You're Too Young to Lecture!

Once upon the time on a facebook chat...
A frend from my dinosaur elementary school era, lets just call her 'Gee', pop the 'hi' to my complete silence.

Gee: Teraaa.. lama gak bersua. Kul dmn skarang?
Me: Hi there... Gw uda lulus dr 2 thn lalu.
Gee: Kul dmn?
Me: (Okay, she insisted... so what can I say?) Di UI, tp uda lulus. skarang kerja.
Gee: skarang kerja dmn?
Me: di UI. Ngajar.
Gee: Oh, asdos? (This is very a typical response. I had it a million time right after I tell people that I teach for a living. The first clarification from them is: Oh, assistant lecturer?)
Me: Umm, no. Dosen.
Gee: Oh. wah seru ya! dari murid bisa jadi dosen. Ngajar apa?
Me: Inggris. Sastra inggris.
Gee: Gmn caranya? Diminta ato gimana? (I honestly hate this question because I'll have to response awkwardly...)
Me: Iya. emang diminta (Oops, I didn't mean to brag. Don't give me the hate-look!)

I once had a student who spent a whole semester with me, but when the semester ended, he wrote me a thank you note with: "what a great assistant lecturer you are!" 

I also teach Business English and Academic English at UI's language institute called LBI. Every first day of my LBI classes, right after I introduce myself and ask wheter there's any question from my students (whose mostly aged 15 to 25 years older than me), I must prepare myself with their raising eyebrows and the typical, "Sorry, Miss... but how old are you?" I guess they just want to make sure that they've spent their money well on the course. Older teacher means more experience, and experience equals quality. They don't want campus students to teach them. It's a common stereotyping. I'll usually say "I'm in my mid 20s and I've just been teaching for three years. I also teach undergrad students of English Literature departement in this campus." Sounds like I'm bragging? It's just the truth to shut them up and carry on with the lessons. 

It's not that I'm making a big deal out of it. I'm not trying to tell everybody that I'm a lecturer whatsoever. I'm just a teacher, and that's simply it. It just happens that I teach in a university, no big deal. Not much different with those who teach in a highschool or kindergarten. And let me tell you what, teaching kindergarten students are waaaayyy more difficult than teaching university freshmen. Not to mention the terrible side effect: loosing your TOEFL score points (You see, you can't use difficult complete sentences in English when you talk to kids. All the effective phrases you'll use are mostly: "sit down!", "gimme high five!", "no!, don't do that!", "hey you!", "stop!", "very good...", "naughty!" etc). Been there, done that.

It is just that I found it quite surprising at first to look at how people would response when I told them that I teach at the university. They would mostly go "Ah, assistant lecturer! how fun!" with a very confident expression. When I told them that I actually AM a lecturer, they would give me the you're-too-young-to-be-a-lecturer face and say, "Ah, I see". Some of them would toss me another blunt question,"So you teach diploma (D3) students?" which I would reply with: "no, I teach undergrads (S1)". They might also ask: "how? I didn't know you can teach with only a bachelor degree" which will  require a further elaboration on the faculty regulation in FIB UI, "You see, I'm an adjunct lecturer. And there're hundreds of us in our campus because.... blah blah blah"

Some months ago, a very happening radio in town marketed for Jakarta's youth were discussing about teaching and learning process in campus. Then the announcers became sudden experts on education, and one of them said, "I think most lecturers now only got bachelor degrees. How can they teach undergrads when they only have bachelors?" Oh please, as if they know everything about our education system. In UI, if you want to be an employed lecturer with full benefits, you must have a doctorate degree. Yes! doctorate! with only very few lecturers with doctorate degrees in our uni, how can the faculties survive without us, youthful-looking loyal outsourced adjunct lecturers with only bachelor or master titles after our names? Please remember that we don't get any benefits other than our hourly-based wage (Which will take years to save up to pay for the doctorate tuition fee. Most adjunct lecturers who finally got their masters decided to leave the faculty because there are much better opportunities out there. Scholarships? Ha, I wish...)

This country needs more educators, but usually most of the good ones left for better salary and benefits from private or government sectors. This semester, I have already lost two good friends of mine from the philosophy department. One of them only got a bachelor degree, but I can say that he's a genious! Another one just got her master, but then she chose a better job in an NGO because she's tired of the corrupted system in campus. Such a big loss for the faculty. However, sadly, I don't think the faculty finds it as any loss at all. They can always find other adjunct lecturers. 

We are doing this country a favor by being loyal to this so-called world-class university, so with all respect, stop underestimating us just because we look too young to lecture!