After 1,5 years practising with nice keyboard we bought in London (P-32), we finally upgraded the instrument to piano digital CL-745 after a thorough researches from the doctor.
It was such a dilemma buying new instrument while we have my big old made-in-japan upright at my parent’s house. But, the urge to upgrade is quite strong because the little girl’s current situation needs more improved instrument so she could play better.
The option for the little girl to play better was between change our instrument or move to a bigger place. Although the choice was pretty clear that we should go with the less headache one, but it still took months until I finally said yes to a new instrument.
The first repclass was the turning point moment. When I saw she played nicely in front of small audience, I finally realized that new instrument was no longer an option. More, with her first exams coming in few months, it gave us more valid reasons to provide proper instrument for her.
So, right after the first repclass ended, off we went to piano store, paid, and they sent it right away to our place. We wrapped the keyboard inside its cover and placed it on the cupboard, set up new arrangement so the new piano could fit in the room.
Thank you for your services, beautiful.Hello, new friend!
The highlight of having new instrument for the little girl is I am getting a new reading corner for myself. So, everyone is happy, I guess. Hope the new instrument will bring more blessings and stay longer than the old one. Amin.
For me, the day always starts right after the house on the right order.
I always believe that our house, our space represent many other things in our life. I am obviously not a clean freak or marie kondoish tidy, but I need a clean and clear house to make me function well.
Made-bed, cleared-sink, crumbless floor, hung clothes are few signs that the day is ready to roll. First thing first in the morning should always be about cleaning the house.
Second win of the day currently is when all the google classroom assignments notifications are all disappeared. All school works that don’t need any recordings should be submitted right away. Right after they’re handed in, you can forget about that. Almost all the school works done along these 2 months are with the tag ‘done early’.
It might also happen because the level is still quite easy for her. So, what I need to do is to make her sit and do the work before lunch time. I am also quite lucky having a little buddy who loves learning too. It indeed helps a lot.
Manage, deal with, and plan quite well for this homeschool thing and school from home period are the biggest return my degrees give me so far. Although whinning here and there are unavoidable, but everything is quite on the track.
The last and the biggest win of the day when I manage to pull myself out to have outdoor time with the little girl. I’ve been whinning endlessly about how hard to have simple outdoor time here. More, all the parks are still closed until now, children are banned from mall or even apartment swimming pool. So, the choices to have a simple, free outdoor time is quite limited.
This outdoor plan usually happens from a sudden idea strike. Like two days ago, I needed to stop by Snapy to print out the new piano book, then something came to my mind right before we went. Asked her how about having outdoor lunch before Snapy? I offered her rice box or sandwich and she chose the latter. We had a bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice too on the fridge. I also told her to bring her old scooter that finally arrived after 9 months.
Parking is also another tricky thing to have outdoor time here. Why didn’t go by public transport then? Because we need to move places and guess what? Children is also currently not allowed to ride on public transport like MRT, only angkot allowed. Being children is underratedly hard here.
I found a legal parking spot one kilometer from the place. I walked and she rode on a scooter from there. It was not too hot that day and obviously quiet, so we could enjoy the space mostly for ourselves. It was nice to be able to take off our mask without worry and breathe properly. Enjoyed lunch while listened to singing birds and watched butterflies and some other insects along the way.
But , what about the afternoon? Afternoon is space for more relaxed activities. If she has afternoon classes, then she is doing it. In between, it is our free time. Some days are laundry days where we should fold our own clothes, some days are grocery days, some afternoon spent by lazing around amd having nap, if we want to. Also afternoon is the time when I do my exercise. I need quite proper time and space to do it. So, having those small wins of the day done before noon is important.
Some days with high level of winnings like this, where all three winnings done before 12pm, could give encouragement for many days to come. Even higher because before that, we already accomplished all these daily melodies too. Kind of day that is constantly needed to keep going well and sane to deal with pandemic life when you’re living in the country like mine.
I (really) had hard times during first two weeks of formal school. Adjusting and adapting to the new life and schedule was a total headache. I had so many things that I want to keep but still couldn’t find the right flow to do that. But, most of the time, we only get what we ask for, and usually, when we really want something, then we’ll find a way for that. My goals are clear : I want to keep all the routines and I want my peace of mind too since morning.
