It's the national teacher's day here in Indonesia, which is commemorated on the same day as the formation of the Indonesian Teachers' Association, the PGRI. That means, (most) schools all around the nation would actually have their teachers to be treated right for once in a while.
"I can finally eat three meals a day today!"
As for me, I find that having a ceremonial activity to dedicate our appreciation for teachers just for this one day is a weird thing to do. Now, don't get me wrong, I respect teachers a lot. And even though there are some of them who are incapable of doing their work properly, to the point that they were actually some bat-shit perverts in disguise, having one day dedicated solely for their existence is actually a good idea.
However, I can't shake this dark thought that despite of all that praise for teachers flying around the whole day, things will just go back to the same as it was before; Most of them would return to their work the next day as underpaid, unappreciated heroes who personally help build the entire society that we have today.
The smile is only for yearbooks
Here in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, a lot of teachers are so underpaid that they won't be able to support their families, and sometimes themselves, if they don't find something else to increase their income. This condition also applies to teachers in most countries, even in England and the good ol' 'Murica.
The ones outside of Java have it even worse, with a monthly salary even a lot lower than my previous job could offer. And I won't even talk about the ineffective curriculum that we have today, because then I would have to talk about politics again. And I've said this a lot of times before: I hate my country's politics.
Pictured above: My country's politics in a nutshell
As for this year, Indonesia's educational attainment is ranked at the very bottom worldwide. We're right there along with Brazil and Mexico, where a lot of people are saying that the education there are bad enough. I'm not an education oriented person, and I might never will be because I never liked studying at school anyway, but this is really sad.
But there are still great teachers out there here in Indonesia, which would also fall into the category as one of those smart people I've mentioned before. My teacher in Junior-High taught me that copying is fine, as long as you can make something new out of it. In my third year during Senior-High, one of them was so strict about her grading, but she's making sure that we won't be surprised about the even more unfair grading we would experience in college later.
If only she taught us about the insanity that we would experience
The most notable ones in my entire education life would be my advisor lecturer who is not only a bright person, he's also one of the few in my campus who is totally dedicated for education as a whole and is actually concerned about the student's welfare. Hell, I've never met anyone outside of my friends and family who would send a happy birthday message to me and the rest of his students, every year. I guess his unofficial title as "the most favorite lecturer ever" given by the students is not just for show.
Nobody would want to be a teacher if they desire the salary, it would be a very bad news for them that they would quit pursuing that goal. But then again, in countries like Germany where the teachers are actually overpaid, their education is still inefficient when compared to other countries.
The one thing that would make anyone decide to be a teacher is their idealism. If they truly desire to actually help transforming younger generations from shitty annoying brats into extraordinary educated gentlemen, they could become a great teacher in any condition.
Not the one that I had in mind, but that'll do
In my opinion, our current goverment has been going on the right path by focusing on the infrastructure of our country, that is pretty much a big pile of rotten shit for the past decades. Here's hoping that once they're done with that, they would focus on the education to make sure that we get more happy high-quality teachers and students.
Cheers for the National Teacher's Day.
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