| Negotiating with lecturers
in Australia |
There are several important differences in the way Australians and Indonesians
approach a lecturer. Indonesian students use a very formal way to
communicate with a lecturer. Students have to call their lecturers “Bapak
or Ibu” and also need to use “flowery words” especially
when they want to negotiate about their needs. However in Australia,
students should be informal and just call the lecturer by his/her first
name. They should also get straight to the point when they are negotiating
with a lecturer about something. (Bernadetta PD)
| Australian Academic
Culture |
“Hello everybody! I want to share something that I got from my
cross culture studies. I think it’s really important if you want
to go study abroad in Western countries, such as Australia.
When you go to an Australian University, you have to be aware of their
academic culture, because it’s really different from Indonesia.
When you do your assignments, you have to be careful. It’s not like
here where we usually write a descriptive report and we explain in detail
about the issue. Here, if we present as many details as possible, we will
get a good mark. Well…. It’s totally different in Western
academic culture. The explanation or details are not important. You have
to critique all viewpoints that you heard or read about and then formulate
your own opinion. As long as you can present your supporting arguments,
it doesn’t matter whether you choose the “for” or “against”
side. You are free to give your opinion. In fact, you are expected to
do so. In seminars, you also have to contribute by asking and arguing
with other’s ideas. Debate and critique are the keys to success
in study in Australia. So…. start from now on, guys. (Hesdi)
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| Going to a lecturer with
a problem |
There are several things that we have to remember before we meet a lecturer
or tutor for consultation in western academic culture. These are:
- Try to identify your problem and the alternative solution on your
own because they won’t do it for you! They only will help you
to choose the best solution, not find the solution for you!
- Give logical reasons for your problem and if you need to negotiate,
try to admit your weak position and show that you are motivated to fix
up your problem.
That is very different with Indonesian academic culture because in our
culture, we let our lecturer decide everything for us. (Chiqa)
| Origins of Indonesian
Academic Culture |
In my opinion, the Hindu guru/murid relationship is the philosophical
basis of the Indonesian education system. From my experience, in Yogya
and among the Javanese, students are people who learn from an ‘expert’.
This can be seen in terms like “Begawan” (guru), “cantrik”
(murid), “menimba ilmu” (take knowledge from a source, or
an expert). It can also be seen in the saying: “taking water from
a well” (menimba air). It is common to call an expert “Begawan”,
for example, Begawan ekonomi Soemitro (Prof. Soemitro is a senior Indonesian
expert in Economic). However, there is a paradigm shift happening now
and some lecturers think students should not learn only from one “Begawan”.
They don’t want to just clone students with the same ‘expertise’
as themselves. So, students are being encouraged to learn in many
schools. Despite this change, the aim of study is not for students to
construct knowledge themselves through academic debate, which is the main
goal of western academic culture.
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