Problem of Education System in Indonesia

by Pierre Jobel

Education is important, there’s no doubt in that. It’s a common fact that he younger and less experienced someone is, the easier for them to learn; that’s why we teach our children important values and lessons, and ultimately put them to school. According to UNICEF, 91 percent of worldwide primary-school-age children were enrolled in school in 2012; meaning majority of the people understood the importance of education. In Indonesia, the number is higher: 97 percent of 7-12 years old children are schooled. However, it does not mean our education system is perfect. Even in far more developed countries like UK and USA, the education system is considered to be broken and misguiding; and the reasons are only a fraction of Indonesian education system’s problem. There are various reasons why I think Indonesian education system needs to be repaired.

The first reason is the quality of the teachers.  A lot of Indonesian teachers are not qualified whether because they haven’t met the qualification or not because teaching the subjects not appropriate with their degree.   A lot of teachers also still teach with high subjectivity due to cultural influence or plain unprofessionalism; which is often the case in underdeveloped regions. In this regions, religious views, ethnicity, and racism also influenced their teachings and how they treat their students. Please give examples of this.

            The next reason is the existence of the standardized National Exam. In Indonesia, the only way to graduate from elementary, junior high, or senior high school is to pass standardized National Exam Previously, protests only came from students, but recently the number of protesting parents is increasing. They are protesting the system, which judge the result of years of learning process with a single test on one subject each that spans two hours with forty numbers of question, with all school across the nation using the same questions. This policy spawned many cases of mass cheating and transactions of leaked exam answer, which is a deviant of the exam’s main purpose.

            Last but not least, students are forced to study subjects they’re not interested in. In elementary school, students learn mandatory subject like natural science, social science, math, Bahasa, English, civic, and religion. In junior high school, the subjects are expanded; natural science is divided into biology, chemistry, and physics and social science is divided into sociology, economy, geography, and history. I learnt all 12 subjects plus some supplementary subjects from my school in the time of 3 years. And during midterm exam season, two or more subjects is being tested a day, with three months -sometimes six months- worth of test material; and if they fail, they may not proceed to the next level and ultimately get dropped out. It’s too much pressure for junior high-scholar to experience. Although subject like English and math is important, a lot of these subjects should not be mandatory at all. I myself have forgot almost completely about subjects like geography and sociology. I say that if we are not interested in that subject or the subject will not be used in our everyday life, the subject must not be mandatory.

            With all these reason on mind, I think most of us will agree that Indonesian education system is broken[TS1] . The government needs to repair the education system fast, so that no more generation fall victim into the false education system. Our government should make other countries where the education system is considered to be the best in the world like Singapore, South Korea, or Finland as an example. If government and decision makers refuse to learn from these mistakes, it does not make sense if they demand our young generations to learn for the brighter future.

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 [TS1]Indonesian education system fails

The Effects of Technology Addiction

The Effects of Technology Addiction

By Pierre Jobel Nursewan (16714036)

It is very common these days to see people getting too focused on their gadgets. This trend, called technology addict by some people, seems to hit everyone from teenagers, businessmen, and even toddlers. Many people criticize and even despise this kind of behavior, and for good reasons. While such condition is not new in the history of human behavior, it seems that current ones are more worrisome than those of old times. There are four main reasons why technology addiction is a problem and should not be taken lightly.

One of the main effect is that distracts us from social interactions. While one of the most addicting technology out there is social media, ironically, it makes us not want to socialize with other people because now we can choose with whom we want to socialize with. Focusing on our smartphone, laptops, or gaming consoles takes too much of our concentration that we cannot communicate with other people. And sometimes, people lose the ability to communicate properly with other people when they spend too much time reading or browsing the Internet.

Another effect of technology addiction is, as the name induces, addiction. For some people, technology is so important to their life to the point they don’t want to leave technology at all cost. Studies shows that people that have Internet addiction shows the same symptoms as those of drug addict; for example, they feel the need to use internet regularly, and when these Internet addict were taken apart from Internet for a reasonable amount time, they, being addict, they feel unease and cannot focus on their task given to them. Also, their time spent on the Internet is increasing overtime, consuming their productive time.

