricultural Education
• Length of Study :    3 years

INTRODUCTION
For many decades, it has been known that Indonesia is one of agrarian country with 70% from 186 million hectares used to the agricultural sector (Widiarta, 2009). It means that agriculture cannot be neglected and its big potency becomes Indonesian people livelihoods. The Indonesian Statistic Central Committee claimed that in 2007 around 42.5% from 95.5 million people work in agricultural sector which doubled than work trade sector at 20.13% and is much higher than industrial and service sector, at 12.46% and 11.90%, respectively (Widiarta, 2009). It can be clearly seen that the agriculture become core sector to support Indonesian living.

It is believed that the proportion of people work in the agricultural sector will yield potencies and be beneficial to support national demands on food. In fact, over a period of ten years, statistics shows that the national food security cannot fulfill its demands within the nation. Government has imported rice and other natural products from Thailand to foster household food consumption. Of course, it will bring drawbacks rather than the positive effects.

As an educational practitioner, I offer a solution to overcome the problems. I have an idea to develop Vocational Educational and Training (VET) school in agricultural sector. I believe that education has its right to educate people how to cultivate their farming land which can produce agricultural and bring back our role as an international leader in food supplier.

Semarang Regency, as well, which administratively borders to Kendal and Temanggung in the west, Salatiga in the south and Semarang city in the north, has one forth around 24.417ha for farm area from the total of Semarang Regency area of 95.02ha (wikipedia). The natural conditions such as air temperature which is relatively cold, fertile ground indicator then positively support my idea to build a vocational school namely, ‘The Ungaran Farm School’.

Twister Tongue (Seri A1)

1. A big black bear sat on the big black bug.
2. A big black bear bit a big black bug and the big black bug bled black blood.
3. A big black bug bit a big black dog on his black nose!
4. A big bug bit the little beetle but the little beetle bit the big bug back.
5. A bitter biting bittern, bit a better brother bittern, and the bitter better bittern, bit the biter back. And the bitter bittern, bitten, by the better bitten bittern, said: “I’m a bitter biter bit, alack!”

GAGA(LNYA) REPRESENTASI BUDAYA BARAT

Gaun panjang nanelegan dengan dominasi warna hijau lemon yang dikenakan saat turun dari bandara Sungshan Taipe, Taiwan, Rabu 16 Mei 2012, tak serta-merta mengubah sosok unik dan nyentrik Lady Gaga di tengah santernya pemberitaan bakal konsernya di Indonesia.

Eskalasi wacana kedatangannya awal Juni ini yang semula menjadi trending topik pemberitaan sebulan terakhir kini tinggal menyisakan kekecewaan bagi penggemar dan promotor karena batalnya konser tersebut. Para Little Monster-sebutan untuk penggemar Gaga yang sudah jauh-jauh hari memesan tiket kini harus berdesak-desakan lagi mengembalikan tiket/refund ke penyelenggara. Promotor pastinya menjadi pihak yang paling dirugikan secara finansial karena batalnya konser. Namun, apakah kerugian finansial tersebut akan sebanding dengan keuntungan secara sosial-kebudayaan masyarakat kita? Tentu ini pilihan yang sulit, jika harus mengorbankan generasi muda kini yang telah teracuni dan terombang-ambingkan oleh penjajahan psikis yang disebut hedonisme.

SENSE PROPERTIES (Analytic, Synthetic, and Contradictory Sentences)

          In daily life, people communicate and need to reach practical agreement on the meanings of words they use in order to yield effective and meaningful communication. It is known that some show their disagreement about the rule of constructing a meaning from a word. However, we find that we as speakers or hearers understand all words since people who involved in the conversation are having indispensable hard core of meaning. Thus, this vital meaning is called as sense of expression.

