MY RESPOND TO STUDENT BRAWLS

As an Indonesian student myself, I would like to express my deepest condolences to victims of student brawls last week. I sincerely hope that education institution can help by taking actions to prevent this from happening again in the future, and to create a safe and nurturing educational atmosphere among all students in our beautiful country. 

First of all, I am writing this in english so that others from outside of my country can learn from what has happened in here, and I am writing this in education point of view only. I do not mean to make my country looks bad, but I do want my country to be a better place. 

In my opinion, the student brawls tragedy is a sign of the country's educational failure. This can be seen by how most of us are being pushed so hard to reach academical success whilst forgetting to take notice of our characteristics development. 

There is Ujian Nasional (UAN, or National Examinations), an event for all 6th, 9th, and 12th graders that will determine their academical ability. The ones who aren't able to reach the passing grades will lose their access to continue their education on the higher grade, not to mention labeled as 'failures', in a smooth way that is. But still, in most cases failures from reaching the standards cause many psychological breakdowns that may lead victims to violence and even suicidal actions. 

From an experience of a friend who went to Japan for student exchange program, he was surprised to see that he was the smartest student in his class. We all know that Japan is a well-developed country, so he thought curriculum in Japan is harder than in Indonesia. This made him questioned his country's educational system, which uses curriculum that is considered hard for most, but our country's development is still stagnant while Japan has already moved on far from us. In fact, some intelligent people in here, sadly, fell to corruption and terrorism cases. 

He also noticed how polite everyone is in Japan, and how discipline they are. Everybody is busy, but they know that they have responsibilities to carry with. So what do you guys think?

Our educational system uses high standard that has been proven to create intelligent people our country can rely with, but in fact, some of them are lacking of character, which lead these people into crimes that eventually make our country remains stagnant. 

Also, I came from a private school that is, luckily, very supportive to their plural students that carry different gifts such as science, arts, sports and all. Teachers in my school are very passionate to teach, so besides giving us lessons they are also very firm in case of their students' behaviors. This can be a bit annoying sometimes to be honest (hehe), but I know that the reason why they are doing it is for our own good, and I am very grateful to be there, because my school has shaped my present character. 

However, sadly, some students out there aren't as lucky as I am. In some other schools, there are teachers (who aren't so passionate in teaching and being misplaced due to the economy, perhaps?) use violence to teach their students. I've witnessed this myself when I was at elementary school. A friend of mine couldn't play any musical instruments, and at the music class he was joking around by playing random notes on the keys. Unfortunately, out music teacher was really angry when he heard that. He came to my friend and kicked him in front of other students. I regret that I didn't do anything that time, because I was also scared. 

My point from the past memory is, teachers are meant to teach, either in academical and characteristic aspects. Teacher is a 'role model' for students, because students will carry their teachings for the rest of their life. If teacher used violent in his/her teaching methods in the first place, what would the students be? 

Besides violence, there are also teachers that focus only on their students' academical achievements, so they do not care if their students fight or mock each other outside of their class. Yes, this leads to violence among students too and that is obvious, I think. 

So how can our citizen helps us to prevent the student brawls from happening again? There are TONS of ways, I believe. We can create educative programs that are fun for all and beneficial for students involved in them. I have some ideas of my own and I would like to share them in here, either.

1. JOURNALISM FOR YOUTHS. I heard from some of my social student friends that they are interested in journalism, so I think, why not create a special media for students? Those top local television channels or newspapers can create at least weekly program that involves students, chosen or volunteered from different schools, as they can experience being in journalism world by being cameramen, presenter, journalists, editors and so on. The topics they have to present should be educative, too, like local cultures (since we have tons of them), local travel sites, and so on.

2. TEENAGE MILITARY. Those who are involved in student brawls must have so many energies yet they use them in a wrong way. And through teenage military, they can use their energies in a good way, as long as the military practices themselves are nurturing for the students. This has been applied on other countries, and perhaps if the government decided to open dorms for students who wanted to join the youth military, that can help them protect our country too. Benefits to all!

3. TEENS REACT, INDONESIAN STYLE. I enjoy that youtube channel! Teens React choses teenagers and give them a particular video for them to respond to. Now, perhaps our top local channel can create similar programs, using volunteering students and airing their respond to particular videos that can help them think critically, such as corruption cases, bullying cases, the beauty of our country's nature being destroyed, and so on. Using positive topics like our rich cultures or different and unique traditional children games from all over the country may work too, of course.

4. SCIENCE RESEARCH FOR STUDENTS. We all know that Indonesia is rich in natural sources and all, so why not develop them into something that is beneficial for our folks as well as our nature itself? There are tons of students that are especially interested in science (I'm one of them) and our local top universities, such as Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) or Universitas Indonesia (UI) can create a big event by choosing participants from different schools (both public schools and private schools to make it fair). The program can create groups of students that will make different research as they must present their result after the deadline.

5. INDONESIAN (YOUNG) LAWYERS CLUB. I've talked about a program for science students, so now let's take this from social student's side. Indonesian Lawyers Club is one of the most favorite programs in here, so why not give it a chance for youths? Since social students are very critical in case of politics, economics and so on, this should help them develop their ability to think critically and to communicate properly in public event.


Hope this helps. Good day to all of you! Selamat malam :)