When I read at class, my classmates were looking at me with that pity look like I had stage 4 some unrecoverable measles or whatever. I mean excuse me I had so much fun here!
I go to one of favourite high school in one of big city in Indonesia. We have a proper library, the one you can really call it library. They have many good books, they have a set of Harry Potter series, and that's so cool! They have some Lord of The Ring series, some Dan Brown’s, Sherlock Holmes series, Artemis Fowl series, sets of The Hunger Games, sets of Twilight, sets of Narnia, Inheritance Cycle series, many Tere Liye’s, A. Fuadi’s, Adrea Hirta’s, Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s, Dee Lestari’s, Rick Riordan’s, even 3 copies of The Casual Fancancy. You name it all bestseller books. At least they have got one book from bestselling series to trigger us to read the rest. It did to me with City of Bones.
Looking for non-fic? Sure, they got tons. Besteller self-help and personal-development books, encyclopedias, biographies, and you don't want me to list them down here.
But how many student actually read all those books? I barely have someone to talk to about books in school and once time I told bookish joke about Percy and dinamic fluide, no one got it. Okay that’s not valid indicator. But hey I've got English teacher that can't be talk to about To Kill a Mockingbird and Bahasa teacher that can't be talked to about Tetralogi Pulau Buru. It makes me really sad. When we watched 'Hafalan Sholat Delisa' during Bahasa Indonesia class they questioned and joked about how no one seemed bother to get to Delisa on tsunami scene, I mean if the film was that funny why don’t you see how it actually goes in the book, don’t judge its story based on film (especially when it comes to PJO series, really) and our literature club.. I don't even know it has actually ever existed.
There are facilites and of course, they can afford books. I'm not gonna talk how they spent like millions rupiah on that I-dont-know-what-so-special-really school shoes. Not like our other unlucky fellow friends whom comunities like Buku Berjalan and Books for Mountain be oriented to.
So, why do my friends and other million lucky Indonesia teenagers not read even when books are everywhere near them?
First, because it's no obligation. School does not get us to leisure read, they do not give us time to do that. People think other books than textbook is useless because it has nothing to do with SNMPTN or SBMPTN while reading textbook alone is awesomely boring and terrifying. "Another 1200 pages of the Harry Potter Order of Phoenix? No thanks", they answered while imagining it tortures them into pieces (though it really does in some other way).
Right, in Kurikulum 2013 there are many works getting us to read a lot of books. In 1st year, for Bahasa Indonesia class, we're supposed to read like 6 books in total. But the implementations
are just so wrong really. You drink that polyjuice and become one of us for a day and it's a total mess here.
I, as student, can’t really do anything about it. It's about birocration, though I'm not really sure what does it actually mean. It's adultish things where we are not allowed to even glance at. And I’m not planning to glance though because it makes my eyes hurt and it already sucks, really bad.
So I'll just focus on thing I can and are allowed to do.
Second one; because it is not cool, they simply think. Somehow, teenagers will do anything non-obligatory as long as it is cool.
Why did you go to school driving a car? It is cool man.
Why didn't you go to school taking a trans bus so you can help ease traffic jam and reduce CO emissions? It is not cool man.
Okay then, LET'S MAKE IT COOL!
Let's make reading looks so dang cool because it really is.
Let's show them it's so much fun drowning into every single pages of cool book.
Let's show them it's so cool going to costume party as fictional character from books!
Yes, I like reading.
And, yes, that does make me cool.
Thanks for noticing.
Looking for non-fic? Sure, they got tons. Besteller self-help and personal-development books, encyclopedias, biographies, and you don't want me to list them down here.
But how many student actually read all those books? I barely have someone to talk to about books in school and once time I told bookish joke about Percy and dinamic fluide, no one got it. Okay that’s not valid indicator. But hey I've got English teacher that can't be talk to about To Kill a Mockingbird and Bahasa teacher that can't be talked to about Tetralogi Pulau Buru. It makes me really sad. When we watched 'Hafalan Sholat Delisa' during Bahasa Indonesia class they questioned and joked about how no one seemed bother to get to Delisa on tsunami scene, I mean if the film was that funny why don’t you see how it actually goes in the book, don’t judge its story based on film (especially when it comes to PJO series, really) and our literature club.. I don't even know it has actually ever existed.
There are facilites and of course, they can afford books. I'm not gonna talk how they spent like millions rupiah on that I-dont-know-what-so-special-really school shoes. Not like our other unlucky fellow friends whom comunities like Buku Berjalan and Books for Mountain be oriented to.
So, why do my friends and other million lucky Indonesia teenagers not read even when books are everywhere near them?
First, because it's no obligation. School does not get us to leisure read, they do not give us time to do that. People think other books than textbook is useless because it has nothing to do with SNMPTN or SBMPTN while reading textbook alone is awesomely boring and terrifying. "Another 1200 pages of the Harry Potter Order of Phoenix? No thanks", they answered while imagining it tortures them into pieces (though it really does in some other way).
Right, in Kurikulum 2013 there are many works getting us to read a lot of books. In 1st year, for Bahasa Indonesia class, we're supposed to read like 6 books in total. But the implementations
are just so wrong really. You drink that polyjuice and become one of us for a day and it's a total mess here.
I, as student, can’t really do anything about it. It's about birocration, though I'm not really sure what does it actually mean. It's adultish things where we are not allowed to even glance at. And I’m not planning to glance though because it makes my eyes hurt and it already sucks, really bad.
So I'll just focus on thing I can and are allowed to do.
Second one; because it is not cool, they simply think. Somehow, teenagers will do anything non-obligatory as long as it is cool.
Why did you go to school driving a car? It is cool man.
Why didn't you go to school taking a trans bus so you can help ease traffic jam and reduce CO emissions? It is not cool man.
Okay then, LET'S MAKE IT COOL!
Let's make reading looks so dang cool because it really is.
Let's show them it's so much fun drowning into every single pages of cool book.
Let's show them it's so cool going to costume party as fictional character from books!
Yes, I like reading.
And, yes, that does make me cool.
Thanks for noticing.
She-Who-Do-Not-Want-To-Be-Named
A.k.a. You-Do-Not-Know-Who. No, she wasn't called Tom when she was little.
A.k.a. You-Do-Not-Know-Who. No, she wasn't called Tom when she was little.
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