Based on Kamus Besar Bahasa
Indonesia (KBBI), “culture” is the result of the activity and creation by human
for believe, art, and tradition. Moreover, KBBI defines “preserve” as letting the
condition as its formerly or maintain it. In this essay, we have the same
concept of the “culture” as what KBBI says. However, we have our own definition
for the word of “preserve,” which is a real effort to know, to learn, to love,
to save, and to keep the culture alive without alleviate the value which is
contained on the culture itself.
Quoted by kompas.com, Lenny
Hidayat (2008) says that the younger generation’s pride and their awareness in preserving
the culture is getting decreasing. Their interest about the culture is low.
They are interested in learning other countries’ culture.
It’s one of the problem faced
this nation. The problem is supported by the activities of the young generation
in Indonesia, such as learning in the institution (school, university, etc)
which spends almost 1/3 day, the traffic jam in the big cities that takes a
part in daily life and other activities, so that preserving the culture is
being a forgettable thing.
The preservation of our culture
is the responsibility of every single inhabitant of a nation. In e-journal of
sunan-ampel.ac.id, Siregar (2010) states that the amount of the young
generation in Indonesia is more than one-over-five or approximate 20,1% of
Indonesian people. Based on the data, preserving and rekindling the culture in
Indonesia society is much easier if the young generations are involved on it.
Considering the various cultures
in Indonesia with the high value of art, it’s regrettably if we left our
culture until it dies slowly. Another impact which arises is giving the big
chance for another country to acknowledge our culture to be their culture. The
culture that looks like it’s left by us, and then we just can protest of it.
The acknowledgement of the culture can be a bad thing that can be ended if the
young generations of the country don’t start to preserve the culture.
In solving this problem, we are
as the part of the young generation who concern on education, propose a way to
preserve the culture through education. More specific, we linked the subject of
mathematics and dancing or sport.
In the 15th of
UNESCO-APEID International Conference which was held on December 2011 in The
Sultan Hotel Jakarta, one of the speakers from Philippines, Alleli Domingo
introduced the way how to link mathematics with sport or dancing. She explained
a concept of “beautiful dance moves” as shown below
In learning mathematics, the students are required to
distinguish the various kind of graph of the functions. By applying and
collaborating “beautiful dance moves” in mathematics, sport, or dancing, it is
hoped can motivate the students in preserving the culture of their nation.
We
can adopt and learn her concept to be applied in Indonesian context. It means
we can use the traditional dances in Indonesia that have the similar moves like
“beautiful dance moves.” For example is “Tari Piring” which comes from Padang,
West Sumatera. If we see the pictures below, we will find some “beautiful dance
move.”
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| (source) |
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| (source) |
The moves of the lady in the
first picture on the left shows a graph of function y = x2, meanwhile the moves
of the lady in the second picture above shows a graph of function y = -x3.
There are so many traditional dances which contain the similar moves which is
similar to the “beautiful dance moves,” so this thing is possibly applied for
the teachers to teach mathematics through the dance, and to preserve the
culture through education.
By doing the familiarization of
the culture to the students, and using the characteristics of the culture
itself in education like we showed, we believe that it could be a way to save
our culture in Indonesia. Through education, we save and express our culture.