Having formal school in daily life doesn’t mean eliminating all the home school learnings schedule that has been built for the last 1,5 years. So, what we need is some adjustments here and there, squeezeing some this and that, and finally after exactly a month, daily rhytms with new melodies formed.
Day starts as early as before subuh with breakfast. Before, piano was given the last slot of morning routine before break, but, a month or two before first day of school, I changed the order. Knowing that this piano is the hardest routine that takes the longest time, I changed it to the first one after set of subuh routine (subuh, iqra and quran memorization). Then, it followed by math and theory music training with apps, and a 15 minutes session of game before school hours starts.
The consequence of having longer duration for piano practice, we have to squeeze all the apps session to the minimum. From three levels of numbots to one level/day, from ten minutes of timetable rockstar to five minutes only and a level of notes reading or pitch training which aims for three stars.
These all done so she still have some spare time to play game before school time. This is an important routine that should be kept. The more learning routines she has, it means the more playing time she deserves.
I also apply that all school works should be submitted right away so we don’t have to deal with it again. Because tomorrow will come with new ones. I could proceed to the second leg of the day knowing that the google classroom to do list has zero notificiations.
Current school timetable fits us pretty well because everything has done before 11am. It gives us proper time to breathe before heading to the afternoon schedules. Right after school ends, she still has sometimes to have 15-20 minutes break for playing or watching before having lunch and do her dishes.
It’s good that the ‘only’ thing that we have to alter is the morning time. We still can keep the afternoon routines as usual, only with few eliminations like art and gym because they’re still on the restrictions during PPKM.
Not only the little girl, my schedule has changed accordingly too. My me time has changed from a session of 1,5 hours morning course to leisurely reading and kitchen/house cleaning since I had to give up the course for a while.
After few weeks dealing with online course and online school altogether and ended up being so exhausted after that, no time to do house works properly, had to ask permission to be passive for half of the course since I had to accompany the little girl, understood less and less lessons daily, the decision to (temporary) halt the course became the only thing to achieve my second goal above.
After all, you can’t just have everything.
Keeping this kind of routines regime becomes a bit easier because we have Alexa as the time keeper. We always rely on her to set timer for everything. Time keeping is an important thing to keep everything on the track.
James Clear this week newsletter mentioned the importance of time keeping quoting from author and journalist Mitch Albom :
“Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.”
The whole day routine we do above is not a temporary project. It’s been built since the first months of life. The only change throughout the years is the melodies. But the rhytms, has always been the same.
I don’t know about other children, but mine is living in an environment where the flow of the day stays practically the same whether it’s weekend or weekdays. This post, described our typical day before having formal school.
Having and forming daily routine that is consistently done in rain or shine, weekdays or weekend, snow or sunny is hard, time and energy consuming at the beginning, need strong commitment and high level of self-discipline. Among any other routines, beating yourself daily is the hardest of all.
But, I am lucky that I have lived long enough to experience how this thing becomes a long term investment and enjoying the result for myself. Having daily routine is the long-term investment that will keep compounding throughout the years of life and I want the little girl to have it too for her life.
For me, it’s one of unbeatable privileges you can pass to your children without worrying about its value decreased or it’s being stolen from them. An Investment that will make everyone’s life easier, especially during bad days and hard times, like now and future years to come.
This kind of clarity makes the daily self-beating becomes more bearable.
This writing had been started few weeks ago and finished in an hour thanks to an article I stumble upon while having leisure stalking. This one talks about principles of effective research and to have such thing, it starts with having effective use of the researcher daily time. One of the punch lines from the article :
I heard a story years ago in which a representative from McDonald’s was asked what gave McDonald’s the edge in the fast food industry. They replied that McDonald’s took care of the little things, like making sure that their restaurants and surrounds were always extremely clean. Representatives of other fast food companies replied incredulously that surely that was not the reason McDonald’s did so well, for “anyone could do that”. “But only McDonald’s does” was the response.
That ‘took care of little things’, ‘anyone could do that but only McDonald’s does’ reasoned well with me.
The article has many interesting lines that become the fuel that I need today to finish this writing as early as 4 am and to deal with today’s long to-do-list since we finally have our boxes from London safely arrived in my dad’s house last night, after NINE (with capital) months of waiting and fighting.
