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.

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.