Time consummation is also a major problem. Kids that show signs of Internet or video game addiction have their grade drops drastically. Offices and workplaces also have their Internet connection secured, limiting access to video sharing, social media websites, and other counter-productive websites.

Beside from psychological effect mentioned above, it is widely known that spending too much time on the computer, TV, or sometimes books, causes some health problem. Obesity and stroke are mainly caused by the lack of activity and too much energy intake; those are the things technology addicts are. They spend too much time sitting and idling, because they need to focus on their TV or computer. This also brings diseases that arise because of lack of hygiene like food poisoning, various skin infections, and hepatitis A. Television, cellular phones, and computers also generate electromagnetic wave that is very dangerous under excessive use.

The four reasons previously described are why we should wisely control our use of technology. While technology is very useful in our everyday life, it can be very dangerous when the use is no longer controllable. Technology gives us more access to knowledge and information, that we rely on it too heavily and forget the dark side of it. Users must be wise to realize if their use of technology is excessive or not, and that’s the difficult part of fighting technology addict. We can easily see, understand, and even criticize technology addiction while we can’t even leave home without our cellphone. We must learn to control our technology addiction, so that our cellphone may not become our “user”.

Chosen One

In the high-fantasy novel The Lord of The Rings, there are a lot of characters in it who were chosen by fate to do something that change the world, commonly known as "The Chosen One". While some of these characters tried to avoid their destiny, some of them don't even know that they've been "chosen". Take Gollum for an example, otherwise known as Sméagol. If it weren't for him and even his love for the "precious", he wouldn't have jumped into the fiery mouth of Mount Doom. Gandalf knew this fate and even foreshadowed it several times in the book. Another example is Éowyn, shieldmaiden of Rohan, and Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck the Hobbit. They killed the Witch King of Angmar, which Glorfindel prophesied that no man can kill. However, this prophesy can also be interpreted as "the witch king will not be killed by a man". And of course, we have the innocent hobbit Bilbo Baggins from Bag End. He found the, or rather was found by, the One Ring. Even Gandalf find Bilbo fit to be chosen as the last member of Thorin's Company of Dwarves. All these characters were chosen to shape the future world and yet they didn't know they were chosen to do so until the very end.

by Pierre Jobel / 16714036

Dr Hannibal Lecter: Modern Day Man-eater

The ideas of man-eating monster have been around as long as our recorded history. They exist in forms of legends, novels, movies, and more recently, video games. In Greek mythology, there are various monsters known to eat humans alive such as the one-eyed Cyclops and the Sphinx. In modern literature, Bram Stoker wrote about Count Dracula, who consumes the blood of living people. But there’s probably none more famous, terrifying, and monstrous than the character from Thomas Harris’s novel Red Dragon, Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

            Unlike the monsters mentioned above, Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter has nothing monster-like in his appearance. Introduced and now featured in various novels and movie adaptations, he is a middle aged human psychiatrist with a lot of middle aged-man feature such as balding hair and slightly wrinkled skin. But unlike most middle-aged man, he is serial killer who is known to eat the flesh of his victims. Although never actually portrayed as a primary antagonist in any of the stories he appeared in, he never fails to deliver horror and nightmares in the mind of readers and movie watchers alike. First appear on the 1986 movie Manhunter portrayed by Brian Cox, he is best remembered from Sir Anthony Hopkins’s portrayal in the 1991 movie The Silence of the Lambs and 2002 movie Red Dragon.

            Sir Anthony Hopkins’s portrayal has been known to be more terrifying than the other three actors that have portrayed him. Both the novel and the movies always portray him as a classy and highly intelligent man with a near perfect sense of manner that needs to be kept in a prison with maximum security. However, there’s a certain aspect in Sir Anthony Hopkins’s portrayal that makes Dr. Lecter becomes more terrifying than in the other media. Hopkins is able to deliver to the audience a sense of psychopathic theme whenever his name is mentioned.

