During last semester working as a primary school teacher in 2019, my student Priscilla, her sitting position is in front of my desk. She’s a chatter, and because of that, I became the one who she likes to talk to. I enjoy talking to her because she’s a bit more mature than other students in my class—she is patient and have empathy towards others.
And Priscilla loves watching movies. Whenever a new movie came out, she would watch it on the weekend and told me about it. There was an Indonesian movie that she really insisted me to watch. Like, really, really. It was Keluarga Cemara (Cemara’s Family, 2019).
For the whole week she would greet me in the morning and ask me “Miss, have you watch it yet?” “Miss, I know you have time after work. Go watch it!” “Miss, you should watch it. It’s so good but I won’t spoil it for you.” “Miss, just go watch it when you take a break from busy week!”
But in the end, I didn’t get a chance to watch it until now. Sorry, Pris! 😦
Why Keluarga Cemara?
So until today, I’m curious what makes Pris loves this film so much. This film is actually a remake of a TV series with the same title in 1996-2005. I remembered I used to watch and love this series as a kid. Therefore, when there is a remake of the series in 2019, I was intrigued to watch but at the same time I resisted because I didn’t want to ruin my memory of the old Keluarga Cemara in my head by watching the newer version of it (because there will be differences…).
If I google it up, many reviewers told similar opinions as Priscilla: they love it. Even people who have watched the original series in 1996, they thought the 2019 one is still heartwarming, although they changed the story a little.
An educational film
And from my search, I stumbled upon a website called “sinedu.id” where they stream Keluarga Cemara for free (of course you have to register first).
Sinedu.id is apparently a website that provides teaching resources for teachers and parents to teach students using films. Sinedu.id streams lots of Indonesian films (including short films) that are educational, which are safe for children safe to watch. They also provide different kinds of teaching modules specific to each film. In the module, there is a set of questions and activities related to the film that parents, teachers, and children can engage as follow-up. These modules are aimed to encourage critical thinking for students.
And Keluarga Cemara is one of the films listed. Besides teaching modules, sinedu.id also provided fun facts about the film and also a list of character development related to the film. For Keluarga Cemara, some of the characters listed that are connected with the film content are for instance, open communication, reflexive relationship, collaboration, discipline, and emotion control.
Media education?
After finding out about sinedu.id, I became more interested in actually digging deeper about sinedu.id. It was actually the first platform of teaching that I found, that encourage everyday culture to be included in the classrooms in Indonesia.
What they do is basically, instead of teaching students about the films, they are actually teaching teachers about films. They have a purpose of teaching teachers to understand that not all films are bad for younger generations in Indonesia. Film content could be used for teaching materials in class, where it can lead to teacher-student discussion about the content. However, not many teachers in Indonesia realise about this. So, sinedu.id takes part in enabling teachers to be more aware of children’s contemporary culture, so that they can develop their teaching methods in the class.
Borrowing David Buckingham’s definition of media education is supposed to teach about the media, and not teach through the media, I think sinedu.id could be categorised into media education, unless the teachers used the films to teach about…geography for example.
Teaching about the insights or morale of the story of the film to some extent could still be included as media education but it can go further than that. Because to develop critical thinking, it is not only about analysing the morale of the story. Sinedu.id can develop more activities like discussing social issues related to the films and students’ personal experience, or asking them to produce creative work with the same theme of the film.
Towards the future
I’m actually happy to find out about sinedu.id. Now I can see some lights that media education in Indonesia is improving—not only talking about protecting children and young people from fake news (this is also good, but media education is not only about that right?).
Baby steps are alright, as long as it keeps on moving! Remembering about this actually makes me feel motivated to write and do my dissertations (lol).
…..and yeah, I need to watch Keluarga Cemara too. For Priscilla!
Image source: https://soloraya.com/2018/12/begini-cuplikan-film-keluarga-cemara/ (header)
Not a food blog 