Namun,
yang saya tulis dalam posting-an ini bukan pidato
wisudawan UNAIR Surabaya, tetapi wisudawan SMA di Amerika. Beberapa hari yang
lalu saya menerima kiriman surel dari teman di milis dosen yang isinya cuplikan
pidato Erica Goldson (siswi SMA) pada acara wisuda di Coxsackie-Athens
High School, New York, tahun 2010.
Erica Goldson adalah wisudawan
yang lulus dengan nilai terbaik pada tahun itu. Isi pidatonya sangat menarik
dan menurut saya sangat memukau. Namun, setelah saya membacanya, ada rasa
keprihatinan yang muncul (nanti saya jelaskan).
“Saya
lulus. Seharusnya saya menganggapnya sebagai sebuah pengalaman yang
menyenangkan, terutama karena saya adalah lulusan terbaik di kelas saya. Namun,
setelah direnungkan, saya tidak bisa mengatakan kalau saya memang lebih pintar
dibandingkan dengan teman-teman saya. Yang bisa saya katakan adalah kalau saya
memang adalah yang terbaik dalam melakukan apa yang diperintahkan kepada saya
dan juga dalam hal mengikuti sistem yang ada.
Di sini saya
berdiri, dan seharusnya bangga bahwa saya telah selesai mengikuti periode indoktrinasi ini. Saya akan
pergi musim dingin ini dan menuju tahap berikut yang diharapkan kepada saya,
setelah mendapatkan sebuah dokumen kertas yang mensertifikasikan bahwa saya
telah sanggup bekerja.
Tetapi saya adalah seorang manusia, seorang
pemikir, pencari pengalaman hidup – bukan pekerja. Pekerja adalah orang yang
terjebak dalam pengulangan, seorang budak di dalam sistem yang mengurung
dirinya. Sekarang, saya telah berhasil menunjukkan kalau saya adalah budak
terpintar. Saya melakukan apa yang disuruh kepadaku secara ekstrim baik. Di
saat orang lain duduk melamun di kelas dan kemudian menjadi seniman yang hebat,
saya duduk di dalam kelas rajin membuat catatan dan menjadi pengikut ujian yang
terhebat.
Saat anak-anak lain masuk ke kelas lupa mengerjakan
PR mereka karena asyik membaca hobi-hobi mereka, saya sendiri tidak pernah
lalai mengerjakan PR saya. Saat yang lain menciptakan musik dan lirik, saya
justru mengambil ekstra SKS, walaupun saya tidak membutuhkan itu. Jadi, saya
penasaran, apakah benar saya ingin menjadi lulusan terbaik? Tentu, saya pantas
menerimanya, saya telah bekerja keras untuk mendapatkannya, tetapi apa yang
akan saya terima nantinya? Saat saya meninggalkan institusi pendidikan, akankah
saya menjadi sukses atau saya akan tersesat dalam kehidupan saya?
Saya tidak tahu apa yang saya inginkan dalam hidup ini. Saya tidak memiliki hobi,
karena semua mata pelajaran hanyalah sebuah pekerjaan untuk belajar, dan saya
lulus dengan nilai terbaik di setiap subjek hanya demi untuk lulus, bukan untuk
belajar. Dan jujur saja, sekarang saya mulai ketakutan…….”
Hmmm…
setelah membaca pidato wisudawan terbaik tadi, apa kesan anda? Menurut saya
pidatonya adalah sebuah ungkapan yang jujur, tetapi menurut saya kejujuran yang
“menakutkan”. Menakutkan karena selama sekolah dia hanya mengejar nilai tinggi,
tetapi dia meninggalkan kesempatan untuk mengembangkan dirinya dalam bidang
lain, seperti hobi, ketrampilan, soft skill, dan lain-lain.
Akibatnya, setelah dia lulus dia merasa gamang, merasa takut terjun ke dunia
nyata, yaitu masyarakat. Bahkan yang lebih mengenaskan lagi, dia sendiri tidak
tahu apa yang dia inginkan di dalam hidup ini.
Saya
sering menemukan mahasiswa yang hanya berkutat dengan urusan kuliah semata.
Obsesinya adalah memperoleh nilai tinggi untuk semua mata kuliah. Dia tidak
tertarik ikut kegiatan kemahasiswaan, baik di himpunan maupun di Unit Kegiatan
Mahasiswa. Baginya hanya kuliah, kuliah, dan kuliah. Memang betul dia sangat
rajin, selalu mengerjakan PR dan tugas dengan gemilang. Memang akhirnya IPK-nya
tinggi, lulus cum-laude pula. Tidak ada yang salah dengan
obsesinya mengejar nilai tinggi, sebab semua mahasiswa seharusnya seperti itu,
yaitu mengejar nilai terbaik untuk setiap kuliah. Namun, untuk hidup di dunia
nyata seorang mahasiswa tidak bisa hanya berbekal nilai kuliah, namun dia juga
memerlukan ketrampilan hidup semacam soft skill yang hanya didapatkan dari
pengembangan diri dalam bidang non-akademis.
