If you are an avid online social network user, chances are you have heard the name Andika Ramadhan. Dika, his nickname, is a 23 years old National University of Jakarta (UNJ) student. A notorious ‘troublemaker’, he is a fitting figure that represents the rebellious spirit of today’s young people.
I have known him for quite a while back. Dika was an active student in his campus. He was the vice-president of his faculty’s, Social and Politics, student government. Outside of formal organization, Dika was also involved in many of his campus’s movement, such as founding a literacy circle called SEMERU and leading the movement against an accused rapist lecturer in UNJ. Dika’s social activism were not only confined within his campus setting. He was chosen to lead the local chapter of Rakapare, a prominent youth volunteering organization. In addition, he also has been invited to speak at various forums, starting at the campus level to national television shows. The story of his life as a student of a prestigious university who comes from a very humbling background – street performers – has become a source of inspiration for many people.
He is very passionate about his lifelong dream to be a teacher. “I always believed that every student wants to learn something new and exciting.”, he said. As a part of the famed critical millennials that everyone’s been talking about, he is rather sceptical about our current education system. “Every child is born with a high curiosity, but after years of schooling they are dispirited.”, he said. It was during his time interning in SMAN 13 Depok that he found many flaws within our education system. He said that teacher nowadays “Are very text-centered, for example math teacher rarely relates their lesson with practical, everyday narratives.” This is unfortunately a true statement, and the phenomena is rather widespread. While students in other parts of the world are experimenting with creative way of learning, teaching practices in Indonesia are mostly consist of outdated methods such as one-way lecture. It is no surprise that in terms of student’s performance, our country rank so low globally – 65 out of 72, as the most recent PISA test shows. Dika further argued that despite being text-centered, the texts themselves were “irrelevant to contemporary learning.”
I asked Dika to give his thoughts on today’s level of literacy as a teacher. His response was, as expected, fiery. He declared “To understand all phenomena within today’s society requires high literacy.” He further added, “People who love to read will be able to see the problem more broadly.” When I specifically asked more on that, disclosing the fact that our literacy rate is, according to UNESCO, very low (0,001%), he told me that he also encounters similar problem at the school, an academic setting, where he taught. A school where no one is interested in reading can be seen as a reflection of the contemporary society. He said “The literacy jargons that were socialized at schools are just symbolic. Just a formality from the decision makers.”
To counter those challenges Dika try to institute many innovative methods. For example, for his class he refused to oblige the student to buy a complementary working book, commonly known as LKS, as he sees them as irrelevant and a waste of money. He even denounced the use of it entirely because the whole practice often became a source of profit-making for the teachers – a common nation-wide occurrences. Instead, he allows and facilitates the use of e-books because it is practically costless and it also helps reduce paper usage. Aside from that Dika experimented with other learning and grading system aside from the convenient myriad of tests; he utilizes many digital learning tools such as movie-watching and jigsaw discussion. Alas, all those breakthroughs that he tries to implement does not pass smoothly. Some administrators at the school that he’s teaching took notice of his acts and sees them as bad. They even went on the record through media, such as Depok News, accusing Dika of instilling “liberal” ideas to the students. On contrary to all the bad things they said about him, a majority of the students instead backs him in this conflict. This dynamic became viral back in the early 2017. All those things are what pushed him to found Studi Merdeka.
Nowadays Dika is very busy with a study group outside of school he founded with his disciples named Studi Merdeka. Through Studi Merdeka, Dika and his friends try to “presents alternative discourses, such as gender issues in educational world, fully-funded education in Finland, among others.” Finland is a good example of how education can benefit from creativity. Student in Finland spend far less time bellow other students globally. Finnish students also have the least amount of homework in the world; they only spend on average half an hour per days. Yet, on contrary to popular beliefs, they are among the top countries who ranked uppermost annually – even placed number one once-in-a-while. The most important lesson from Finland is that they believe that the less structure is better. They encourage teachers to approach students in the most personal way. That’s why in Studi Merdeka, students are constantly switching roles between moderator, speaker, and organizer so that everyone can train to fulfill those three important tasks. In doing all that, Dika hopes that they can erase the wall between them and at the same time collectively trying to “answers question that cannot be answered at school while also increases their interest in reading.”
Dika is no fan of today’s political practices. Therefore, I’m not surprised to see a rather sulky expression on his face when being asked about the correlation between the aforementioned data on literacy rate and the high number of political participation. He replied with another question, “What is political participation? Is it only restricted to election?” He further elaborated, “The no-vote movement, student’s protest, or even a farmer’s or fisherman’s one, all can be categorized as political participation.” He complained about how millennials in here were idolizing political elite, instead of building a viable civil movement like their counterparts in the USA. He cited it as an example of how very narrow the word political participation has been translated. Most American millennials are very concerned about the well-being of their country. A recent study by The New York Times shows how the ongoing debates there today are very lively that even ideas such as socialism gains huge popularity especially within the young people. Consequently, American millennials are objectively critical to those who claimed to represents them – even the one they supported. “Well we don’t have to look there. As a student majoring in History, I can say that we have a rich historical legacy of social movements that we can learn from.” he added. That is why he is particularly concerned with literacy – hence, his decision to throw himself into educational world.
Dika is a good example of how we as the young generation can participate within the political process of our country. Literacy is very crucial in political participation. It is essentially needed to ensure innovation and openness. In today’s hostile social environment, literacy can be the powerful weapon we desperately need to combat hatred. Therefore, when we came to the end of our talks, it is hardly a surprise that he answered “Clearly a progressive!” loudly, almost sounds like a shout, when I asked him whether he feels more represented by conservative or progressive ideas.
Pull quote: “Every child is born with a high curiosity, but after years of schooling they are dispirited.”
Pull quote: “To understand all phenomena within today’s society requires high literacy.”
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