        In semantics, experts argue there are two main ways of teaching sense of expression such as sense relation with other expression and sense properties. Sense properties consists of two words which have literal meaning i.e. sense and property. The former means a meaning conveyed or intended while the latter is defined as a quality or trait belonging and especially peculiar to an individual or thing (merriam-webster.com). I propose that sense properties refer to a quality or trait belongs to conveyed meanings. The quality of conveyed meaning usually can be done if a language is uttered or written in a sentence not in a word. It is because sentence meaning is proposition which means possess literal meaning or locution while a word is only a concept. Hurford and Heasley suggest that there are three ways of identifying a quality of a sentence such as analytic, synthetic, and contradictory.

Pros and Cons of Mass Media

Compare the advantages and disadvantages of three of the following as media for communicating information. State which you consider to be the most effective. (comics, book, radio, television, film, theater). Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge.

Environment

Damage to the environment is an inevitable consequence of worldwide improvements in the standard of living. Discuss.

Television

Television has had a significant influence on the culture of many societies. To what extent would you say that television has positively or negatively affected the cultural development of your society?

Globalization

Even though globalization affects the world’s economies in a positive way, its negative side should not be forgotten. Discuss.

Gila

“Orang gila, Orang gila.”

Segerombolan anak kecil meneriakiku dengan kata itu. Orang gila yang benar saja? Apa mereka tak tahu bahwa sesungguhnya aku adalah calon artis terkenal yang bisa membanggakan desa mereka. Aku memutuskan keluar untuk lebih serius berlatih peran secara alami. Hanya itu saja.

“Orang gila, orang gila.”

Apa-apaan ini. Aku sudah tidak tahan dengan ucapan mereka. Aku sudah berada di puncak kemarahanku dan tinggal meletupkannya ke arah mereka, ke arah anak-anak kurang hajar itu.

PGPS (Read: Pinter Goblog Penghasilan Sama)

Akronim PGPS telah mengalami pergesaran dari makna literal. Kini, PGPS menjadi sebuah celetukan yang mengandung unsur sarkasme bagi sebagian guru. PGPS yang mengacu pada Peraturan Gaji Pegawai Sipil berubah menjadi sindiran kasar bagi guru yang tidak mempunyai kemampuan yang mumpuni di bidangnya. Pinter Goblog Penghasilan Sama. Sungguh ironis memang. Namun, seiring dengan perkembangan kesejahteran guru yang ditawarkan pemerintah, banyak orang melirik untuk bidang pekerjaan ini. Hal ini bukan karena passion mereka untuk menjadi seorang pendidik yang baik, tetapi lebih mengarah pada perspektif gaji yang menggiurkan. Semua itu erat kaitannya dengan sertifikasi guru yang menjadi mahadewanya para guru. Pinter Goblog Penghasilan Sama.

Cerpenis Gadungan

Kubanting bolpoint-ku di atas kasur. Huh, susah bener sih nulis cerpen apalagi kalau aku disuruh nulis novel. Bisa mampus aku. Yang pasti impossible. Mana mungkin aku bisa nulis, aku kan gak ada bakat sama sekali. Kayaknya dulu mba Ira waktu SMA gak pernah ada tugas kayak ini, tapi kenapa sekarang harus ada tugas begitu-an. Mana besok pagi sebelum bel tanda masuk, tugas itu harus sudah ngumpul di meja Pak wira. Aku terus saja mengutuki guru itu. Emangnya setiap anak punya kemapuan dan bakat sama. Enggak kan? So, kenapa aku harus repot-repot nulis.

Tiba-tiba kilatan ide gila masuk dalam otakku. Well, kalau sampai nanti malam aku bener-bener gak dapat ilham, aku bakal nyalin cerpen dari salah satu majalah teens-ku yang edisi lumayan sudah kolot. Good. Pasti gak ada yang bakalan tahu. Aku merasa seneng banget. Ternyata permasalahan ini bener-bener bisa diselesaikan secara simple. Toh, bukan salahku kalau aku melakukan hal ini. Suer deh, aku gak bermaksud begitu. Well, aku melakukan ini dengan terpaksa. Gak mungkin seorang Sesti, anak paling TOP terutama kalau pelajaran bahasa Indonesia gak bisa nulis cerpen. Bisa jatuh reputasiku.