Alhamdulillah.
Bonne journée a vous et trés bonne journée à moi, j’éspere.
… of emotions this week. From going up to the euphoria of the long awaited badminton gold winning in Olympics, then free dive to the the shitty days of daily life, then slowly climbing to the joy of watching how little one nailed her first repclass.
As someone who loves boring mundane kind of life where everything goes under control, riding on this kind of ride was totally not pleasant. It felt so heavy when it took extreme change to the ground and totally insecure when the ride suddenly rocketed high up to the sky. Dive down to the ground makes you extremely sick while soaring high to the sky makes you dizzy.
I came to learn about myself since I was in primary school, when I was in the 4th place in class, the highest that I had ever been and turned out to be the happiest.
What so special about being fourth? It doesn’t even have any medals name for it. But, being the fourth made me noticed enough without being on the spotlight. Being the fourth means I was very good in certain things but just an ordinary one in certain subjects. It made me feel safe and secured. Knowing I didn’t have to be good in everything, which nobody did, but knew very well that I got and did the other thing well and right. That was why my roles in class were mostly the secretaire or the treasure, which both I did with so much love and enthusiasm.
I couldn’t handle being on the spotlight too much like those ones on the top three, yet I didn’t feel good at all to be where I was not seen enough. Being on the top made the teachers came back to you all the time, not good for the heart. While being fourth gave some space to show yourself when you were really good at something without too much pressure.
Maybe the only spotlight I could resist when it was on other people where I stood right behind it. Like the badminton coach on the side of the field whom the players ran into once they confirmed the victory. Like when I had my students with the trophies in 5 times out of 5 piano competitions I had ever been. That was the time when I felt the most satisfied. The hardworks paid off, the thank you notes, yet no obligation to handle the publicity.
The shitty days in life described well how I disliked being too far from the top where I didn’t feel seen enough, where I felt I wasn’t treated important enough, just like another student fill in the class without no exceptional traits. Totally not kind of feeling I could deal with for long.
Watching the little girl playing in her first repclass and a sudden simple text from the old student, reached out for me, were the cure to those shitty days.
Repclass is where the students from two teachers gathered and gave short performance. It was only four students yet it was a good opportunity for her to see how others played. She nailed her two songs nicely and safely. Her teacher gave her 83 for each song she performed with some detailed comments on what she has done well and the area she still needs to improve. I thought that was the number she deserved for her current ability and I was totally glad with that.
But, on the other hand, I would give her 90 for her emotional aspects. How calm and composed she was dealing with the pressure of performing in front of others, how well she responded to the instruction in Bahasa Indonesia without any helps, and how well she controlled her self in playing those two pieces in spite of some tiny dents she made.
Watching the little girl yesterday, this time I didn’t feel like a coach on the side of the field. It was more of riding on time travel tunnel. Like it was there to show me an alternative scenario. What kind of life it would be if I were a student who never lose a day to practice, who had the privilege having personal coach at home so I didn’t have to figure out things on my own. The repclass yesterday showed a truly significant difference of having such things, despite the tools used for practice.
A personal text message from a parent of an old student with a video of her child playing some higher level piece was a mood booster. Said she just sent it to me to check if my number was still on and asked me how life was. The child had been with other teachers before she was sent to me, told that she was lazy, too hard to handle, and many things. I was with the child for few years, it was as hard as the other teachers said but it got better with time. Gave her quite hard times during the lessons was unavoidable, but unless it was something criminal, I never give up any students.
Watching her keep playing until now, knowing her mother spared some time to text me and showing her progress, that was when Maya Angelou words came true :
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”.
After a whole week full of rollercoaster ride, it slowly return to the equilibrium point.
Few years ago, there were things that I really didn’t understand completely. But, again, life has been very kind and allows me to reach the point where I finally understand those things. Here are some of my favorite paradoxes.
“Less is more” when it comes to material things, is finally be understood when you are in the position of more, but never when you’re in the less one. What money literally can buy is pleasure. Food, things, experiences. Will the pleasures make you happy? It’s debatable. Then, knowing and defining your enough are important. These ones are not characters, they are skills that should be learned, if possible mastered. Without that, you’ll never know when to stop and that’s the root of all evil.
