Titus Jonathan's Stories

“Philosophy is something intermediate between theology and science,” said Bertrand Russell. Theology and science occupy their own territory. All definite knowledge belongs to science, all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. Between theology and science there is No Man’s Land, exposed to attack from both sides. For that the philosophy is present. The No Man’s Land is philosophy. Then he added, “Philosophical conceptions are a product of two factors: one, inherited religious and ethical conceptions; the other, the sort of investigation which may be called ‘scientific’.” Bertrand Russell who was born in 1872, he himself was a British philosopher as well as mathematician, logician, historian, writer, and social critic. In this book, which was firstly published in 1945, Russell divided the philosophy chronologically into three parts: Ancient Philosophy, Catholic Philosophy and Modern Philosophy. This book is a widely read and influential philosophical history ...

The first, this is a story about perseverance. The second, it’s about the spirit of a family where love, trust, and encouragement was planted, grew and flourished. The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, began their dream that ‘man can fly’ in their home in Dayton, Ohio, in 1896. At that time, Orville, 25, was struck by the dreaded typhoid, for days he lay in a delirium, close to death. It was a month before he could sit up in bed. His brother, Wilbur, 29, reading a book for Orville about German glider enthusiast Otto Lilienthal who had recently been killed in an accident. Lilienthal had been doing his aviation experiment by taking lesson from the birds. He died after crashed several times of which the last caused him a broken spine. Apparently, the book about Lilienthal failure triggered Wilbur and Orville’s mind to do experiment based on the lesson-learned. “The works of Lilienthal had ‘infected’ us with the unquenchable enthusiasm and transformed idle curiosity into the activ...

Ketika pada bulan Oktober 2012 saya membaca berita bahwa seorang gadis cilik (remaja) berumur 15 tahun ditembak oleh Taliban di Pakistan, saya menganggapnya kabar biasa saja. Siapa yang kaget jika hal itu terjadi di Pakistan? Negara ini dikoyak teror dan pertikaian tak habis-habisnya. Bumi Pakistan sudah biasa berlumur darah, darah rakyatnya maupun pemimpinnya. Kelompok ekstrem bebas berkeliaran, memangsa dan membunuh mereka yang dianggap berbeda, termasuk pemimpin bangsanya sendiri: Liaquat Ali Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Zia Ul-haq, Benazir Bhutto. Yang saya baca pada waktu itu adalah gadis cilik tersebut ditembak karena nekad tetap sekolah. Taliban memang sangat keras menerapkan hukum Syariat Islam, terutama larangan-larangan terhadap kaum perempuan, salah satunya adalah larangan bersekolah bagi perempuan. Tetapi membunuh seorang gadis remaja karena nekad pergi sekolah sungguh mengerikan. Kemudian berita tentang penembakan gadis remaja tersebut – yang kemudian diketahui bern...

(published by The Jakarta Post on 29 Apr 2014. Click here ) The shocking, saddening sexual abuse of a 6-year-old kindergarten pupil by cleaning staff recently, has alerted us to the threats our children face every day. Our innocent children are vulnerable, even when they are at school. We consider school the safest place for kids — but in this case it has failed to guarantee our children’s security, even it is a prestigious international school. Not only have children become the targets of predators moving freely at school, but also they suffer traumatic impacts for the rest of their lives. Only the grace of God can heal a wounded soul. We would like to convey a deep sympathy and pray for the innocent victim concerned. I imagine schools as places where children are happy while they are learning and playing. Schools should be places where our children feel at home. They go to school to know the world better and in the knowledge they are expected to make the world better someday. ...

Students today are spending time in school excessively, even almost similar to employees who spending time in office. They leave their home early in the morning and back to home in late afternoon. If they came earlier to their home, they take lunch, eat their meal in hurry then prepare stuffs for some other extra activities and go out again. In the evening they then come home back, exhausted and go to bed to welcome the same routine in the following day. I met with some teenagers who have to come to the school even though during holidays, and when I asked why did they love school so much and not enjoy holidays with friends or families, they explained that before holidays their teachers assigned them for doing some tasks which must be accomplished when they back from holidays. They had to come to school since the laboratory is there, and the computers are also there. They could not stay away from school because their future is inside there. The school put their own standard to maintain ...

Sungguh tidak tertata dunia pendidikan di Indonesia ini. Lebih tepat kalau saya katakan: Tidak terurus. Kemarin saya menonton TV, pada acara “Nusantara”, TV Elshinta menayangkan figur seorang kepala sekolah SD yang merangkap sebagai pemulung. Bapak ini bernama Pak Mahmud. Setiap hari Pak Mahmud mengajar di sekolah itu, dan setiap hari pula sehabis pulang mengajar beliau harus memulung sampah untuk menyambung nafkah keluarganya. Kita tidak perlu bertanya berapa gaji Pak Mahmud sebagai seorang kepala sekolah di SD reyot itu, karena dengan mengikuti kesehariannya sudahlah dapat diketahui tanpa kita perlu berhitung dulu. Dan jika seorang kepala sekolah harus menjadi pemulung sampah, berapa rupiah murid-murid SD itu membayar biaya sekolahnya? Untuk hal inipun kita tidak perlu bertanya apa-apa. Jika memulung, Pak Mahmud memakai pakaian yang kumuh, bersandal jepit, berjalan mengais tumpukan sampah, lalu memilah-milahnya untuk barang-barang yang bisa dijual. Tapi jika beliau mengajar di kelas...