Bukanlah Robot apalagi Tuhan

Menjadi guru privat. Ya, itulah pekerjaan yang banyak digeluti oleh mahasiswa khususnya yang berasal dari jurusan kependidikan seperti aku. Bagaimana tidak, selain menghasilkan tambahan uang saku, mengajar privat juga memberikan kesempatan untuk mengaplikasikan apa yang kita peroleh dalam perkuliahan. Singkat kata, mengajar privat adalah ajang latihan menjadi guru. Berikut akan kuceritakan sepenggal pengalaman mengajarku. Mengajar murid baruku yang duduk di bangku SMU kelas X.

Waktu hampir menunjukkan pukul 7 malam. “Sudah saatnya berangkat” ungkapku ragu. Rasa gugup menyelinap di setiap hela nafasku kala itu. Telapak tanganku sedikit berkeringat. Tak henti-hentinya aku kepalkan telapak tanganku untuk sekedar menguatkan hati. Deru motor dalam perjalanan semakin membuat pikiranku carut marut. Muncul berbagai dugaan tentang apa yang akan terjadi pada pertemuan pertama malam itu.

“Dia laki-laki atau perempuan ya?”

“Bawel atau justru pendiem?”

“Nanti langsung belajar atau ngobrol-ngobrol dulu?”

“Anaknya nyaman gak ya belajar sama gue?”

“Kaya gimana ya anaknya?”

“Gue bisa ngajar sesuai gaya belajar dia gak ya?”

Pertanyaan-pertanyaan itu terus menggelayuti pikiranku. Sampai akhirnya aku berdiri tepat di depan sebuah rumah. “Jl. blablabla no.29. Bener kok ini rumahnya” ujarku memastikan. Ku pencet bel rumah itu, sesaat kemudian keluarlah seorang perempuan yang sangat sopan. Dia mempersilahkan aku menuju ruang tamu. Belum lama aku  duduk di sofa yang empuk, munculah seorang gadis cantik berkulit putih berambut panjang. Matanya yang indah berbinar menatapku ramah. “Hai, kenalin aku Devi” sapaku seramah-ramahnya. Dia hanya menjawab dengan satu senyuman yang tersungging di wajahnya. Sepertinya dia agak pemalu. “Wajarlah pertemuan pertama”, kataku dalam hati.

Selesai perkenalan suasana hening menyelimuti. Dia hanya menjawab pertanyaanku tanpa bertanya balik. “Di sekolah udah belajar sampe mana?” tanyaku memecah keheningan. Dia pun membuka bukunya, menunjukkan materi yang terakhir dipelajari di sekolah. Bukannya mencair, suasana justru semakin menerkamku. Itulah klimaks dari kegugupanku malam itu. Materinya melampaui jauh apa yang aku persiapkan semalam. Sontak aku mengajar tanpa persiapan malam itu. Hatiku menciut, mulutku terkatup. Beberapa lama aku tenggelam, mengingat-ingat materi itu. Dengan penjelasan sekenanya ku bimbing dia menyelesaikan soal demi soal. Sempat beberapa kali aku gelagapan saat ia menanyakan hal yang benar-benar aku lupa. Kalau sudah begitu, kubuka buku SMU-ku yang sengaja aku bawa, ku bolak-balik untuk waktu yang cukup lama (lama, sampai ia terlihat bosan) hingga aku berhasil mengingat dan menjelaskan kepadanya. “Memalukan” ratapku dalam hati. Pertemuan pertama berakhir dengan sedikit rasa gagal memburuku.

Pertemuan kedua aku datang dengan penuh percaya diri. Sengaja aku membaca banyak materi yang akan dipelajari malam itu sebelum bertandang. Sesampainya disana, dia langsung menyodorkan PR-nya. Dengan mantap aku membimbingnya menjawab perhitungan-perhitungan yang rumit. Sampai pada soal teori (soal yang tidak memerlukan perhitungan untuk menjawabnya), praktis aku berkata “Ini sih gampang, ga pake itung-itungan. Jawabannya udah ada di buku, tinggal baca aja. Kita lanjut ke soal-soal itungan yang kamu masih bingung aja”. Mengingat waktu belajar yang tidak lama lagi, dia menurut.