Less sugar means more health . In the opposite sense, less sleep means worse health.
“To have an ‘easy life’ in the future means you have to make hard choices in the present”. The opposite will happen if you replace the order.
To think for a long term means you have to beat yourself and working on the shortest period of life. Day to day. A huge change (good or bad) happens in one day of someone’s life, most of the time happened from years of waiting and hardworks full of failures (or years of not doing things properly if it is the opposite).
“The more you learn, the more you realize how very little you know”. Knowledge is limitless. Your time to learn things is not.
Also, you’ll learn more doing things that you don’t-like-but-you-have-to than doing one you like and you want to. Being uncomfortable means you face many possibilities of learning that you won’t get with being comfortable.
That’s why I don’t believe in the phrase ‘anak jangan dipaksa-paksa’. In order to know their limit, they have and need to be pushed for the right amount to the right direction. They have to be uncomfortable. Our job as parents is to give them experiences where they can learn things they need later to live their own life. They need to be equipped to face the real jungle out there. To do this, it’s not comfortable for everyone but the more it feels uncomfortable, the more it shows that you are doing the right thing. It is important because the most important ability a child to master is the ability to live without their parents.
Disclaimer : this one is applicable in learning some useful skills, not staying in abusive relationship.
Talking about these paradoxes reminded me with similar thing which is one way of thinking that I have been using since the first time I lived without my parents. It is called inversion.
Inversion is a method for thinking about a problem differently. To solve a problem, instead of think of linear solution, we think about the opposite. Sometimes, to solve a problem, you need to think and see differently. It requires you to look at things from a different angle to embrace a new perspective.
At that time, by doing inversion, literally and figuratively, observing certain things for days, I managed to change my gloomy daily morning trip to school became a happy one.
Before, I needed to leave my grandma’s house at the very least 5.15 am if I wanted to arrive at school on time. I needed to take around 1,5 hours trip by crazily full bus and continued with high-demand-low-capacity angkot. There were many days where I needed to fight for a tiny empty seat because they didn’t want to take schoolers since they paid less than worker passenger. I could and wanted to pay full price, but it was hard when the driver already saw me with school uniform. There were days when I insanely hung tightly on the door of the angkot because I had no choice. There was also a minibus called Kopaja. They welcomed schooler but the problem was their service was not any better. For me it was even worse than angkot because the petite me had to be trapped among so many taller and bigger people and it made so difficult to get out when I arrived at the school. At times, I had to walk longer because the driver didn’t hear my request to stop.
Do not imagine it was like what we have now where almost all public transport are with air conditioner, only stop at the bus stop, and rarely jammed with people. It was hot, packed until there was no room to breathe well, full of odour that made you dizzy, and you felt like getting out of utter mess once you got off. There were days when it felt so frustrating because went through that daily was beyond exhausting.
It kept going like that until I did a little observation for days about the route of the bus. I couldn’t depart earlier anymore (how early an 13-yo should go to school than 5.15am? Departed at such hour it means I woke up at least an hour before!). I also couldn’t afford to go by taxi daily, I couldn’t find any other alternative transportations, I couldn’t find any other routes to go to the school other than what I had been through.
But then, I finally found something through the opposite way of thinking.
The result was incredible. I managed to cut the length of trip from one and half hour to 30 minutes. Instead of following the bus to the end of the route and fought with employees to get on that rare angkot or being sardened in morning kopaja, I managed to find that this bus passed a bus stop that sent me to the school through the opposite direction and it was actually only 10 minutes away from my departure bus stop. Then I could continue with the same that high-demand-low-capacity angkot, only this time, I had the whole empty angkot for myself, waved goodbye to traffic jam, and had chance to do a little bit of morning walk through the pedestrian bridge since I came from the opposite way.
At that time, I went to school daily accompanied by a big brother cousin who had to send me until I got on to the angkot. After that, he went to the office where it was on the opposite location of my school. My school on the south, while his office was on the north. So, that daily morning trip to the school was not only hard for me but also for another person.
When I proposed the idea that I had found another much shorter route to the school, he looked hesitant. But, because I was so persistent and asked to him to see this first, he gave up and followed.
