Senior (old) Teacher

Actually there are so many definitions of professional teacher with many criteria. Even everyone has own criteria about professional teacher according to the context that he has in being a teacher. Knowing students’ characteristics and do an effective learning appropriate to characteristics of students is only one of criteria to be a professional teacher (according to Ramli Gultom in his book, the title is Menjadi Penulis Tindakan di Kelas dan di Sekolah). There is also an old paradigm which said that professionalism of teacher can be measured by teacher’s age that describes how long the teacher has been teaching. Its paradigm considers that more experience will give more lessons for being a professional teacher in conducting an effective learning.

However, my observed school showed the contrast fact. Using the definition of professional teacher from Ramli Gultom, I found that the older teacher followed by the lower effectiveness of learning that he conducted.  There is an old teacher in my observed school. His age is 54 years old. From several observations, he always does the same thing. Because of bad condition of his health, during the lesson he just sat on his chair while explaining the material. His voice also cannot be heard to the whole class, while professional teacher must be able to communicate well in order to build a good relation to the students (Sarina, 2006). His disability to communicate well because of his voice which isn’t heard to the whole class affects the effectiveness of learning that he conducted.

Indonesia adopted education from functional perspective. It can be seen from how the government gave the solution about the decreasing of professionalism of senior (old) teacher. Based on UU No.39 Tahun 1979 Bab II Pasal 4 about age of teacher’s retirement, teacher must be retired when his age is 60 years old. Its regulation is made by consideration that the teacher cannot act as professional teacher to do effective learning anymore when he is older than 60 years old. The problem is not all teachers can do effective learning as a professional teacher until he is 60 years old. Every teacher has different limitation of age about how long he can do effective learning. This differences also caused by many factor like different health, different skill, and many others.

According to me age cannot be a standard to do teacher’s retirement. Government need to make some list about criteria which must be fulfilled to do teacher’s retirement. Those criteria such us: teacher’s health, teacher’s skill in communicating, and many others. When the teacher fulfill the criteria, he is reasonable to be retired. Of course the teacher continue his job  even he is older than 60 years old if he do not fulfilled criteria to be retired. And for assessing whether the teacher is reasonable to be retired or not, there is must be independent team from government who will assess the teacher periodically.

Outside his (my observed teacher) profession as a teacher, he is a kind man. I did not see his attitude which is not appropriate. With his age which is old enough, he has fatherly manner. He is very patient. Even I think that he is someone who cannot be angry. No wonder most students love him well although based on my interview result they realize that his senior (old) teacher need to be retired.

Nobody is perfect included him (my observed teacher). Besides his kindness, he is introvert. He just came to teach. And go home after teaching. He seems like doesn’t care about what happening in his around. Otherwise, as a human we need to do socialization. Moreover, teacher’s responsibility is not only teaching but also act as second parents for his students. He is the role model how to live in society.

Maybe each school must have a regulation that all teachers must be actively involved in each school event especially for full time teacher. They have to do contribution for school where they work as a teacher. School can make an annually work plan contained some project that must be done by all teachers.

Those are what I get from my observed teacher at School Experience Program in this semester. Whatever that I get from him, I believe that those are the precious lesson for me. Time goes by, I know what kind of teacher I should be. What I need to do as a teacher which is my profession, and also as a person in society life.