Tiba di soal terakhir, merasa agak aneh saat membacanya aku pun bertanya, “eh ini kan pelajaran kelas XI?”. “Masa sih ka, kelas X ah” jawabnya. Ya, kurikulum memang berkembang cukup pesat. Dengan perasaan malu melingkar di leher, aku mengaku “oh dulu aku belajar ini pas kelas XI, yaudah kamu isi sendiri ya. Udah malem nih, aku juga agak lupa materi ini. Maaf ya”. Hanya kalimat itulah yang aku ucapkan untuk menutup pertemuan malam itu.

Ya, kedua pengalaman singkat ini memberikanku banyak pelajaran. Menyadarkanku bahwa mengajar bukanlah pekerjaan sederhana. Butuh persiapan yang matang untuk dapat memfasilitasi anak didik secara maksimal. Namun memfasilitasi maksimal bukan berarti memanjakan mereka. Guru privat bukanlah robot yang dibayar untuk menjawab semua PR. Tanpa maksud menggurui tapi inilah disfungsi yang kerap terjadi. Yang seharusnya dilakukan ialah membantu mereka memahami konsep-konsep yang belum dipahami dalam mengejar katertinggalan yang dialami di sekolah.

Guru juga bukan Tuhan yang tau segala hal, karena itu kita perlu banyak belajar termasuk update dengan segala perkembangan dalam dunia pendidikan. Belum lagi perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan yang semakin pesat di era globalisasi seperti sekarang ini. Menyandang tugas “mengajar” bukan berarti berhenti “belajar” . Seperti apa yang telah diungkapkan salah satu dosen kebanggaanku. Siswa yang belajar dari guru yang tidak membaca bagaikan minum air dari kolam yang jenuh. Tetapi siswa yang belajar dari guru yang membaca bagaikan minum air dari kolam yang terus dialiri air jernih, tak akan pernah habis.

Devi Heryanti

Sampoerna School of Education

Teacher as a Person, Teacher as a Profession

                Apa yang terlintas di pikiran anda saat mendengar kisah tentang seorang guru yang jatuh cinta di sekolah? Ya, tidak sedikit masyarakat yang akan berpandangan negatif tentang hal ini. Jatuh cinta di sekolah dianggap berbenturan dengan profesionalitas seorang guru. Padahal di luar profesionalitasnya, guru hanyalah manusia biasa yang patut merasakan indahnya jatuh cinta. Inilah yang mengakibatkan jatuh cinta di sekolah bagi guru masih menjadi kontroversi di masyarakat.

                Ketika mendengar istilah jatuh cinta, kebanyakan orang akan terbayang tentang kisah manis sepasang manusia yang sedang kasmaran. Padahal jatuh cinta memiliki makna yang universal tanpa bisa didefinisikan secara pasti. Begitu juga halnya dengan jatuh cinta di sekolah yang dialami guru, ada banyak macamnya. Jatuh cinta pada siswa atas kegigihan dan prestasinya. Jatuh cinta pada guru lain karena kreatifitasnya dalam mengajar yang menginspirasi guru lain. Atau jatuh cinta justru pada mengajar itu sendiri, rindu bertemu para siswa dan belajar bersama. Namun ada juga jatuh cinta yang dialami guru berkaitan dengan keterkaitan antar lawan jenis, baik yang terjadi sesama guru ataupun antara guru dengan siswa. Inilah yang kerap disorot sinis oleh masyarakat.

                Predikat guru sebagai panutan seakan memaksa guru untuk selalu bertindak layaknya malaikat, bersih tanpa cacat sedikitpun. Tidak ada yang salah dengan asumsi tersebut. Seorang guru memang patut untuk selalu bertindak bijak dan berbudi luhur sebagai contoh bagi para anak didiknya (SOURCE). Namun tidak jarang masyarakat mengartikan hal tersebut secara berlebihan. Bahkan hal-hal manusiawi pun (red: jatuh cinta) seakan tabu ketika bersentuhan dengan profesi guru. Lantas apa yang sebenarnya menjadi masalah? Profesi guru yang disandang atau justru pandangan masyarakat yang terbentuk?

                Guru jatuh cinta di sekolah memang bukanlah hal yang dilarang. Tidak ada undang-undang yang menegaskan hal tersebut. Belum ada pula peraturan sekolah yang menerangkan hal terkait jatuh cinta di sekolah. Namun bukan berarti sosok guru bisa bersikap bebas atas hal ini. Tanpa aturan yang baku, semua kembali pada norma yang berlaku di masyarakat. Guru tetaplah guru, sosok yang diteladani oleh seluruh siswanya. Seyogyanya para guru bisa bertindak profesional dalam jatuh cinta di sekolah. Para guru harus bisa menempatkan diri dalam  setiap tindak tanduknya. Sekolah adalah tempat mereka mengajar. Alangkah baiknya hubungan cinta yang terjadi tidak ditunjukkan saat berada di lingungan sekolah.

