Setiap acara wisuda di kampus ITB
selalu ada pidato sambutan dari salah seorang wisudawan. Biasanya yang terpilih
memberikan pidato sambutan adalah pribadi yang unik, tetapi tidak selalu yang
mempunyai IPK terbaik. Sepanjang yang saya pernah ikuti, isi pidatonya
kebanyakan tidak terlalu istimewa, paling-paling isinya kenangan memorabilia
selama menimba ilmu di kampus ITB, kehidupan mahasiswa selama kuliah,
pesan-pesan, dan ucapan terima kasih kepada dosen dan teman-teman civitas
academica.
Namun, yang saya tulis dalam posting-an
ini bukan pidato wisudawan ITB, 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).Cuplikan pidato ini dikutip dari
tulisan di blog berikut: http://pohonbodhi.blogspot.com/2010/09/you-are-either-with-me-or-against-me.html
“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 ITB 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: http://americaviaerica.blogspot.com/2010/07/coxsackie-athens-valedictorian-speech.html
Kalau ingin melihat video pidato
Erica di Youtube, klik ini:
atau masuk pada pranala berikut: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M4tdMsg3ts&feature=player_embedded#!