Tag: meaning

“Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby “schooled” to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence and fluency with the ability to say something new.””Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby “schooled” to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence and fluency with the ability to say something new.”

 

Ivan Illich

Deschooling Society, 1971

Friends of Mine

Published on by Izza DinillahLeave a comment

Friend is “a person with whom one has bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations” (www.oxforddictionaries.com)

Do you have one? Can’t help to write this thing now because of a chat with one of my friends. Damn you chu!

Maybe it’s the culture or maybe it’s another thing but Indonesian people tend to overgeneralize the meaning of friend, at least based on the definition above. Yes, I have housemates here but are they my friends? Not necessarily. So when I asked do you have friend, then what I mean is a real one not the number of people that you have introduced yourself to.

Do I have friends? Yes, I do but I am the kind of person who have just a small circle of close friends. And I make sure like hell that I care of and love them all. I believe that the relationship that I have with them is very very precious.

I met some of my friends in high school or in the university. However, at least as long as I remember, the longest friendship that I have up until now is with one of my high school friend, Tony (yes, he bribed me to write this thing! Hehe.. kidding chu..), which I hope will still be my best friends until our grand kids are in high school. BUT I am not going to write just about him now.

In my own sense, friends are those people who can share and enjoy moments with you. I remember how my peer (Mirao, Lenao, Riano, Ireno, Astrido) and I could talk for hours about anything from the silly things like Spongebob, boys that we like; to unimportant or maybe important but interesting things like human philosophy, love, and new psychological news. How I miss those moments now!

I think friends should not only enjoy times when they talk to each other but also when they are together in silence. Unintended travel around with Astrido or Lenao or Tony. I remember that at that time we didn’t even talk that much but we (or at least I) can still feel happy at the end.

We can be friends because of our shared interest but being the same as our friends is not important. My friends and I, as I know, respect each other and we know and embrace our differences. I can pray in Astrido’s house. Tony can be my friend during my sleepless night prayer time. I can wake Lenao up during classes or I can be Ireno’s (fake) drinking buddy. I can also be Riano’s little sister and Mirao’s opposed discussion partner. 🙂

It really really is very nice for me to have my best friends. And at times like this I really really miss them. I love you, besties.. 🙂

 Dec 11, 2012

What Education Means to Me

Published on by Izza DinillahLeave a comment

Every person may have different understanding about education. Some people define education as schooling; some others relate education to learning activities. In my opinion, education is a lifelong, social context related process which involves getting information from environment and reflecting obtained information within self. It enables one to survive and it is important to make one’s life more valuable and beneficial for others.

Education is not limited to particular time duration. Human is born with capable mind which can be used for a life time. It is not limited to school, because education can be taken everywhere. It is a process because education should persist and gradually change one’s skill, ability, or behaviour. Education is always related to social context because the level of importance of skills or abilities differs in every society. For example, in a fisherman village, a child learns how to fish in early year. He may not attend special course about fishing, but practically helping his father educates him to be a fisherman. His experience continues to make him an expert and in implicit way it educates him to be a better fisherman. Fishing skill may be important in a fisherman village but in a modern city it might be placed in the bottom of education priority.

Education involves two things. The first one is getting information. Human senses enable human to receive stimulus. Therefore it is human nature to be able to receive information from external world. Inputs received by senses then processed in human brain and eventually the information can be used in any way to help human live. Education also involves personal reflection. What is obtained from surroundings will be interpreted in a specific personal way. One can reflect and learn through one’s own perception. This will cause education unique, different for everybody even though the education received is similar.

Education enables human to survive. Obtained skills and abilities from education will definitely help one to not only survive but also make the quality of one’s life better. Education is a crucial thing in human’s life because it is a mean to make one’s life more valuable and to enable human to help each other. By education, an average fisherman can be a better fisherman, gives a better life for his family. In addition, the fisherman can also help other people by providing more fish, opening job opportunities, or even educating other fisherman.

My version of the meaning of education involves three principles. It is a lifelong, social context related process. There are two activities in education, which are receiving information and processing the information by reflecting it within self. The aim of education is to make human survive, to enhance the quality of human’s life, and to enable human gives benefit for others.

Oct 07, 2012