Kemarin saya diundang ke kelas Success Academy. Salah 1 pesertanya anak saya sendiri. Jadi saya datang sebagai narasumber, tapi duduk sebagai orang tua yang deg-degan.
Ada 1 kebiasaan kecil di kelas itu yang membuat saya terdiam. Anak-anak bergiliran bertanya, dan setiap kali giliran tiba pada 1 anak, seisi ruangan menoleh dan bilang, “We support you. “ Baru setelah itu si anak bicara. Tidak ada yang ketawa. Tidak ada yang berbisik. Pertanyaan sepolos apa pun diterima dengan kalimat yang sama.
Saya pun bercerita kepada mereka, ketika saya di kelas 4. Waktu itu saya baru pindah ke Jakarta dari Surabaya, dan saya anak yang paling sering tunjuk tangan. Ada pertanyaan sedikit, tunjuk tangan. Belum paham, tunjuk tangan. Teman-teman ketawa, dan suatu hari guru saya bilang, sudah, jangan tunjuk tangan terus. 😳 Saya kaget. 🥹 Saya turunkan tangan, dan sejak hari itu saya berhenti bertanya. Saya jadi anak biasa, duduk, diam, mengerjakan tugas, pulang. Bertahun-tahun.🤮
Guru saya waktu itu mungkin capek. Orang dewasa bisa capek dan salah bicara, saya pun pernah salah bicara pada anak saya. Tapi anak kelas 4 belum tahu itu, jadi saya percaya tangan saya memang harus turun.Waktu SMP, 2 guru mengubah arah itu. 👆Yang pertama guru matematika saya. Suatu hari saya memberanikan diri bertanya. Ia tidak ketawa, ia malah memuji saya karena bertanya. Saya bertanya lagi, dan lagi. Karena bertanya terus, nilai matematika saya jadi bagus terus.
Pelan-pelan tangan saya naik lagi. ✌️Yang kedua guru tenis meja. Ia tidak mengajari pukulan keren. Ia menyuruh saya mengulang 1 pukulan yang sama setiap hari, membosankan sekali, sampai saya hampir berhenti. 2 tahun kemudian saya juara. Bukan karena pukulan keren, tapi karena pukulan membosankan yang diulang ribuan kali.👷 Waktu SMA, keluarga kami pindah ke Jakarta dan saya kesepian. Ada 1 teman yang awalnya suka menggoda saya.
Lama-lama kami belajar bareng dan pulang bareng, dan dari situ saya belajar bahwa bertanya tidak harus kepada guru. Kami saling bertanya. Kalau berdua tidak bisa menjawab, kami bertanya kepada ayahnya, yang kebetulan guru les. Bertanya jadi kebiasaan, bukan lagi keberanian.
Dari situ saya tahu rahasianya cuma 2. 👆Bertanya, dan ✌️latihan yang membosankan. Tidak ada yang ketiga.
Sampai sekarang pekerjaan saya sebagai arsitek masih sama, bertanya kepada orang yang mau punya rumah, bertanya kepada tukang, lalu menggambar, salah, dan menggambar lagi. Pertanyaan anak-anak kemarin sederhana, dan justru karena itu susah dijawab. 🥹 👆Sukses itu apa. ✌️Kenapa harus baca buku. 🤘Bagaimana membagi waktu. 👋 Bagaimana caranya konsisten. Saya punya 1 jawaban untuk semuanya. Konsisten itu bukan soal disiplin. Konsisten itu akibat dari tahu untuk apa kamu ada di sini.
“Why am I here ? “ Kalau jawabannya jelas, 👆fokus datang sendiri, dan ✌️waktu seperti membagi dirinya sendiri. 🤘Orang yang kesulitan membagi waktu biasanya bukan kekurangan jam, tapi belum tahu mana yang penting. Setelah bisa, 👋jadilah orang baik yang membantu. Kepada anak-anak saya menjelaskannya dengan hitungan paling sederhana, kasih 2 dapat 2, kasih 5 dapat 5. Mereka mengangguk, karena untuk anak kelas 4 itu masuk akal.
Yang belum perlu mereka tahu sekarang, dan akan mereka temukan sendiri nanti, adalah bahwa yang kembali hampir selalu lebih banyak dari yang diberi, dan datangnya dari arah yang tidak pernah kita hitung.🙏
Yang paling saya kagumi dari kelas itu bukan materinya, tapi Coach Indri. Ia tidak mengajar anak-anak tentang sukses. Ia membangun ruangan tempat anak berani salah di depan teman-temannya. Guru matematika saya dulu melakukan hal yang sama untuk saya, sendirian, di 1 kelas.
Coach Indri melakukannya untuk 1 ruangan sekaligus, dan menjadikannya kebiasaan bersama. Itu pekerjaan arsitektur juga, hanya tanpa bata.
Sebelum pulang, saya bertanya kepada mereka, siapa yang besok mau tunjuk tangan di kelas. Semua tangan naik. Tangan saya juga.
“We support you !”
“We Support You” 3 kata. Diucapkan seisi kelas setiap kali giliran 1 anak bertanya. Saya butuh puluhan tahun untuk mendengarnya, dan anak-anak ini mendengarnya setiap kelas. 🥹🥹🥹
(rs)
We Support You
Yesterday I was invited to a Success Academy class. One of the participants was my own child. So I came as a speaker, but sat as a nervous parent.
There was 1 small habit in that class that left me speechless. The children took turns asking questions, and whenever a turn came to a child, the whole room would turn and say, “We support you.” Only then would the child speak. No one laughed. No one whispered. Questions no matter how naive were received with the exact same sentence.
I told them too, when I was in the 4th grade. Back then I had just moved to Jakarta from Surabaya, and I was the child who raised my hand the most. There was a slight question, hand up. Didn’t understand yet, hand up. My friends laughed, and one day my teacher said, enough, don’t keep raising your hand. 😳 I was shocked. 🥹 I put my hand down, and from that day on I stopped asking. I became an ordinary child, sitting, staying quiet, doing assignments, going home. For years. 🤮
My teacher back then was probably tired. Adults can get tired and say the wrong thing, and I have also said the wrong thing to my child. But a 4th grader does not know that yet, so I believed my hand really had to stay down. When I was in junior high, 2 teachers changed that direction. 👆 The first was my math teacher. One day I mustered the courage to ask. He didn’t laugh, he actually praised me for asking. I asked again, and again. Because I kept asking, my math grades stayed good all the time.
Slowly my hand went up again. ✌️ The second was my table tennis coach. He didn’t teach me cool strokes. He told me to repeat the exact same stroke every day, so boring until I almost quit. 2 years later I was a champion. Not because of a cool stroke, but because of a boring stroke repeated thousands of times. 👷 When I was in high school, our family moved to Jakarta and I was lonely. There was 1 friend who at first liked to tease me.
Over time we studied together and walked home together, and from that I learned that asking doesn’t have to be directed at a teacher. We asked each other. If the two of us couldn’t answer, we would ask his father, who happened to be a private tutor. Asking became a habit, no longer courage. From that I knew the secret is only 2 things. 👆 Ask, and ✌️ boring practice. There is no third.
Until now my work as an architect is still the same, asking people who want to have a house, asking the builders, then drawing, getting it wrong, and drawing again. The children’s questions yesterday were simple, and precisely for that reason hard to answer. 🥹 👆 What is success. ✌️ Why must we read books. 🤘 How to manage time. 👋 How to be consistent. I have 1 answer for everything. Consistency is not a matter of discipline. Consistency is the consequence of knowing what you are here for.
“Why am I here?” If the answer is clear, 👆 focus comes on its own, and ✌️ time seems to divide itself. 🤘 People who struggle with time management are usually not lacking hours, but don’t yet know what is important. Once you can, 👋 be a good person who helps. To my children I explain it with the simplest arithmetic, give 2 get 2, give 5 get 5. They nodded, because for a 4th grader that makes sense.
What they don’t need to know yet, and will discover for themselves later, is that what returns is almost always more than what is given, and comes from a direction we never calculate. 🙏 What I admired most about that class was not the material, but Coach Indri. She didn’t teach children about success. She built a room where children dared to be wrong in front of their friends. My math teacher long ago did the exact same thing for me, alone, in 1 classroom.
Coach Indri did it for an entire room at once, and turned it into a shared habit. That is architectural work too, only without bricks. Before leaving, I asked them, who tomorrow wants to raise their hand in class. All hands went up. My hand went up too. “We support you!”
“We Support You” 3 words. Spoken by the whole class every time a child’s turn came to ask. I needed decades to hear it, and these children hear it every class. 🥹🥹🥹
(rs)
