Work hard? Why do that when you’ll pass anyway??

Whew. This blog post has been a long time coming, and I’m certain that all I want to say about it can’t even fit into one post. The cultural difference of Indonesian students' laziness being rewarded with a high school degree is something that I have struggled with a lot lately, and I mean A LOT. Last week, I felt so helpless I just wanted to walk out of the classroom and go home and cry* with frustration.

*While I can’t claim that the urge to go home and just cry is something new for me (read: it’s happened in Carleton classes, in student teaching, etc.), it has been a solid 2 months or more since I have wanted to do this in Indonesia. That's pretty good!

So what happened? Things were going so well! I was making lessons that were “relevant and meaningful to students’ everyday lives.” That is the goal that I live by for making lessons and honestly, why it took until halfway through semester one in Indonesia for me to embrace this concept is rather embarrassing. I guess it’s because it is just phrased so well. “Relevant and meaningful to students’ everyday lives.” I’d be letting down the Carleton Ed Studies Dept if I said that they didn’t teach me this, and I’m sure they did, but the idea slipped my mind as thoughts of grading, attendance, and curriculum needs filled my time.

Anyways, lessons were going well. Honestly, I had a little more freedom in my planning because my (counterpart) CP was sick at home. I don’t wish typhoid fever or out-of-whack spinal disk issues on anyone, though it conveniently allowed me to start the first month of school off exactly how I wanted. Does that make me a bad person? Maybe. Did it make my lessons more clear, thorough and organized? Yes.

Okay, so for the meat of this blog. How did I find myself leaning up against the classroom wall, allowing my CP to lead the class as I held back my anger. Or, alternately, how did I find myself whispering fervently to my CPs about the unfairness of their school system and devaluation of my best students’ diplomas?

Consider this. I’ll do a little case study comparison with two of my 11^th grade students. I’d change their names but I can’t because both of their real names are too good to not use.

Qilmi, truly a joy to have in class! 

Qilmi (pronounced “kill me”) is one of my best student friends, I guess you could say. This friendship is recent, in light of my inability to correctly pronounce “perut” (stomach) in Indonesian and the fact that he joined my new tutoring session and I get to be extra crazy there. Perhaps he is intrigued by my strangeness. Either way, we are buds now, and though his English isn’t great, he works so hard to be a good student. He’s one of the few boys across my 5 classes that is dependable and on time. He is in student council and is just a great guy. It also is a bonus that he is chubby and has a very middle-aged man hearty laugh that is contagious! Anyways, that is Qilmi.

Then there is Dedy (pronounced “daddy). Again, not making these names up. If he knew the phrase “Who’s your Daddy?” I think he’d be saying it all the time. I’m not really sure what that implies, but I just thought I’d throw it in there. Anyways, there is no picture of Dedy because, well, he’s at school about 1/3 of the time so the opportunity has yet to arise. The line between students and teachers is more blurry here, so when I say things like, “Tidak mungkin, Dedy masuk!” (No way, Dedy came to school!), they all laugh and proceed to tell me that he is like this in every class, not just English. Anyways, Dedy is disruptive in class, chats with friends, doesn’t do his work, and doesn’t pay attention. Awesome. And that is when he comes to school.

So this brings us to my blog post title, “Work hard? Why do that when you’ll pass anyway??” My rough calculations are that Dedy, an 11^th grader, is educationally at about a 7^th grade level. He doesn’t come to school. He doesn’t do his work. He has no interest in being there.

 Yet how did he pass each year if he doesn’t learn a darn thing?

Welcome to the Indonesian school system. While I can truly only comment on my school’s “amazing” ability to give diplomas to students who are only at a 7^th grade level, my hunch is that many village schools are similar to mine in what I am about to tell you. At the very least, many of the PC volunteers’ schools.

So, I asked my CP, “How does Dedy get his degree if he doesn’t do anything?” I complained. I was shocked. I was unhappy. He definitely is not meeting all the standards. My CPs started their responses with (and I’m not kidding you), “You know Miss, I agree with you. But in Indonesia…” and then proceeded to explain that there are a lot of social pressures that lead them to need to pass him.

- The principal wants to make his/her school more prestigious, so the more students passing, the better.

- Parents who don’t take the time to understand that their student doesn’t come to school blame the teachers for not passing their student. Some of the parents come to school angry. Some of them come to school crying. To top it off, some parents are in denial that their students skip school. I met the mom of one of my students who literally came to class 5 times in one semester. I said, “Why doesn’t he ever come?” She said, “Oh no Miss, he does. Every day he puts on his uniform and leaves at 7.” I answered, “I assure you, he is not coming to school.”

