The first impression struck me when I was reading this assignment is that, this assignment is going to be a tough one. This is because every time I tried to write about myself I found that a very hard task to do. I always have fear that I might fall into an old saying in my language, “Kuman di seberang lautan tampak, gajah di depan mata tak tampak” (others small mistakes might appear big in our eyes while we might did not see our own mistakes). However, when I read the examples of pen portrait that Kerry has given me during the class session, it gave me an idea that I am not the only one struggling with the same dilemma. Despite of that, I believe that the guideline questions posted by Campbel et. al (2004, p.36) will be able to help me harness my writing.
To begin with, I started to think of being a teacher when I was in grade 12 of high school. Just like most of my classmates, I planned to study in the other city, and took subjects like engineering or farming. However, when the time came, my parents did not let me go and the only higher educational institution available in town is teachers training institution. My first thought was, Karma strikes back! I used to mock the trainee teachers who came into my school and now I am going to be one of them too. At the same time, while undergoing training as a teacher, I took part time job as a staff in an environmental NGO in my town. In this organization, I often traveled to community in the remote area and being a tutor in environmental education and quite often ended up being a temporary English teacher. There, I began to like my future profession, teacher.
Drawing from my experience, I believe that teaching and learning is about building a positive relationship between teachers and students. If classroom can be called organization, then it is a living entity as Wheatley (2005, p. 324) described. It is constructed from elements, which get together and make it functioned. If one part failed to carry out its function, than there is a problem in it. Every element in this organization called classroom should build a positive relationship in order to make the teaching and learning process run smoothly. Relationship should occur both ways not merely interaction between teacher and pupils, and among pupils.
It is also my personal believe that teacher also learn before, during, and after the time when she/he teaches the students. I also believe that teaching is not merely for the mark and the output mandated by the written curriculum, it also have something to do with the enrichment of positive values and giving students chances to experience and dig into their hidden talents. Teaching is about helping students to reach their potentials.
I believe that I am more a facilitator than a teacher traditionally is. I help facilitate my students with what they want to and need to learn. To me teaching and learning does not necessarily happen in the classroom only, but could be anywhere. It is common for me, to take my students to open space area, to walk together and learn something new. However sometimes I found myself trapped between the demand of the curriculum, which often does not go along with the students’ needs and the diversity and complexity of running a classroom. I often wonder how could those who made the curriculum does not know and consider that what they have written in the curriculum is not even what the students’ needs. Supeno in his book Agenda Reformasi Pendidikan (Education Reformation Agenda) also shared the same bewilderment. He noted that how could teachers who knows the real condition in the class were not involved in the creation of the curriculum, instead the government trusted the curriculum to those who only read the theory of education and never applied it in the real classroom (Supeno, 1999, p.41).
The puzzle in my mind about the diversity and complexity of teaching and learning has begun to unfold when I came across a figure in Dana and Yendol-Silva’s work (2003, p.16). It justified my thought on how complex the teaching and learning process that a teacher should face. This figure explained that teaching and learning is not only affected by the complexity of the classroom itself, but also pressure from the real world outside the classroom, which often get carried into the classroom. I can easily recall moments when one of my students not paying attention or bring the problem from home into the classroom and distracts the whole teaching and learning process. I was so frustrated but I can do nothing. I used to plan many things to happen during my teaching and learning process but there are many factors in running the classroom that far beyond my control. The three suitcases that Kerry has presented during her class on how many things in the curriculum, reduced into what we taught, and how much actually the students learned from what we taught them is just a perfect description on how I felt at every end of my classes. I often make excuses of keeping them for extra minutes in class just because I thought that I should finish what has been instructed in the syllabus, or giving them more tasks to take home. However, I realize that it is not the answer for their problem, and it is not their problem, it is mine. Lately, I began to relax when I encounter Stoll, Fink, and Earl (2003, p.24 as cited in Bissaker, 2011) mentioned that ‘learning is intellectual, social and emotional. It is linear and erratic. It happens by design or by chance’. I assume that regardless to the less than expected amount of curriculum material that I taught them, they were able to grasp some other useful information and experience throughout the learning process. I hope that my students are in the stages of learning that Sprenger (2007 as cited in Bissaker, 2011) has mentioned. I knew that they pay attention to the subject, but I just hope that they can acquire and apply things that they learned in class. I further wish that they could make it a habit so they will be fluent, and they would be able to maintain and expand their knowledge.
| Grade 9 students, SMP 4 Pinogu |
| Kids taking day off school to earn money. Transporting daily necessities, such as kerosene and salt from the nearby village about 28 KMs |
As I try to reflect more, there is still at least one thing that bothers me a lot, the gap in students’ knowledge. Those from the urban area are obviously well equipped with more knowledge and facilities compared to those who come from the rural area. For instance, the picture above was taken during my visit to a junior high school in Suwawa Timur, Gorontalo. This school located Nani Wartabone National Park about 62 KMs from my hometown. I have to walk for about 9 hours before I reach this school. Here, they have about 32 students in grade 9 which never get to learn English during their last year in junior high school, due to the unavailability of English teacher. I was speechless when they told me this, and finally I helped them to learn some 9-grade materials and some example from the last year examination’s questions.
The students in the picture above just a mere example of students who maybe facing difficulty in the later stage of their education because they do not have English teacher available. Can you imagine when I ask my students once to submit their paper through e-mail, all agreed except one who said she does not have one, and she does not know how to use computer. She finally admitted to me, in our later dialogue, that she has someone else type for her, every time I asked for a paper to be submitted.
In one hand, I am bound to help all the students regardless to their background the same knowledge that has been mandated to me by the curriculum. On the other hand, I just could not fulfill it because there are many differences in class that happened beyond my control. This situation made me often feel helpless and hopeless. I always have the same debate going on in my mind, am I discriminating these kinds of students? But what about others, they also have the same right to advance in their learning! I keep on wondering, until I come into discussion with Kerry in one of her class, she said to me, maybe I should learn to differentiate the learning styles. I said to myself, yes! How? Then, I found this book, Learning for teaching teaching for learning by Dianna Whitton et. al (2004, pp. 168-172) in which they justified the reasons to differentiate the learning styles and help me find out at least thirteen learning styles that I might able to apply to my students once I get back to my home country.
References
Bissaker, Kerry. (2011) Lecture: Issues in professional learning, March 2, 2011.
Campbell, A., McNamara, O., & Gilroy, P. (2004). Practitioner research and professional development in education. London, UK: Paul Chapman Publishing. pp 28-47.
Dana, N. F. & Yendol-Silva, D. (2003). The reflective educator’s guide to classroom research. Learning to teach and teaching to learn through practitioner inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. pp 31-64
Supeno, Hadi. (1999). Agenda reformasi pendidikan, Jakarta, Indonesia: Pustaka Paramedia
Wheatley, Margaret., J (2005). Finding our way: Leadership for an uncertain time, San Francisco, USA: Berret-Koehler Publishers, Inc. pp 32-34
Whitton, Diana., Sinclair, Catherine., Barker, Katrina., Nanlohy, Phil. & Nosworthy, Mary. (2004). Learning for teaching teaching for learning, Southbank Victoria, Australia: Thomson social science press. pp 168-172.
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