It was a transformation.

Refina Anjani (INA YES to USA YP 17–18)

It’s Not Only about Dances and Traditional Costumes. It’s about Core Principle.

I was scrolling down some of the chats in YES 17–18 groups about the difference between American highschoolers knowledge and ours. Clearly, lots of people agreed that we have a harder curriculum with intense exams to face, thus making us superior.

But the case was not that simple at all.

Before I arrived in the US, I felt “American” enough. I got the “award” of the most libertarian-inclined person in the Jakarta National Orientation. I was a debater and quite vocal in class. I liked to express my opinions. My teachers in school considered me as one of the most “un-polite” students in school, just because when they taught me about creationism or the 1965 massacre, I shot them with questions that shouldn’t be asked by a good straight As Indonesian highschooler. Indonesians crème de la crème students must obey the rules, respect the teacher (which means, in most cases, do not question what the teacher says), polite, soft-spoken, and diligent. And I’m none of those things so I thought I can fit in easily in American classroom environment.

I signed up for World Issues classes and thought I would learn so many things. I do and it’s not only about the Dixie Flag or gun control policy assessment in the US. I realized that my peers were confident in answering the teachers’ questions even though they did not necessarily provide correct answers. In an American education system, answering and asking questions simply mean that you show curiosity and engagement in classes. I know a girl in class that could tell us about how her day went for solid-straight 15 minutes and then she would make a connection between her story and what we’ve talked about. Her sayings mostly had no significant points, but the new thing that I discovered is the teacher didn’t seem to mind. They can spill their guts, as long as it has some kind of connection to the topic. From there, the teacher will guide us and help us figure out which reasoning was wrong. I was overwhelmed. I knew some of their reasonings were bad, full of fallacies, but I didn’t have the courage to throw my hand up in the air. I know I will make some mistakes, that would be an embarassment yada-yada-yada so I ended up spent the whole period sitting and listening.I didn’t brave enough to make the mistakes.

Not only that, I have a Brahmins-Indian double placement host brother that used to be the center of attention and actually enjoy it very much. He would go on and on about his holidays in Switzerland or his achievements at international science competitions. I, as Indonesian born-and-raised, wouldn’t dare to interrupt because it’s just not something that I grew up into.

I was pretty much stuck.

Then I had enough and started to “brag” about myself, thing that totally will be seen as a symbol of arrogant in Indonesia. I try to slide in between conversations and answering some questions in classes. I even actively joined the discussion about the comparison of National Healthcare System between several countries in the world.

It was a transformation.

I firmly believe Indonesians are no better than the Americans, neither the opposite. They just grew in an environment where mistakes are allowed. They don’t have to be perfect everytime, they just need to show enough curiousity and that’s how learning should be conducted. Through enough curiousity, engagement, and of course encouragement from the teachers, not punishments and only-the-results’-matters mentality. Students must shows the ability to immerse themselves in fruitful discussion, thus makes their social skills improved. Because they’re not afraid of mistakes, they will get more curious and try to improve their skills themselves! Without any pressure. Their intentions of learning the lessons are sincere. Through improvement over the years, comes innovation. That’s the key point right there, innovation.

It’s interesting how little things like this affect our behaviours, the pressure to always be perfect, to calculate my actions, to prepare, are always taught by mom since I was very young. It’s the core principle of Indonesian society, “Diam adalah emas” or “Quiet is gold” and it clearly is not. By being a passive scholar, you would just passively acknowledge the topic, you’re not immersing in it. Learning how to make mistakes change my perspective about learning process a lot. I feel it’s my first time in my whole life where I can truly know the essence of “learning”.

Of course all those skycrapers and nice highways also makes me excited, but the Americans’ ability to express their thought whether in the academic field or just casual everyday babbling is just amazing.

Turns out, there’s not only traditional costumes and dances that differentiate us from the Americans.