                Berada dalam posisi ganda, yakni guru sebagai profesi dan guru sebagai manusia biasa, jatuh cinta membawa dilemma tersendiri. Jalan terbaik selain pandai menempatkan diri ialah menyeimbangkan kedua peran yang dimiliki. Saat berada diluar sekolah tentunya makna profesinalitas menjadi sedikit lebih lunak. Guru berhak mengurus urusan pribadinya dengan tetap menjungjung tinggi norma yang ada di masyarakat. Terlepas dari apapun profesi yang jalani, seseorang haruslah menghormati etika susila yang berlaku dalam menjalin cinta. Terlebih lagi seorang guru, panutan masyarakat yang menitipkan anak-anaknya untuk dididik menjadi pribadi yang baik. Apabila profesionalitas dalam menjalin hubungan percintaan dapat terwujud selaras dengan norma-norma yang berlaku, pandangan negative masyarakat mengenai kisah guru jatuh cinta di sekolah akan perlahan memudar.

                Tidak ada yang patut dipermasalahkan ataupun dipersalahkan. Setiap orang memiliki hak untuk berasumsi apapun. Begitu juga guru yang berhak untuk memaknai profesionalitasnya secara subjektif perihal jatuh cinta di sekolah. Dengan kata lain semuanya kembali pada masing-masing pihak menyikapi hal tersebut. Ini disebabkan karena memang tidak adanya peraturan hitam diatas putih terkait etika guru jatuh cinta di sekolah (SOURCE). Norma yang dianut dalam masyarakatlah yang menjadi dasar penilaian atas hal ini. Tinggalah bagaimana norma-norma tersebut ditanggapi secara bijak.

                 

Bullying

                Based on several articles that I had read, there were so many opinions about the definition of bullying. However, there is a common condition that we can conclude about bullying. Bullying was happened when there was someone who weaker getting hurt by the stronger for evil reason. According to this conclusion, bullying was very possible to be happened in social life especially to children with special needs. Their character which was weak, needed special help and had unusual behavior easily became the target to be victim of bullying from their friends. That was one of issues about bullying in inclusive education that happened to the student with special needs like Ken. An article titled “Don’t laugh at me, don’t call me name” told about bullying experienced by Ken, students with Asperger Syndrome (AS).

                Student with AS have unique characteristics, there are tend to be eager. Based on the story about Brandon, we couldn’t blame his friends about bullying that they did. They did bullying to Brandon because of their disappointed. They thought that Brandon had betrayed them by telling school police man about their habit to smoke at school area. From this case, I think the first thing that must be done to avoid bullying students with special needs is openness about the condition of students with special needs. Hopefully with this openness, the other students will understand and know how to interact to student with special needs. And for enhance the other students’ understanding about respect in interacting to students with special needs children, school need to do socialization about bullying included the effect for the victim and the bully itself. Agree with Jan Blacher and friends (the writer) that the socialization must be given not only to the students, but also to the teacher, parents even staff. All elements at school have important role to build the positive environment that free from bullying. Especially for teacher, they must be prepared by skill about how to overcome bullying at school.

                James and Debra added on their article, titled “Bullying and Violence in School”, that school and teacher must be wise in designing the rule to prevent bullying at school or classroom. I think the teacher must be creative not only in designing effective rule in the classroom but also in designing lesson supported by activities which build kinship among students to love and respect each other. Teacher also could periodically do sharing session which involves whole students. On that session teacher and students will know if there were any student who felt being bullied, then together solve that problem. Teacher must able to build homey environment at school and make all students feel like a big family.

                Nowadays, bullying is one of trending topic to be discussed. Bullying not only happened in education but also in all aspect in our real life. Even comedian on TV Show often used bullying as an effective way for entertaining people. It is one of fact about what James and Debra said at their article that media provide a culture to bully. As a source of information, media should show something good and influence society not to do bullying. Especially for TV Show as the most popular media, it should provide educated entertain for society. Not stop with the TV, through the development of technology, kind of bullying also developed to be various ways. Cyntia G. Wagner explained on her article that there is Cyber Bullies. Kind of Cyber Bullies are stranger was posting altered pornographic using our photo, etc.