When he finally saw the route, he looked as happy as I was. It meant that he had more time to go to his office leisurely. It showed how a little thinking could improve everyone’s well being drastically.
From Sahil Bloom The Curiosity Chronicle
Isn’t it a literal meaning of inversion? That was one of my eureka moments as an 13 year old. Solving my own problems, although it was so simple, but it went beyond that. It changed my whole mood drastically. It made me study better and felt so much happier.
Another thing that reminded me of doing this kind of thinking was when I managed to find ways to send the whole family to this trip. The paradox of less is more and inversion thinking were truly applicable here. The less money you had for the things you desperately want, the more active your brain in finding solutions to achieve that. Since earning more money or sign up for debt wasn’t applicable at that time, finding ways to reduce cost became the solution.
Inversion is also applicable in other kind of situations. For example, like the famous Charlie Munger said about wealth and investing : it is not about earning more, but the rules is to never lose money.
In parenting, there many things that I don’t know, like what kind of life that my little girl will have or what a kind of person she will grow up to be, but I know what kind of life I don’t want her to have and kind of person I don’t want her to grow up to be, so I started from there.
We don’t always know what we want so it’s easier to go from the things that we don’t want.
If I think about it, I am doing quite a lot of inversion and paradox in daily life. Like when it is fasting day, instead of laying low to not tiring myself and just doing little simple things, I found myself on the opposite by doing more than the usual. Instead of feeling low, I found my energy is higher than usual during fasting day.
Closing quote from the famous wise man book The Republic :
I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.
A sudden call from hospital made the doctor packed his things and went to the hospital, the sleeping eyes woke up after short sleep and refused to go back to sleep again.
Disturbed sleep is tricky. It makes your mind wander more wildly. From watching live coverage of Hajj 2021 to reminiscing certain part of old memories through pictures and videos collections, yet nothing can really make the eyes go back to sleep instantly.
This week has been a pretty draining one. Continous sad news, first week of online school which as expected, it was a quite a headache. So much energy taken yet so little learning. With such crappy internet connection and the noise from many little kids and their background noise, what can we expect?
But, let’s leave it there for now.
The heart goes to so many families whose days has been beyond tough this week. Especially the little children and babies who suddenly lost their mother. Also, the girls in college or school who suddenly had no choice other than dropping their study and taking over the responsibilities at home because the passing of their mother, I wanted to say I had been there (with similar situation), but the other part of myself told me to shut up and snapped,
“You’ve never been there”.
There’s no words of encouragement is needed at this time.
Current situation is as sad as it can be.
As bad as it looks like.
As heart-breaking as it is.
I am sending them the biggest hug they might need.
Been having long rants about how this country official handling this pandemic.
Been cursing the way they deal with this matter since the beginning of this pandemic last year.
Everytime I heard people saying “semoga pandemi cepat selesai”, I couldn’t help sneering. It won’t. Judging from everything that has been happening since last year, it will last much longer than we think or we hope it will be.
It’s no longer the virus that kills. It’s the ignorance of the leaders that even after more than a year, they learn nothing, they do nothing, they NEVER take this seriously, and choose to let people die deliberately with their incompetence.
Up until now, we’re still paying the price of (choosing) having such minister of health for the whole first year of the pandemic. Choosing that person to be the minister of health was weird already and did nothing, (while he could something) until months, that’s the trigger of the tragedies that we are currently dealing with.
And, sadly, we’ll keep paying for this until God knows when and at what price.
This pandemic discloses and brings out the worst and broken system in every aspect of this country. We are broken till the last layer. There’s nothing we do right to the smallest thing.
Social services corruption. Birthday party full of people. Unnecessary bussiness meeting while people down there are looking for hospital rooms everywhere, stupid heartless brainless statements everyday saying those people of house representative deserved a special treatment in hospital if they need it. The paid vaccine. The disaster PPKM without proper help. The last one came today. The news told that the daughter of one of the chief for pandemic handling as well as one of the ministers whose face we could see everywhere around the town, was captured in Japan. Currently enjoying the honeymoon.
Feel like throwing up and put this line below in bold :
Eneg and muak are the terms to describe the feeling towards this stupid useless heartless brainless people up there.
Why cant they only be stupid but not ignorant?
Why can’t they just choose one?
Why cant they only be brainless but not heartless?
