Perundang-undangan dan Kaitannya dengan Etika Guru

                Dilihat dari judulnya, sudah terdapat bayangan dalam benak saya mengenai apa yang akan dibahas pada kuliah hari rabu lalu. Dan ternyata benar, tidak jauh berbeda dari apa yang saya perkirakan bahwa hari itu kami belajar tentang hak dan kewajiban guru menurut undang-undang yang berlaku. Hanya saja sebelum mengikuti kuliah tersebut, saya selalu berpikir bahwa undang-undang dibuat mereka para ahli hukum. Ternyata, undang-undang justru dibuat oleh mereka yang akan diatur oleh undang-undang tersebut. Tidak heran undang-undang yang dibuat begitu detil untuk mengantisispasi masalah yang akan dihadapi guru dalam menjalankan profesinya. Apa yang diantisipasi oleh undang-undang itu pada dasarnya adalah refleksi guru atas masalah-masalah yang mereka hadapi dalam menjalankan profesi mereka termasuk pula berbagai kemungkinan atas permasalahan yang bisa saja muncul sewaktu-waktu.

                Pada dasarnya undang-undang yang berkaitan dengan guru, baik yang dipandang dari perspektif guru sebagai profesional maupun guru sebagai tenaga kerja, sudah sangat jelas memaparkan hak dan kewajiban yang dimiliki seorang guru. Tentunya ini berkaitan erat dengan etika guru dalam berkelakuan maupun diberlakukan. Hal ini juga meliputi apa yang guru dapat lakukan saat tidak diberlakukan sebagaimana mestinya. Sayangnya hingga saat ini perundangan-undangan belum dapat diaplikasikan secara nyata. Disana-sini masih saja ada praktek-praktek yang merugikan guru khususnya guru honorer.

                Saya rasa pemerintah harus gencar melakukan sosialisasi kepada guru-guru di seluruh Indonesia mengenai perundang-undangan yang telah dibuat. Tidak hanya untuk melindungi guru secara merata di seluruh Indonesia, tetapi juga untuk mendapat tanggapan dari para guru tersebut mengenai masalah-masalah (atau kemungkinan masalah yang akan muncul) yang mereka hadapi untuk amandemen perundangan-undangan itu sendiri. Jika perlu, pemerintah bisa mendirikan lembaga khusus untuk para guru dimana mereka bisa mendapatkan dukungan secara hukum dalam mengatasi masalah-masalah yang mereka hadapi. Dengan usaha-usaha tersebut, semoga dapat mengurangi (bahkan menghilangkan) kasus-kasus yang merugikan guru. Semoga tidak ada lagi guru yang terancam dipecat karena tidak mau memberikan nilai fiktif, dan kasus-kasus lainnya.

Students’ Grouping

The first material in TLTCSP course that I learnt is about grouping which are heterogenic and homogenic grouping. Heterogenic grouping means that making group which consists of students with different characteristic, so all of group will have same qualification. While homegenic grouping means that making group which consist of students with same characteristic, so all of group will have different qualification.

Before I join this course, the grouping that I know is only groping that aimed to handle the difference of students’ achievement. I think heterogenic grouping is the best one for this. Hence the students in each group can help each other in doing group work in order to reach learning outcomes. Now, I know that grouping does not always talk about the different of students’ achievement and how to handle it. As a teacher, we must be able to handle the other diversity that students have (interest, skill, etc). Grouping is the solution to organize those diversities for supporting the learning process.

Through this course, I know that we can do grouping by three ways. There are grouping according to the content, product and process. Grouping according to the content is grouping which each group will learn or discuss the same topic with different subtopic. Grouping according to the product is grouping which each group will produce the different product with same topic and assessment. While grouping according to the process is grouping which each group will get the same problem with the same process of solution with different level of difficulty.

As a teacher we have to choose or combine grouping according to the content, product or process that appropriate with our class situation, students’ need and learning goals. Three ways of groping above can be used with homogenic or heterogenic grouping system also depends on class situation, students need and learning objectives.

Overall I know that the main purpose of grouping students are to handle the diversity of students (which affect the learning process such us students’ achievement, interest, prior knowledge, cognitive, family background, etc) in reaching the goals of learning. I also realize that homogenic group is not something bad for grouping. We can choose or combine between homogenic and heterogenic grouping depends on classroom situation and students need to reach the goals of learning.

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.

Teaching Numbers: Designing Lesson and Its Resources

          Everything in the world must be prepared and planned well, included a lesson plan before teaching. Lesson plan has important role in learning process. Lesson plan can be made yearly, term, weekly and daily plan. It helps the teacher in controlling class, managing time, and focus to the target of learning that day. It also help the teacher to organize students’ thinking by arranging activities or instructions, to guide them in learning new material easily accordance to their thinking way. So, lesson plan is very helpful not only for the teacher but also for the students. Moreover in learning number which need more focus and concentration.

As a matter of fact, based on school experience program last week, some teachers did not use lesson plan before teaching. According to them, lesson plan is useless because cannot be implemented well. I think, its paradigm is built because of their bad experiences that fail to implement their lesson plan. Unfortunately they did not make it as reflection to be better in designing lesson plan but stop to use lesson plan. In my view there is no lesson plan which useless, it is only inappropriate with the class, students’ characteristic, subject material, etc.