Overall, many facts about bullying above showed that bullying has become very close to our real life. It is not impossible that we are one victim or even the bully that hurt our friends. Even the development of technology became media for increasing of bullying. I think, the main cause of this condition is the decreasing of human awareness about bullying. The development of technology wasn’t followed by the development of human awareness about bullying. The low of human awareness was caused by the low knowledge about bullying included the effect of bullying for the victim and the bully. So the solution is, needed a socialization about bullying for society. Hopefully, media can be an agent to enhance human knowledge about bullying through educated TV Show, etc.

               

Inclusive Education (Hearing Impairment)

There are some changes about education system in Indonesia. Start from negligent which special needs children was rejected. Next is segregation which children divided into two parts, special school for special needs children vs. regular school for typical or regular children. After segregation, there was integration which special needs and regular children work together with special education. And the last is Inclusion which all children included special needs children get regular education with appropriate approach. In other words, there was paradigm changing about education in Indonesia from dividing children based on evidential characteristics to perception which state that all children included special needs children has right to get education. So, inclusive education provided education for all children who are children with or without special needs.

I absolutely agree with this new education system. Learning is one of human right for all included them with special need. Nowadays, there are many schools which accept special needs children to study together with typical or regular children. However, based on my observation in Santirama School, not all types of special need children can be taught together with typical or regular children. One of special needs children who cannot be taught together with typical or regular children was tuna rungu children. They needed special instruction in learning that very different compared to typical or regular students. That why it is needed special school with consist of all tuna rungu children like Santirama School.

Santirama School was a good school for tuna rungu children. The school arranged its curriculum independently appropriate to students’ needs and characteristics. They (the school) used thematic learning method with conversation approach. The teachers always started the class by doing conversation. The topic of its conversation would relate to the subject material on that day. It was very nice method for tuna rungu student who usually has big curiosity with many questions. It also enhance them to practice for speak up (not always signs to communicate each other). It will help them to communicate with people outside who do not understand their sign. There is also no punishment for students. The teacher just gave negative reinforcements for them who did a mistake. And it was worthy to make them became responsible person.

Based on my interview to the teacher, In this kind of special school the teachers have multiple roles. Different with the other teacher in regular school, besides teaching material lesson they also are asked to teach them to speak well. The teacher also must be creative to design a learning method with conversation approach appropriate to the content of lesson. The teacher also must be sensitive with students’ emotion. Tuna rungu children usually have more sensitive feeling. It is important for the teacher to act as second parents for them and do personal approach to them. Give motivation to them to be confidents with their condition. According to me, what Santirama and the teachers did was amazing to support students’ academic. Not only supported students’ academic, Santirama School also supported students’ skill likes automotive, computer, printing, graphic design, cooking, etc. It helped the students to be more confident by skill that they have.

There are problems that I saw in Santirama School. It related to government regulation. The first is about teacher human resource. The school has lack of teachers who are capable to teach tuna rungu children. The government mutated 16 teachers in Santirama School to the regular public school. They are mutated after being chosen as PNS teacher. I think this government regulation brought problem for school. According to me, the government must be more wisdom to take the decision. They did not need to mutate those teachers if there were not lack of teacher in regular public school.  Moreover, it was difficult for Santirama School to get new teachers who are capable to handle tuna rungu students. There are limited teacher which graduate from Special Education (PGSLB). To solve the problem, the government should do more socialization about PGSLB to the public because to track more devotee to get involve in special education.

Another problem that happened in Santirama and most special school education was National Examination. Actually the government differentiate National Examination for special school like Santirama. Unfortunately, it was still felt too hard for students with special needs like tuna rungu children. Because of their condition, they were hard to get the meaning of problem which often used abstract words. There is big question in mind, should the content of National Examination made by government while the curriculum independently made by school. It caused inexpediency between lesson materials in curriculum to the content of National Examination. I think it will be worthy if each kind of school (it means the association of all tuna rungu school) made the content of National Examination together (but still monitored by government) to standardize the success of tuna rungu students in each school.

Hopefully there will be more government support for inclusive education. It is important to facilitate them with special needs to develop as well as typical or regular children. And the first step to do for supporting inclusive education is do socialization about special education and its human resource. Human resource who will be able to designed better curriculum to balance global development like technology and etc. Do not let the global development make them left behind. We can give them more skill that will be useful according to global development.