Calvin, Journalism, and Some Personal Stuff

 

I am a journalist. I write. Almost everythings. From coffee, conflict, clashes, and celebrities to human rights, religion, discrimination, and pluralism.

But, there’s a saying. Never wrote about your personal stuffs. I say, amen.

So what’s this all about? Well, I think I’m going to write some personal stuffs.

Not that personal, off course. It’s about journalism club, where I found myself teaching there. It’s Calvin School.

It began around 9 months ago. February, I think. It’s started with a little controversy. The numbers didn’t met the minimum requirement for an ekskul. It says 10, but the club just has 5 members. But a little flexibility are given. The headmistress see the importance of journalism for students.

And so it goes. I’m not a professional teacher. So there’s a lot up and down. But we’ve made it through the whole semester.

The most important thing came in my mind was this: what I’m trying to do with this club? What is my vision?

Still rough, but I concluded into 2 things. First, make a group of youth who cares about the world the lived in, open and broad minded, has a sensitivity towards others or in simpler terms: Reformed and Renaissance man.

Second, make them to try, learn, and love writing. Kinds of writing. More practical things.

And I believe, we should read this two conclusion with a word “try” 🙂

And so, I asked myself: what should I to to achieve these two goals? I tried to remember journalism class I had for 3 years. What’s do and don’t.

And so I believe every sessions should begin with discussing current issues in our world, national or international. And for doing this, students are required to read some news and shared it. This I learn from Tede Asmadi, my lecturer. Once a Kompas journalist and now a language scholar.

The purpose is, the student learn to read newspaper. They need encouragement to do it. If there’s 5 students so we got 5 news. I also try to presenting some news in more in-depth eksploration. And thanks God, the response are quite positive. We discuss about Century, political party, law, demonstration and stuff like that.

After more than 30 minutes of discussion. I move on to teaching material. What is journalism, what is news, kinds of news, how to write hardnews, softnews, opinion, interview, journalism ethics. We also learn about 9 elemen journalism.

And there an assignment to make a writing. Practice makes perfect. Almost every weeks, students has to make a writing.

I also intoduce them to a great people and great books. Sindhunata, Pramodya Ananta Toer, Ester Jusuf, Yap Thiam Hien etc.

We also watch movies about journalism. But it’s still in progress. Trying to find that kind of movies with indonesian subtitle are quite difficult. Time also count.

We have Jalan Jalan Jurnalistik or JJJ. The point is to introduce them to real world. To give them experience. Pesta Buku Jakarta was our first destination. Istana Negara is next. Students also expected to make a writing about the place they visited.

And inspiration comes from Freedom Writer. I ask them to make a journal. They have to write. Anything. Just write. And I must admited, their journal are nice. Off course not all, but I’m happily to say most of them.

And what I love the most, when the material are more to discussion than one-way teaching. We sit in nearby park. Beautiful, windy, and natural. There, we can have more nice discussion. I’m hoping to be able to do this in Suropati Park 🙂

Now, it’s our second semester. We have more than 20 members, although the average attandance is around 10-13 person. It diverged from 2nd junior highschool to 2nd senior highschool.

The discussions part are the most interesting part. Recently we talk about Nobel Prize winner, Liu Xiao Bo, Chile’s miraculous rescue, Sindhunata’s masterpiece, HKBP and Ahmadiya cases. The discussion are lively, sometimes too messy. Kids 🙂

Writing assignments are the hardest part. Sometimes they don’t finished their job.
But the journal are quite okay. I can see the interest about current issues are slowly but sure gaining its place.

Some are motivated by our discussion and dig more by themselves. I gave the trustable references. And it’s nice to know they read it on their own.

The club isn’t one year old yet. It’s still a baby. It’s still crawling and learn to walk. There’s a lot of weakness need to be taken care.

But nonetheless, I believe there’s a hope. To be better. To achieve the goals. At least, like Pram’s said. Writing is a work for eternity. And I believe, what we’ve done, will be last for the rest of our life, if not eternity.

 

 

I shared another post and photos about Calvin, in case your quite interested. Feel free to read it and give some advice. Thanks!