Whyyyyyyyy.
Maybe, just maybe, we must have done something terrible to deserve such stupid useless ignorant heartless brainless nir-empathy zero capabilities government in dealing with this pandemic.
No words could describe how screwed it is to be the citizen of this country during this pandemic.
If there’s something that we are above average is we are very early morning bunch. Breakfast always served before the first adzan. So, after doing the first prayer of the day, that’s when our morning routines start. By 9 am, we have accomplished sets of morning routines. Our morning could be considered the highlight of our everyday lives. The period of the day I treasure the most.
Tanpa mau bilang ngga terasa, tapi akhirnya (sebagai orang tua) sampai juga ke salah satu milestone besar : pilih sekolah dasar buat anak.
Punya pengetahuan yang cukup tentang pendidikan dan sekolah, pernah liat dari dalam beberapa sekolah, beberapa tahun lalu, saya sudah punya bayangan akan mengirim anak saya kemana. Dana pendidikan sudah disiapkan sesuai sekolah tujuan sejak beberapa tahun lalu.
Saya punya sekolah yang memenuhi semua ceklis. Sekolah islam yang moderat, ngga kaku, auranya menyenangkan, punya kebiasaan membaca, visi misinya jelas, dan tentu harus sesuai sama kemampuan. Satu aja kurangnya, lokasi, tapi lokasi ini masih bisa dikompromi. Apalagi mereka juga menyediakan shuttle bus.
Saya sudah stalking berbulan-bulan bagaimana mereka menjalankan pembelajaran selama pandemi dan suka sekali. Hal-hal yang diperlihatkan jauh dari sekedar akademis, tapi lebih ke life skills dan well-being, yang mana buat saya lebih penting di saat seperti ini.
Sayangnya, ketika beberapa bulan lalu saya wa untuk minta info pendaftaran, kuotanya sudah full. Kami sempat berpikir untuk menunda sampai tahun depan lagi tapi diurungkan karena nunggu setahun untuk satu sekolah dan mengorbankan hal lain adalah pilihan yang kurang tepat.
PS : mereka wa beberapa bulan setelahnya bahwa ada tempat kosong, tapi kami sudah selesai daftar di tempat lain.
Sekolah lain yang ada di daftar saya adalah sekolah umum yang saya sudah pantau sejak tiga tahun lalu tapi ngga kebayang akan kirim anak saya kesana karena secara lokasi kurang bisa dikompromi dan hal-hal lainnya yang dulunya saya hampir yakin bukan hal yang tepat buat anak saya.
Tapi, seperti biasa, hidup itu ngga pernah linear dan hampir ngga ada hal yang dikasih persis seperti rencana awal. Tinggal di London mengubah hampir semua pandangan tentang banyak hal termasuk sekolah. Seperti sengaja dikirim jauh untuk dikasih liat sekolah seperti apa yang anak saya butuh dan ini sama sekali bukan tentang sekolah apa yang kami mau.
Saya suka vibe sekolah ini. Halamannya luas, area hijaunya banyak, dan salah satu yang jadi magnet adalah mereka hanya punya satu kelas per angkatan dengan maksimal 28 anak. Jadi jelas bukan sekolah yang mementingkan uang dengan buka kelas lebih banyak seiring meningkatnya permintaan. Saya cuma tetap ngga yakin karena secara lokasi agak ngga terbayangkan oleh saya kirim anak saya sekolah di sana.
Tapi, jodoh emang gitu.
Waktu pertama kali saya menanyakan pendaftaran lewat salah satu medsos, di waktu yang agak ngga biasa karena waktu itu masih di London, ternyata langsung dijawab. Dijawabnya pun panjang lebar dan niat. Tadinya saya cuma mau nanya hal-hal dasar dan umum, tapi dengan percakapan yang mengalir saya jadi lebih nyaman bertanya lebih detil dan dalam seperti apa mereka menerima anak denga kesulitan belajar, punya perpustakaan yang proper, seperti apa budaya membacanya sampai apa kantin tersedia atau tidak (saya ngga pro kantin ada di sekolah), sampai tradisi merayakan ulang tahun. Hampir semuanya memenuhi kriteria saya.
Saya suka sekali dengan jawaban :
“Kami adalah sekolah inklusi”.