             Seeing so many fact about failed lesson plan, I admit that is not easy to make effective lesson plan but it is not impossible also. A lot of things must be considered in designing a quality lesson plan. We have to know exactly what we want to teach in order to determine specific objectives, activities which will be used, material that we will use in doing assessment and giving assignment to measure the result of learning process. To enhance Mathematical Power, in designing lesson plan we have to give a challenging and interesting task to engage students’ interest and intellect. We also can facilitate them in doing discussion to growth their mathematical ideas. For exploring students’ ability, we can use technology in teaching or giving math project. We also need to use strategy in order to make learning process be more effective. The strategy chosen must be appropriate with students’ characteristic.

            Learning math especially number is identical with serious lecturing. Actually learning about number can be fun with various activities that related with our real life although need higher concentration. Those activities likes math project with using technology, mathematics for secondary school, and writing about mathematics problem.

Nama bukanlah semuanya tentang kita, tapi kita semuanya butuh Nama

Nama. Apalah artinya nama. Seberapa pentingkah nama. Adakah pengaruh dari suatu nama terhadap pemiliknya. Mengapa banyak orang tua yang begitu selektif memberi nama pada anak mereka. Apakah sesungguhnya yang mereka cari. Nilai estetis dari suatu nama, atau makna yang terpendam dalam nama tersebut. Tak dapat dipungkiri bahwa nama menjadi bagian yang sangat penting dalam hidup kita. Melalui nama kita bisa saling mengenal dan membedakan satu sama lain. Semuanya butuh nama. Tak bisa dibayangkan apa yang terjadi jika semua orang di dunia tak bernama.

Banyak orang bilang bahwa nama adalah suatu doa. Dalam hal ini saya tidak dapat berkata apa-apa selain mengamini. Tapi apakah benar bahwa nama memiliki kekuatan dalam mempengaruhi karakter bahkan nasib pemiliknya. Lalu bagaimana dengan orang tua yang memberi nama hanya mementingkan nilai estetis tanpa makna didalamnya seperti nama yang diberikan orang tua saya kepada anak sulung mereka, yaitu saya. Sempat saya ingin mengganti nama menjadi Aisyah, Fatimah, Nurilahi, dan nama-nama lain yang bermakna positif serta menunjukkan keislaman saya. Namun keinginan itu pun sirna setelah saya menemukan persepsi yang nyaman mengenai nama.

Menurut saya bukanlah nama yang menjadikan karakter seseorang menjadi baik atau buruk, melainkan karakter itu sendiri yang nantinya akan menjadikan nama yang disandang menjadi indah atau sebaliknya. Nama Muhammad tak kan begitu terkenal dan disenangi jika Rasulullah tak memiliki karakter yang begitu indahnya. Nama Firaun pun bisa saja sangat digemari apabila karakternya bukanlah seorang kafir. Begitulah persepsi nyaman tenang nama yang saya pupuk untuk membuat saya bersyukur atas nama tak berarti khusus yang diberikan orangtua saya.

Devi Heryanti. Ya, itulah nama saya. Nama depan saya, Devi, pasti sudah sangat familiar ditelinga anda. Tapi saya yakin akan selalu ada alasan yang berbeda di balik nama Devi. Menurut cerita orang tua saya, nama Devi mereka temui di salah satu Koran ibu kota. Mereka memilih nama Devi dengan harapan nama Devi akan menjadi nama yang unik dan jarang digunakan orang. Namun apalah daya, justru nama Devi begitu banyak digunakan orang. Sedangkan Heryanti adalah gabungan dari nama kedua orang tua saya, Hermawan dan Yayah. Tapi saya tetap berusaha mengambil pesan positif dibalik cerita itu. Orang tua saya menginginkan saya menjadi seseorang yang luar biasa, berpikir dan bersikap positif yang berbeda dengan orang kebanyakan serta menjadi anak yang akan selalu ingat pada orang tuanya.

Saya merasa tidak bijak untuk menilai apakah nama yang disandang seseorang sesuai dengan karakter yang mereka miliki. Menurut saya, apapun nama yang disandang, setiap orang wajib memupuk karakter positif dalam diri terlepas dari karakter negative atau kekurangan yang mereka miliki. Oleh sebab itu, tak ada alasan bagi saya untuk merasa nama ini tak cocok untuk saya. Tak ada alasan bagi Devi Heryanti untuk tidak menjadi wanita sebaik Aisyah dan sekuat Kartini. Persepsi saya tentang mengenai nama seperti yang telah dijabarkan sebelumnya semakin memotivasi saya untuk membentuk diri menjadi pribadi yang sebaik mungkin, seindah mungkin, serta se-luarbiasa-mungkin seperti yang disiratkan kedua orang tua saya. Semoga kelak pribadi dan karakter luarbiasa yang saya miliki semakin mengindahkan nama Devi Heryanti dan membuat orang jutaan orang lainnya bangga bernama Devi.