- The teachers do not want to get in trouble and have cried because mean parents come to the school and yell at them as to why their student is not passing. The parents spread rumors that the teacher failing their student is a bad teacher.

…And then you smack a bule (foreigner) from the good ol’ USA into this system. A bule who highly values being rewarded for actual hard work. Who believes that people who are capable of doing hard work but do not do the hard work should not be rewarded for their laziness.

Of course I am freaking out that Dedy’s lack of any hard work is still rewarded with a high school degree simply because of the social consequences for the school if they don’t pass him. This is extremely frustrating. Qilmi is working his butt off to pass classes and be the best he can be. However, he will graduate with the same degree as Dedy. And the fact that Dedy also has that same degree seems to devalue Qilmi’s degree, doesn’t it?? ARGH!

Ardi's legit hard work (not to mention his great self esteem!)

Another student's "hard work." Should this student really be given the same degree as Ardi, who works so hard?? Obviously this is a metaphor representing this student's efforts in all the work that he/she does, not just artistic ability! 

I asked my CPs what incentive Qilmi has to work hard. They said he will have better scores on his national exam. Okay, that would help him get into college, but he may not have enough money, so he won’t really need those scores. I then asked, “When he wants to find a job will they look at his high school transcript?” I knew the answer, and I even felt kinda absurd asking that question, but you gotta check your assumptions. The answer was, of course, no, no one will check his grades. A high school diploma with all As and all Cs means the same thing to a boss whose company sells phones or fixes flat tires. In fact, often a high school diploma doesn’t even matter in these situations. (This is all in the context of my village area. Life is very different and more westernized in the big cities.)

The economic and social status difference between people who go to the university and people who don’t is much more pronounced in Indonesia than it is in the US. At least, I perceive it to be. In Indonesia, those who go to the university are working as teachers, nurses, bankers, etc. Those who don’t are working as farmers, in factories, selling food, and collecting garbage off the street to sell to recycling factories. In the US, people who don’t go to college can still have pretty decent jobs. Less pay, but still pretty good opportunities. I think. Maybe I’m wrong. I admit that when I am in the US, I'm surrounded only by people who have higher educations.

In conclusion, I think students like Dedy should not be getting a high school degree. It’s not fair to Qilmi. In fact, I don’t think students like Dedy should even be at school. It wastes their time as they learn nothing. The teachers waste their time trying to get them to pay attention.

I realize that as someone who believes that every student deserves a good education, it is odd to hear me say that Dedy should not come to school anymore. But here’s the deal. Teachers have tried to give Dedy that good education for years. And he doesn’t want to put in the time now. Maybe later, but not now. And I don’t believe that it is worthwhile for anyone to try to force him to be there. When he is ready, he will make it happen and hopefully people will be ready and willing to help him.

Instead, he should be in the work force. School is not a valuable use of his time right now. But then I wonder if there is a GED equivalent for students like Dedy who realize 10 years from now that maybe a high school education is valuable. Then I question myself again, “In my Indonesian village, IS high school education REALLY necessary or valuable for those who will work as farmers and have no money to go to college to get a better paying, more prestigious job?” No money and no self-drive pretty much destines Dedy to work as a farmer, selling meatballs, or changing flat tires. And that doesn’t need a degree of any kind.

So how can I be fair to Qilmi is working so hard and absolutely deserves to go on to twelfth grade and college? As an American teacher in an Indonesian context, there is truly not much I can do. Especially when my coworkers agree with me that it is not fair. What are they going to do? Demand that my principal expels Dedy? Then Dedy’s parents will come to the school crying. Or maybe they also don’t care. But either way, they will talk and people will learn that MAN Mojoagung fails students and no one will want to come to that school. That is the reality of this system. And since no one wants to look bad, my school will continue to be dissatisfied and reward students who do nothing with a degree.

This unfortunately reflects what I often feel here, that people are very fatalistic. Most Americans I know tend to believe that they can make real changes for the good. Most Indonesians I know do not believe that they have any power to change anything about their system. Maybe they really do need those “motivational speeches” that I am asked to randomly give…

Don't even get me started on the fact that my principal approved that a large number of students be pulled out of class every day for a month to practice soccer, volleyball, chess, etc. so that we can win these competitions against other schools at the end of February. Because at the end of the day, really, what message do we want to send to our students? That learning science and languages is valuable, or that winning a soccer game is important? Obviously the latter...