Kepercayaan yang Seutuhnya By Desri Fitriana

           Ketika saya dihadapkan pada beberapa orang yang mempertanyakan kenapa saya beragama dan kenapa saya memilih agama Islam sebagai agama yang saya pilih dan menjadi panutan dalam hidup saya. Sejujurnya memang agak sulit menjawab pertanyaan itu, secara jika kita lihat secara harfiah agama itu sendiri adalah suatu rasa kebebasan bagi setiap pemeluk agama untuk menganut agama yang paling diyakini oleh mereka.  Tak salah jika Indonesia mempunyai mempunya berbagai macam agama seperti Islam, Katolik, Protestan, Hindu dan Buddha. Bahkan mungkin ada beberapa yang memang tidak menganut agama yang saya sebutkan tadi (atheis). Karena pada dasarnya setiap orang berhak memilki pendapat dan keyakinan mengenai kepercayaan mereka masing-masing.

            Karena pada dasarnya suatu kepercayaan akan tetap ada apabila masih ada penganut dari agama itu sendiri. Mungkin sama seperti yang dikatakan dalam teori Durkheim yang menyebutkan bahwa agama muncul berdasarkan society. Ya, memang benar, bagaimanapun tidak ada suatu agama yang terbentuk  tanpa ada umat didalamnya. Bahkan Greetz juga berpendapat bahwa agama itu berdasarkan budaya. Untuk yang satu ini, saya perlu mencerna  lebih dalam lagi, tentang agama dan kebudayaan iu sendiri. Memang bisa saling berhubungan tetapi terkadang kebudayaan tidak terlalu memegang peranan penting dalam keputusan seseorang untuk memilih suatu kepercayaan.

            Bahkan pada dasarnya ketika kita lahir kedunia ini dalam keadaan masih bayi, tanpa disadari kita sudah menganut suatu agama berdasarkan agama yang sudah dianut oleh kedua orang tua kita. Tanpa kita sadari apa maksud dari agama tersebut, tetapi terkadang dari kecil kita sudah dibiasakan familiar dengan agama yang dianut oleh kedua orang tua kita. Tanpa kita sadari kita mengikuti agama berdasarkan agama orang tua kita. Walau pada dasarnya kita bisa memilih agama kita sendiri pada saat kita mulai menginjak usia dewasa. Tetapi memang sangat jarang hal itu terjadi. Bahkan ketika seseorang anak untuk memilih agama yang berbeda dengan orang tuanya, mereka cenderung melarang dan marah. Padahal itu hak pribadi anak mereka, bahkan orang tua pun tidak bisa ikut andil dalam pengambilan keputusan dalam memilih kepercayaan anaknya. Karena kasus ini sempat terjadi oleh teman saya sendiri.

            Tetapi bagi saya agama itu bukanlah hanya untuk sebagian kalangan saja seperti yang dikatakan dalam teori Karl Max yang mengatakan bahwa agama adalah alat untuk menina bobokan kalangan kaum miskin. Saya pribadi sangat tidak setuju dengan teori Karl Max tersebut, karena ketika kita melihat agama jangan hanya dilihat dari segi ekonominya saja, tetapi juga harus mempertimbangkan unsur-unsur lain didalamnya. Jika kita hanya fokus pada ekonomi dan beranggapan bahwa orang yang beragama adalah orang miskin. Disitulah terjadi salah persepsi. Karena ketika kita mendapat musibah, masalah atau kesulitan terkadang kita selalu melampiaskan atau mengatas namakan tuhan sebagai “pemberi cobaan” atas musibah yang kita hadapi. Mereka berdoa, memohon dan mengadukan semua masalah yang terjadi kepada tuhannya. Itu adalah suatu yang wajar dilakukan bagi seorang umat beragama.

            Sebagai seorang muslim, saya mempercayai agama saya dan tak sedikit pun meragukan agama yang saya anut sekarang. Walau pada dasarnya semua agama itu baik, tetapi bagi saya, saya tetap berpegang teguh pada agama saya yaitu Islam. Saya mempercayai tuhan saya salah satunya dengan menjalankan shalat lima waktu sebagai tiang agama dalam kepercayaan saya, tak hanya shalat saya juga melakukan puasa, zakat, pergi haji, dll. Saya mempercayai tuhan saya dihati saya yang saya yakini bisa menjadi pegangan baik dalam saya susah maupun senang. Saya tidak pernah menggambarkan tuhan saya dengan sesuatu apapun, walaupun sempat terbesit dalam hati saya mengenai sosok tuhan saya itu sendiri. Tetapi saya percaya akan adanya tuhan, karena semua manusia dan alam jagad raya ini nantinya akan kembali ke padaNya.

Technology to Teach Thinking Skills By Desri Fitriana (Journal 5)

Actually as a teacher a little bit hard to teach thinking skill to our students. Because to develop students’ thinking skill we as a teacher should prepare learning activities and technology tools to supports their thinking skill. When we applied learning activities to our students, we should consider about students’ cognitive itself. Better if we as a teacher applied activities which consist of cognitive skill (the students should think) and also movements. So, it likes discussion, jigsaw, micro-teaching and role-play, etc. Those activities can encourage our students to do cognitive skill and also movements. As a student in SSE, I have felt that those activities have a good impact for me to develop my thinking skill, because I not only know about the subject itself but I also have known about how I implement that subject in the real life.