            To me, it is very interesting how recent trend is able to show a simple human character to be as scary as monsters, even more terrifying than nowadays interpretation of monster where they can be cute, adorable, and “cool” as showed in many movies such as Monster Inc., How To Train Your Dragon, Twilight, and Zombieland. Traditionally, monsters that posses deformed face, horns, fangs, and claws will scare people and keep them awake during night. But nowadays, such monsters would only scare kids.

Movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13^th, The Shining, and of course, Silence of The Lambs proves to be as scary as Alien and Night of the Living Dead which feature supernatural monster. Maybe putting human as a primary antagonist in horror movies become more terrifying than previously mentioned supernatural monster because these human “monster” is closer to reality than the earlier monster. The idea that our neighbor or our neighbor’s neighbor may be a serial killer that eats other people when nobody’s looking is terrifying. How I take it, it’s not how one’s appearance that makes him a “monster”, but what he does and how he does things that makes him a monster.

by Pierre Jobel Nursewan (16714036)

Comic Author by The Arif Setio Nugroho [16714036]

A story can be written using both words and graphics, and it is called a graphic novel or comics. As such, not only good writing skills are required in making comics, but also good drawing skills.

I have a friend, Pierre Jobel, who wants to be a comic writer because he likes reading comics and more importantly, he has creative imaginations in writing and drawing. His future dream is to work together with people from around the world as a co-writer. He wants to create his own comics in the future, and by working with people from around the world, he can learn a lot of cultural knowledges which can be applied to his own comics.

In order to achieve his dream, he is preparing himself from now because he knows that becoming a comic writer is not easy. He is learning how to write stories in an attractive, yet creative way because the story in a comic is mostly told through the dialogues between characters. Surely he needs to improve his writing skills to make him capable of writing an interesting and attractive comic to read.

He is also practicing to improve his drawing skills as the pictures in a comic serve as means of telling a story. It means that the quality of the pictures is very crucial in a comic. He improves his drawing skills by practicing drawing a lot and by watching videos about comics to learn more about comics. Before pursuing his dream, he plans to work first so he can be assured that he will be capable of sustaining himself just in case his comics cannot provide him enough money.

Unfortunately, my friend has some obstacles in his way to become a comic author. He feels that he does not have enought time to practice drawing because of his activities, such as studying, organization activies and college activites. In regards to his obstacles, I suggest him to manage his time better so he can practice writing and drawing a comic. In my opinion, he will become a good comic writer. He has creative imaginations and ideas. He also has good skills in writing and his drawings are really good. I sincerely hope he can achieve his dream of becoming a comic writer.

Comic Author by The Arif Setio Nugroho [16714036]

A story can be written using both words and graphics, and it is called a graphic novel or comics. As such, not only good writing skills are required in making comics, but also good drawing skills.

I have a friend, Pierre Jobel, who wants to be a comic writer because he likes reading comics and more importantly, he has creative imaginations in writing and drawing. His future dream is to work together with people from around the world as a co-writer. He wants to create his own comics in the future, and by working with people from around the world, he can learn a lot of cultural knowledges which can be applied to his own comics.

In order to achieve his dream, he is preparing himself from now because he knows that becoming a comic writer is not easy. He is learning how to write stories in an attractive, yet creative way because the story in a comic is mostly told through the dialogues between characters. Surely he needs to improve his writing skills to make him capable of writing an interesting and attractive comic to read.

He is also practicing to improve his drawing skills as the pictures in a comic serve as means of telling a story. It means that the quality of the pictures is very crucial in a comic. He improves his drawing skills by practicing drawing a lot and by watching videos about comics to learn more about comics. Before pursuing his dream, he plans to work first so he can be assured that he will be capable of sustaining himself just in case his comics cannot provide him enough money.

Unfortunately, my friend has some obstacles in his way to become a comic author. He feels that he does not have enought time to practice drawing because of his activities, such as studying, organization activies and college activites. In regards to his obstacles, I suggest him to manage his time better so he can practice writing and drawing a comic. In my opinion, he will become a good comic writer. He has creative imaginations and ideas. He also has good skills in writing and his drawings are really good. I sincerely hope he can achieve his dream of becoming a comic writer.