Rural teachers' social construction on the teacher profession: A phenomenology study of understanding the profession of teachers in rural areas at junior high school level in Lawang sub-district, Malang Regency, East Java, Indonesia

• Main Author: Khomsiatun, ,
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: LB Theory and practice of education
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/13128/1/55.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/13128/; http://www.uumicg2014.com/

Teachers, besides their professional education, play an important role in building students and determine very wide social roles in rural areas. Their roles become more important amids the limited facilities and infrastructures as experienced by schools in remote rural areas. Therefore, it is interesting to uncover characteristics of teachers who devote their lives in rural areas and to understand their social construction on their teaching profession through their duties to educate, to teach, and to train students via knowlede they posses. Teaching profession, in teachers who have taught in rural areas, has four titles namely ”boss”, “ojek”, professional “boss” and “nip” (narima ing pandum)(accepting the fate, in terms of fortune) teachers. “Boss” are teachers who are very wealthy; “ojek”, who are more dependent their incomes on other business, instead of their salary; professional “boss”, who are asked for help to make any administrative works in teaching-learning activities or classroom action research or scentific works used for certification or credit points and for promotion; “nip”, who always submit their fates to the condition of their schools, who have no creativity and cannot solve their own problems, and depend their colleagues in solving them.Such titles form certain characteristics of rural teachers.Characteristics of rural teachers and their social construction are that they are workers (makarya),and they are noble (mulya).Teachers are servants, where in Javanese philosopy, should be jejeg, wadreg, madep mantep, namely teachers should stand alone, and may be able to solve their own problems and be responsible. By understanding their teaching profession, namely in the Javanese philosophy giri jalma tan kena ing ngina, teachers who have possessed inner feelings, should not speak in inappropriate or impolite manners and should not insult human beings and hurt other people. Teachers are deserved to be models and they are noble and like to devote their live for education and they work without any hidden agendas.