On Saturday, February 15th of 2020, a seminar with the theme of “A Teacher that Students Missed” was held in Titian Kaliurang Community Learning Centre. This seminar was presented by Sapta Kurniawati whose mastering psychology studies. This seminar was inspired by some findings related to children who have lack of support and also lack of comfortable place to study for reaching better achievements. It is well acknowledged, that various learning support activities for the children have been given, but children do not grow by themselves without the accompaniment of parents and of course involved educational institutions, so it is important for us to equip children’s supporting parties in reaching their achievements; such as teachers, parents or, guardians.

The purposed for conducting this activity is that the teachers could be able to be counselors for their students—at least, the teachers have a basic capacity for understanding students with various deviant behaviors at school, because until now, there are still so many parents who place all burdens or responsibilities solely on the school. This specified competency must be comprehended in order to achieve these expectations, so that the teacher could be able to create social sensitivity in the social environment related to what is happening at schools.

The activity began with a Focus Group Discussion (FGD), and then it continued to discussing contents about professional commitments and sharing sessions related to teacher findings in the school environment. In the FGD, participants were divided into three groups; each group was accompanied by one facilitator. Then, the FGD groups discussed about things related to the obstacles of the teacher in the school during the learning process, then what has been done by the teacher to overcome these obstacles and finally what obstacles have not been resolved by the teacher.

Then, the discussion continued to a presentation session related to teacher’s professional commitments. In this section, many seminar participants were giving examples of case findings that often occur in the school environment, as well as how they deal with them. Mrs. Kurniawati gave them insights about the solutions; what should be done and what teachers should not do in the school environment. After that, the story sharing session began. Each teacher has their own stories which are not all the same and need to be shared from one to another, in order to carry out the betterment of their profession as a teacher, so that they can learn from one another. For example, there was one teacher who shared about one of her students. The child was heavily influenced by a soap opera about displeasure relationships with parents, and it made the child intends to hurt his parents. After being approached by the teacher, the child gradually improved and apologized for his actions.

Mindfulness was discussed thoroughly in the next session. Teachers were encouraged to be able to accept the circumstances, attitudes, and behavior of students in school. If there’s intimacy and mutual needs grow between all students and teachers, a pleasant learning atmosphere will be created. Finally, the presenter showed a video about teachers being fair and understanding the situation of students. It motivated the teachers in dealing with daily life in the school environment.

This seminar is truly a good start. All parties involved in this activity hope that they will continue to create a comfortable space for students to reach achievements. This is not only done by our teachers, but of course we can also involve parents and students to create a better learning environment in the future. (DAP)