Cari sekolah umum inklusi di Jakarta yang secara reputasi cukup baik itu sulit sekali. Jadi satu hal ini, sangat penting buat kami.
Pas sekali ternyata mereka baru buka pendaftaran gelombang kedua. Jadilah kami langsung daftar dan beberapa hari kemudian, jadwal wawancara pun dikirim. Karena adanya perbedaaan waktu 7 jam pada saat itu, proses wawancara kami dilakukan oleh ketua yayasannya yang saat itu sedang studi di US. Di awal rencananya wawancara hanya sekitar 30 menit, tapi ternyata jadi cukup panjang hingga 1,5 jam.
Kami cukup teryakinkan dengan pertanyaan-pertanyaan yang diajukan pada saat wawancara. Ngga ada yang bersifat akademik dan lebih kepada rutinitas dan perkembangan anak. Seminggu setelahnya dijadwalkan untuk observasi anak. Sekali lagi, mereka cukup akomodatif dengan perbedaan waktu ini. Jadwal observasi kelompok yang seharusnya jam 9 pagi dimundurkan jadi jam 2 siang waktu Jakarta.
Saat observasi pun tidak ada pertanyaan yang ngga wajar seperti salah satu SD yang menanyakan siapa proklamator Indonesia kepada anak TK. Semua pertanyaan benar-benar sesuai apa yang seharusnya anak umur 6 tahun tahu. Warna dasar, angka dasar, bentuk dasar, dsb. Ketika observasi one on one pun, gurunya juga dipilihkan yang berbahasa Inggris.
Beberapa minggu kemudian, surat penerimaan pun diterima. Kami cukup lega karena ngga menyangka alhamdulillah semua dimudahkan untuk pencarian SD ini meskipun dari jauh. Masalah tempat tinggal setelah dari London pun jadi lebih jelas setelah tau dimana sekolah buat enam tahun ke depan (salah satu hal baik dari belum punya rumah, pilihan tempat tinggal kami jadi lebih fleksibel).
Sudah diputuskan karena jarak ke tahun ajaran baru tinggal 6 bulan, selama 6 bulan ini kami hanya akan belajar sendiri. Karena toh semua sekolah di Jakarta pun tidak ada yang berlangsung offline.
Dulu saya pikir jeda 6 bulan itu sebentar. Tapi, ternyata dalam waktu enam bulan ini, jeda antara sekolah formal terakhir di Alfred Salter dan tahun ajaran baru ini, banyak sekali hal yang mengubah pandangan saya tentang sekolah. Menjalani rutin baru yang terbentuk sejak pandemi di London, mulai banyak baca tentang homeschool, mengikuti beberapa akun orangtua homeschool luar negeri (susah sekali buat ngga iri), terutama melihat pesatnya perkembangan anak ini selama lockdown, baik di London, maupun beberapa bulan tanpa sekolah di sini, perasaan terusik makin sering dirasakan.
Merasakan ‘nikmatnya’ unschooling, melihat beberapa anak homeschool, melihat banyaknya anak-anak yang sama sekali tidak menikmati sekolah dari rumah selama setahun lebih, dan akhirnya jadi sama sekali ngga belajar apapun, jadi buat saya semakin bertanya-tanya, dengan kondisi saat ini, dengan kondisi pendidikan di Indonesia saat ini, apakah ‘kembali’ ke sekolah formal adalah pilihan yang tepat?
Saya belum tau jawabannya.
Tapi, semakin dekat tahun ajaran baru, perasaan malah semakin galau. Kehilangan semua fleksibilitas dan kebebasan dalam belajar selama ini buat saya agak khawatir. Selain itu banyak kekhawatiran kecil yang ntah penting atau ngga. Antusiasme menyambut sekolah baru jadi ngga seperti yang dibayangkan.
Senin ini orientasi hari pertama sudah dimulai dan senin depan akan menjadi hari pertama dari perjalanan panjang yang kami ngga tau akan jadi seperti apa.
Karena kami ngga tau, makanya kami ingin cari tau. Semoga apapun keputusan yang diambil, apapun yang ada di depan, akan jadi pelajaran baru yang bisa bermanfaat buat semua.
A Penny for My Pensieve 