HUMANISTIC 3: Understanding Multiple Intellegence

We live among the people not just as a single identity. For instance, to parents I am their daughter who has to make them proud; being good kid or help them every day. To sisters I am the oldest who have to be their good model. To teachers I am their student who has to not being stupid. To lover probably you are his/her lover who should give them fun love-life. To school organization I am the leader who has to lead them. Those statuses are live inside us. Indisputable, in certain time, those statues can mix up and causes confusion or even problems. Moreover we live with other people who also have multiple identities.

Reflect to myself, I should not forget my identity as a Javanese when I live at Jakarta where many cultures are here. Hence, I often show my specific character as Javanese, which is medok (speak in strong java accent). My friends like to tease me, they repeat my words like what I said, and even they exaggerate it. To be honest, I sometimes hate it. It sounds like they mock at me. But, I ask to myself back then. I also like teasing my Sudanese friends by saying p when they misspell f.

We can’t deny it if we still like to judge and mock them by their look. We hardly see the other identities they have. It should not be like that, we should not see on one side.  Like maybe we can have different ethnic, but at least we are the same as Indonesian, or the same as Muslim, or the same as student. In certain way we are different, but in other way we are the same. So, I think respect is important in order to avoid hatred among others.

However before we respect others, we need to respect our own identities first. We have to be responsible to each identity we have and keep it balance. When one of our identity get problem, we have other identities that may help. For example, parents got angry with me because I don’t help them at home, but as a student I can show them that I can get the first rank. Then, my parents will not angry again to me. However, keep our identities balance is not easy. For some people maybe they find something harder than this. Personally, I never have a big problem of my identities, because I live in place where I also find many people with the same identities.

Thereby, we should stop judging people based on their one identity without looking them as a complex one. Then, if we already know it, we still suppose not to judge them. Rather than judge, it is worth it more when we can respect each other. Because, like what Harper Lee said in her book, To Kill a Mocking bird,  “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it”.

Humanistic Week 2: My Name; A pray, An Identity.

          Name is a very important thing that all creatures in this world should have. As you see, there are many things different around us. A name will help much to recognize each of it. Like what written in Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami; “Kawamura is just name. I’ll call you. It doesn’t mean anything. Nakata gives name to each cat, so it’s easy to remember”  

However, my parents didn’t particularly means gave me name in reason so it’s easy to be remembered by other people. There’s a mixture of hope and pray in my name. A pray which always go with me wherever I am. Well, call me Risma, Harismaning Aulia in complete. So, here is what on my name.

“Pernah suatu hari adikku bertanya kenapa ia dan aku tidak ada yang diberi nama ‘putri’, padahal kami semua perempuan. Lalu ibuku menjawab, jelas-jelas kamu perempuan, buat apa kasih kamu nama putri!”

“Buat Mama dan Papa, nama itu bukan sekadar label perempuan atau laki-laki, bukan sekadar tanda kamu lahir di bulan apa, bukan petunjuk kamu itu anak keberapa. Nama-namamu itu adalah doa dari Mama Papa yang akan selalu melekat pada kalian sampai kapanpun”

“Harismaning Aulia, kamu tahu betapa indah namamu itu? Kharismanya orang-orang yang dekat dengan Allah! Mama Papa ingin dimanapun kamu, selalu memancarkan kharismamu. Orang-orang akan terpana, bukan hanya karena kamu cantik, tapi karena kamu memang punya kharisma. Dan, Mama Papa juga ingin kamu menjadi salah seorang yang dekat dengan Allah, seperti Auliya’, para wali. Kamu bisa menjadi orang seperti mereka; yang baik hatinya, baik sikapnya, dimuliakan kedudukannya, pintar, dan sholehah”

“Ingat Tegar? Anak yang kakinya dilindas kereta api karena perbuatan bapaknya sendiri? Salah sendiri kasih nama Tegar. Makanya dikasih cobaan berat sama Allah biar dia bisa tegar, seperti namanya. Atau Virginia, istri saiful jamil? Tuh kan dia meninggal setelah nggak perawan lagi, lagi-lagi seperti namanya. Mama dan papa kasih nama kamu itu nggak main-main. Bukan nama yang ecek-ecek, namamu itu berkualitas. Punya arti yang bagus banget. Itu doa mama papa untuk Risma yang nggak akan pernah berhenti”

“Apakah doa itu sudah terkabul, anakku?” Ibu tersenyum dan aku hanya menyeringai sambil berkata, “Amiin”.

First I was born, my mom wanted to give me name, Kharisma. But, my grandpa said that there’s a myth in Javanese culture that it’s forbidden gives a first kid name begin with K. If that so, the kid will have a bad luck in the rest of his/her life. That’s why; my name is Harisma not Kharisma. The most important point is, it has nothing to do with ‘maning’ which means ‘lagi’ in Java, because ‘ning’ is stands for ‘nya’ . So, it’s Harisma-ning Aulia. Not Haris-maning Aulia!.

You can recognize the identity I bring, Javanese and Muslim. I’m proud of it all! Don’t want to change a thing. Because since I was child, my mother always keeps telling me that I’ve such a very beautiful name and I believe that. I'll be a person like my name. But somehow, I'm still learning to be a person like my name. Thanks mom and dad for the beautiful name. Harismaning Aulia

Humanistic Study: Introduction #Week1

What I like of being a SSE student is this. We, as an English teacher candidates do not only study about English itself but also learn how someday we can deal with the real situation in teaching and learning. It’s very important subject to be studied, indeed. 

As a teacher we’re going to teach students with many characters, backgrounds, cultures, and religions they bring. From the first session, I learned that humanistic studied how individual have freedom to express what they feel. We have to admit that there will be so many differences on it. This is one of the reasons why we have to learn humanistic. It’s not easy to blend the differences into one that can be expected. It’s also hard to piece together our point of view towards other. It shows us why it happened to war in this world. Sometimes, it’s not take place because of big thing, but more likely because of small thing, for example, hatred of other culture, hatred of other religion. What we feel can cause war, if we can’t handle the differences around us.

I expect by this course, I can deal with those differences and blend them into peace. Regarding as a teacher, I have an important role to be getting on with. I have to make the differences among my students next is not sort of a big deal. I want to know how to behave towards other culture and religion. We have to respect towards other and teach our students to do it so. In this course, we will learn more on culture and religion. This is also the most crucial things we have to respect towards other. If we don’t carefully pay attention to it, we can offend other people. Some little jokes can cause disunity. It’s still fresh in our mind, how religion can cause a massive massacre in Poso. So, it’s very important to study about humanistic for the sake of our future as a teacher. Besides, I hope my lecturer can give some issues and new knowledge we have to think about to deeper our understanding in humanistic. Discussion and debate would be very interesting to sharpen our critical thinking.

Speaking of which, I am as an individual still need to learn how to respect other. I can respect towards other people. But I can’t lie; in my mind I have so many though about it. About what I have read, watch, and listen about them. I can’t completely remove several influences from what people said that someday may change my perspective to others. So, I hope by joining this class, I can know what should I do or what should I behave towards others appropriately. 

And, not to forget, make peace with other people.