Nah,
kalau mahasiswa hanya berat dalam hard skill dan tidak membekali dirinya dengan
ketrampilan hidup, bagaimana nanti dia siap menghadapi kehidupan dunia nyata
yang memerlukan ketrampilan berkomunikasi, berdiplomasi, hubungan antar
personal, dan lain-lain. Menurut saya, ini pulalah yang menjadi kelemahan
alumni UNAIR Surabaya yang disatu sisi sangat percaya diri dengan keahliannya,
namun lemah dalam hubungan antar personal. Itulah makanya saya sering
menyemangati dan menyuruh mahasiswa saya ikut kegiatan di Himpunan mahasiswa
dan di Unit-Unit Kegiatan, agar mereka tidak menjadi orang yang kaku, namun
menjadi orang yang menyenangkan dan disukai oleh lingkungan tempatnya bekerja
dan bertempat tinggal. Orang yang terbaik belum tentu menjadi orang tersukses,
sukses dalam hidup itu hal yang lain lagi.
Menurut
saya, apa yang dirasakan wisudawan terbaik Amerika itu juga merupakan gambaran
sistem pendidikan dasar di negara kita. Anak didik hanya ditargetkan mencapai
nilai tinggi dalam pelajaran, karena itu sistem kejar nilai tinggi selalu
ditekankan oleh guru-guru dan sekolah. Jangan heran lembaga Bimbel tumbuh subur
karena murid dan orangtua membutuhkannya agar anak-anak mereka menjadi juara
dan terbaik di sekolahnya. Belajar hanya untuk mengejar nilai semata, sementara
kreativitas dan soft skill yang penting untuk bekal kehidupan
terabaikan. Sistem pendidikan seperti ini membuat anak didik tumbuh menjadi
anak “penurut” ketimbang anak kreatif.
Baiklah,
pada bagian akhir tulisan ini saya kutipkan teks asli (dalam Bahasa Inggris)
Erica Goldson di atas agar kita memahami pidato lengkapnya. Teks asli pidatonya
dapat ditemukan di dalam laman web ini: Valedictorian Speaks Out
Against Schooling in Graduation Speech .
Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
by Erica Goldson
Here I stand
There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen
student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, “If I work very hard
and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought
about this, then replied, “Ten years.” The student then said, “But what if I
work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast – How long then?”
Replied the Master, “Well, twenty years.” “But, if I really, really work at it,
how long then?” asked the student. “Thirty years,” replied the Master. “But, I
do not understand,” said the disappointed student. “At each time that I say I
will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?” Replied
the Master, “When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the
path.”
This is the dilemma I’ve faced within the
American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a
test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not
really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.
Some of you may be thinking, “Well, if you pass a
test, or become valedictorian, didn’t you learn something? Well, yes, you
learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned
how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear
your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is
a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as
possible.
I am now accomplishing that goal. I am
graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at
the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more
intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I
am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be
proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the
fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper
document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contend that I am a human
being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is
trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I
have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the
extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I
sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would
come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an
interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating
music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never
needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it,
but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be
successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my
life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I
excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And
quite frankly, now I’m scared.
John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and
activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, “We could encourage the
best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity
for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and
tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each
student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and
then. But we don’t do that.” Between these cinderblock walls, we are all
expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and
those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the
scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.
H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for
April 1924 that the aim of public education is not “to fill the young of the
species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. … Nothing could be
further from the truth. The aim … is simply to reduce as many individuals as
possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry,
to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States.”
To illustrate this idea, doesn’t it perturb you
to learn about the idea of “critical thinking?” Is there really such a thing as
“uncritically thinking?” To think is to process information in order to form an
opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we
really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?
This was happening to me, and if it wasn’t for
the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan,
who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook
doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still
feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this
ostensibly sane place really is.
And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a
world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we
can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or
insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely
sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done,
for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices
in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to
be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains
us, rather than inspires us.
We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned
to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every
human on this planet is so special, so aren’t we all deserving of something
better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for
creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation?
We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume
industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.
The saddest part is that the majority of students
don’t have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are
put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent
labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive
government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never
be able to turn back these 18 years. I can’t run away to another country with
an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my
life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her
potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human
beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We
are anything we want to be – but only if we have an educational system that
supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots
are given a healthy foundation.
For those of you out there that must continue to
sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not
be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be
critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide
you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead
of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the
excuse, “You have to learn this for the test” is not good enough for you.
Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning
rather than getting good grades.
For those of you that work within the system that
I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the
power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not
become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept
the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach
it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at
stake.
For those of you that are now leaving this
establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not
abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going
to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a
garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will
have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for
good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face
value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.
So, here I stand. I am not standing here as
valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who
are sitting here watching me. I couldn’t have accomplished this without all of
you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of
you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all
valedictorians.
I
am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and
those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a
“see you later” when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement.
But first, let’s go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we’re smart enough
to do so!
~~~~~~~~~~
Pidato
Erica tersebut juga dimuat di blog America dan mendapat tanggapan luas oleh
publik di sana. Silakan baca di sini:
Kalau ingin melihat video
pidato Erica di Youtube, klik ini:
Baca juga : Makna TOGA WISUDA ANDA
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar