pembelajar kehidupan

The laughter of children can sometimes hide the cruelest words. This is what happened in my classroom in Semarang back in 2005. A kid with autism once sat quietly as his classmates whispered, giggled, and called him “weird”—not as a description, but as an insult. He was often an object of ridicule due to his difference. In fact, he was actually the brightest student that excels in English. That scene immediately reminds me of a book I recently read. How Can I Talk If My Lips Don’t Move is a book written by Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay who was diagnosed in early childhood with severe or low-functioning non-verbal autism. This book reflects how a young man receives and processes information in various ways. A book by an autistic young man recounting how he perceives the world (Photo: personal doc) While he clearly sees the world in a different way, his observation and experience is absolutely important. From Tito I learn that someone with autism who cannot speak doesn’t mean he hasn’t...

My wife and I arrived home around 8:30 in the evening. I had just finished teaching at a tutoring center, and she had just returned from teaching Quran lessons at a nearby TPQ. On days like this—when I had a class after Maghreb—I usually dropped her off before heading to my own teaching session, then picked her up a few hours later. She would wait for me at a small roadside café, typing away on her laptop while sipping sweet iced tea. That night was no different. We exchanged a few words, each of us half-absorbed in our phones, our minds heavy with worry. My proofreading payment, due almost two weeks earlier, still hadn’t been transferred. For freelancers like us, payment delays are no small matter. They decide whether the kitchen keeps running, whether the children can have their snacks at school, whether tomorrow feels secure or uncertain. Just like coffee, life sometimes reveals a mystery What to expect When we finally reached the porch, fatigue weighed on both of us. My wife ha...