In any case, education must continue because it is not only related to the future of the nation’s next generation, but also mankind. Especially if we all agree that in the history of human life, education in its various forms is a social engineering by which various human intelligences are honed so that they are able to become caliphs in their lives on earth. Therefore, we should be grateful to the founders of this country who collectively agreed to make education one of the ideals of independence. Moreover, based on a far-sighted vision, in the preamble to the constitution it is emphasized that the intellectual life of the nation is the goal of this nation’s existence. Consequently, whatever the obstacles, including the Covid-19 pandemic, education must go on.
The question is, why is there a commotion and pros and cons about whether schools will start at the beginning of the next academic year or not? One party firmly and enthusiastically stated that schools should be opened on time to avoid falling behind in subjects. Others, arguing for the safety of students, argued that the opening of schools should be postponed. In fact, this party strengthened its refusal with a strong statement that opening a school was the same as feeding our children to the Corona Ghosts who had not yet returned home.
If we look closely, the two contradictory thoughts both depart from the Old Normal Paradigm which tends to reduce the meaning of education to an administrative context, namely the administration of regular schools. If that meaning is used as an argument, then the absence of students in the school building will of course stop learning, on the contrary, the presence of students in the school complex is the same as giving them the opportunity to transmit the corona virus. Be Simalakama Fruit, eaten by father and not eaten by mother. In fact, as Fasli Jalal often said, the essence of education is learning is not just schooling.The school itself as an educational institution has many formats and all of them have been held in Indonesia. It’s just that, many of us view that only regular schools are actually education, while others are just schools for joy, onions, or even complements for sufferers.
Study from Home: Preparation for the New Normal
Since the Minister of Education and Culture issued a circular on Study from Home (SFH) last March 2020, it has been almost three months for our children to learn from home to avoid the Covid-19 outbreak. Did they all pretend to study all that time? Have teachers, lecturers, principals, and other officials and education staff laze around or contemplate confinement in their respective homes? Is SFH just a temporary measure to cover up the government’s inability to run schools as usual? These are all stupid questions because we hope that tomorrow we will be back like yesterday when we lived in the Old Normal era. Positive and wise questions should be based on the spirit of entering the New Normal eranamely; What lessons can we learn from SFH to be used as a modality to enter the New Normal era ? What paradigms and practices of education in the Old Normal era should we abandon? What will tomorrow’s “school” plan look like?
In fact, the disaster is a crisis because it happened suddenly without warning and as stated in other writings has brought revelations of change. Therefore, none of the stakeholders are ready, prepared, and prepared to deal with it so that the implementation of SFH still has many shortcomings here and there. However, if we think positively, we can learn many valuable lessons. There are also many schooling practices in terms of learning modes that we previously rejected such as distance learning, home schooling, school exams and the like, as long as we apply SFH. It is no exaggeration if SFH has returned education to its essential essence, namely learning.
What is also encouraging is that during SFH, many practitioners and education stakeholders took the initiative and demonstrated their hidden skills as potential, including teachers who are on the front line. On the Guru Sharing portal, which was initiated by the Ministry of Education and Culture when entering the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of online learning implementation plans (RPP) have been distributed by teachers and have been downloaded by 200 thousand users within 2 months effective from all school levels.
Not a few schools that implement Information Technology-based learning which were previously avoided because they felt they did not have sufficient support in terms of costs, facilities and teacher competence. Many parents who previously entrusted most of the responsibility for their children’s education to teachers and schools are now accepting them back. Many of them are aware of the two important essences of education, namely how heavy the task of teachers and schools is, and they are actually the most interested and responsible in education for the future of their children.
Mental Revolution: Building Free Learning
All the best experiences from implementing SFH should not be wasted because it’s a dream to return to your old home. It must be realized that the disasters now experienced by mankind throughout the face of the earth will make tomorrow never be the same as yesterday. Only one way ticket is available. With that awareness, the best experiences during SFH should be used as lessons, then enriched and strengthened to be packaged into new strategies for new home education. For this reason, a mental revolution is needed, which since Jokowi’s declaration six years ago has not been clearly carried out by education stakeholders at all lines, levels and regions.
Now is the time for students to free themselves to seek the knowledge they need according to their interests, abilities and aspirations based on independent learning. Parents of students strengthen their position as the main owners of children including their future. For this reason, they must work hand in hand with school principals and teachers in managing schools and learning. It’s time for teachers to become real teachers who learn and teach themselves and their students. School management proactively implements school-based management to build an independent campus by making the community the quality controller. The central government changed the meaning of the regulator’s function from determining, regulating and controlling to empowering, supervising and fostering private universities. Regional government, strengthen himself as a policy maker and designer of the education system in accordance with the distinctive characteristics of the region. Thus, local governments together with other education stakeholders take the initiative to play a major role in determining when schools start. In addition, it determines the choices of learning modes, including the possibility of applying themblended learning that combines online-based SFH with face-to-face turns in schools to achieve educational goals while still complying with health protocols.
In closing, once again reminding that the Covid-19 Pandemic brings a revelation of change that demands a mental revolution for all humans on earth, especially the Indonesian people, more specifically education stakeholders. It is less normal if new normal is managed by old normal . Just: Are you ready? Will you? Can you? Sincerely? We all have to answer it!