            Actually when our students acquire the lesson we should consider how are they remember it, whether it is short term or long term. Better if we make our lesson to long term memory in their concept. Basically, students more remember about something which meaningful to them rather than visual or auditory. So that is why Bloom made a Bloom’s Taxonomy about students’ steps acquires the lesson.

            In SSE sometimes we called Low Order Thinking Skill (LOTS) and High Order Thinking Skill (HOTS) for represent Bloom’s Taxonomy. LOTS it likes a recall, memorizing, explaining and etc. HOTS more higher than LOTS, because in HOTS we expected to apply our knowledge, combining ideas and develop our knowledge. So that is why in SSE we focused on HOTS approach. Unfortunately, most of senior high school tends to used LOTS for their examination, not HOTS. The types of questions in Senior High School focused on remembering not applying.

Sharing Session After School Experience Program (5th Journal PETA) By Desri Fitriana

The last meeting with Miss Ine we just shared our experienced when we had School Experience last week. We divided into four groups, so we shared our experienced into our group. We discussed about what you applied an effective teaching in the class when we taught in School Experienced Program? What the issues? Most of all my friends told me that they had applied an effective teaching when they taught, maybe for the way sometimes everybody had a different ways. So, for myself, I also applied an effective teaching in my class with used lecturer-discussion method for Analytical Exposition topic. So, for the first time when I taught, I reviewed the previous lesson to tested their comprehension. And then, I explained the material for today with short explanation, not detail. So, for the next I asked to my students about the topic itself. I also applied games for made our taught more active.

Actually our students very excited when we taught them. Because their teacher who our master teacher also, taught them with different way. So, when we taught with games and role play they really excited. But we also had problems like technology issues, time management and students’ capabilities. In the first time when my team taught we already planned to used power point slide. But unfortunately, the projector did not work. So, can you imagine in the first time when we taught we had a problem with technic like projector, how panic we were? But we should do oral presentation without power point slide.

Not only with technology, but actually our big problem is students ‘capabilities in English itself. Before we taught our master teacher suggested to did not spoke fully English. So, when we taught in the class we spoke bilingual. But unfortunately, when we spoke in English, sometimes some of students did not understand what we said to them, so we should translate into Bahasa. Yeah, we translate into Bahasa. We only spoke English approximate 50% in the class, not fully. Wow, it really was challenging :).

Technology to Teach Writing (4th Journal TLL) By Desri Fitriana

Nowadays, the way to teach writing is various. Based on my experienced when I have been studying in SSE is very many ways to teach writing. Especially in the third semester, I think most of subjects emphasized in writing. So, the students should have written reflective paper every week approximate for four subjects. In reflective paper itself, focus on the writer. So, it is consist of writers’ expression, opinion or suggestion.

Raimes (1991) identified four different focuses in second language writing, such as: Focus on form, Focus on the writer, Focus on the content and Focus on the reader. In my opinion, as a generation of teachers it is better if we combined all of those things. Because, when we do writing not only focus on form itself. Sometimes if we talk about writing, some of people think that writing should have good and grammatical sentences and no grammatical error. I do not really agree! But remember, for the first time when we learnt about writing, in my opinion it is better we should be start from recount text. In the recount text our students can be express what their feel into writing. For example, they can be able to write based on their experiences, like holiday, working or unforgettable moments. So, I think it is easier to make our students writing than they should only focus on grammar.

Because like I did, wrote reflective paper itself can be drill our capabilities, like how make a good sentences, how to make grammatical structure itself. Step by step it makes our knowledge about forms are good, especially when our teacher give feedback to us. It is more make me know clearly what our mistakes when we make mistakes. So, let’s try to write your reflective paper guys J.

Personal Identity among Others (3rd Journal Humanistic) By Desri Fitriana

Actually my parents came from Java Island, Cirebon. But, I was born and have lived in Jakarta since I was born. So, I have never known about Javanese, especially the languages. Can imagine I only came to Cirebon very rare, only if I have special events. As a Jakarta people I always use Bahasa Indonesia for my communication, unfortunately I do not understand about Javanese languages, even for daily communication, I do not know.

Sometimes I felt that my identity is bias, because when my friends has an original ethnic or region, and they were know about their ethnic, can speak fluently into that languages, but for me is NOT, I cannot do it.  I think how proud you are. In my case, I never got Javanese languages from my parents, my environments and my friends. Actually I do not interested to try learn about that languages, because for me Javanese more difficult than English, hehe :p.

So, sometimes when the others ask to me “Where do you came from?”. Sometimes I confused to answer that question. When I said I came from Javanese, it is impossible, because I do not speak Javanese. So, I always answer that I came from Jakarta; even my family does not Betawi ethnic. I said like that, because I lived in Jakarta since I was born. So, until now I always confused when my friends ask to me like that. So, that is why I called my ethnic is bias.