I wrote this article for an educational tabloid. I hope it’s useful…
EDUCATION: THE KEY TO GAINING FREEDOM
I wrote this article as a part of my reflection of commemorating our country’s Independence Day. We celebrated our independence, our freedom from colonization, but are we really free now? Are we free from fear, from want, from violence and from stupidity? I think we are still struggling for gaining freedom and throughout this article, I relate education with freedom because I believe they have a strong connection.
On Freedom
What is freedom? Some definitions from The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary include the quality or state of being free, thus the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action and liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another. In other words, freedom can never be met in the place of oppression and force.
Freedom is a right of every human being. It is a God-given gift, which a human being has no right to take it from other human beings. Yet, as citizens of the world, we see injustice, people robbing other people’s freedom in many parts of the world. The news informs us every single day how many people are struggling towards gaining freedom. People are oppressed for their beliefs, idealism, gender and social status. We sometimes even witness the oppressions ourselves, in our daily lives.
Sometimes I lose my trust that human beings were born kind. I often become pessimistic rather than optimistic. Hellen Keller once said that “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” Despite all the overwhelming facts of injustice, one should never lose hope. My greatest hope, in fact, lies in education. As I’m walking a journey as a teacher, I keep a dream of helping the young generation reach their freedom. Some people may ask, why education? Is it the cure that people are looking for creating a better world? I say, “YES.”
Education as the Key
Education in a broad meaning includes actions of nurturing, encouraging, guiding, scaffolding, bridging, expecting as well as believing. From my experiences I learned that many teachers often fail to believing their students. We sometimes are too focused on teaching them everything we think they need to know. It makes us see our students as cups and we are the jugs that have the responsibility to pour the water of knowledge. We get stressful sometimes, especially when we think there’s not enough time to teach everything. We also doubt that our students really understand everything we teach, since there’s only little time for each chapter to be discussed. What we don’t realize is that our students get stressed out too. They are overwhelmed by every material we demand them to understand. Thus, we fail to believing and encouraging our students. We may even end up discouraging them to learn.
Then, what kind of education can be considered as the key to gaining freedom? What are the roles of teacher? Well, when we talk about education, many aspects relate closely to it. The two aspects I want to focus on are quality and access. Good quality education empowers students. It is about teaching skills rather than facts. It doesn’t mean that facts aren’t important. Facts are important, but we know that it’s impossible for them (even for us) to remember all the facts in the world. Empowering students is about encouraging students to be independent. Teachers can’t teach everything. It is the fact that all teachers should be aware of. By teaching our students the skills to question, interview, look for information and conduct research, students can take more control of their own learning. They can look for information themselves, because they have the skills. I believe they will enjoy learning more. We should start believing our students that they are able to do it. Indonesia is struggling to provide good quality education for our young generation. Contents are valued too much that sometimes teachers don’t allocate enough time to teach skills and concepts.
My dream is to see Indonesian children grow as human beings who are intelligent, have self-discipline and compassion towards others. I believe that our government aims for the same goal. I know it’s not an easy task for our government and I know that it doesn’t happen instantly. The leaders of the nation, teachers, educational practitioners as well as parents need to work hand in hand to achieve this dream. Commitment needs to be valued. The only way to provide good quality education is to show commitment. Again, it doesn’t happen overnight, so prepare for the journey.
Speaking about access to education can feel frustrating. We always long for equal access for children to get good quality education. If we see education as a right for every child, it’s our duty to make sure that they get it. Protection, thus, is very much essential. Children need protection from the government to get their rights. The government needs to guarantee that every child has the equal access towards education. Is it just a utopia? I certainly hope not. As citizens we are obliged to fight for our children’s rights. We also need to think of alternatives we can give to our children when equal access seems almost impossible to be achieved. We are grateful that many teachers give themselves to teach in remote areas as well as places where education is not portrayed as important as it is. Their idealism is like a rainbow of hope. They give our children opportunity to get education, even in difficult circumstances. They give themselves unselfishly. I hope our leaders give them a proper appreciation for what they’ve done.
Let’s go back to the title of this article. I intentionally give “Education, the Key to Gaining Freedom” as the title, because I want to emphasize the importance of education for our children. By being an educated generation, I believe our children can contribute to creating a better world. Education gives them opportunity to appreciate knowledge, to think about what they want, to think about what they want to know, to choose what they want to be and most importantly, to value life and the freedom to enjoy it to the fullest. I hope it is not a utopia to see our children having the freedom of mind, freedom to make choices, freedom to enjoy learning and freedom to get their rights. As a Greek philosopher, Epictetus, said, “We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free,” I sincerely believe that education is the answer, the key of gaining freedom.
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