On the other hand, I feel less and less comfortable teaching. Not because of the children. Of course, I’m glad I got to meet them, which reminds me of my teenage years. However, the displeasure arises from the uniform school environment, plus textbooks which, in my opinion, are not good in content (Indeed, this has been the case for a long time. The quality of textbooks in schools is always poor in terms of paper and content. This can be checked in old essays like the one by Mahbub Djunaidi et al.). We all know that books are projects and have entered into many dimensions of our lives. And what is critical is precisely in our education world.
Long story short, I decided to stop teaching after less than a year as an Indonesian teacher. So I finally went to Yogyakarta to gain knowledge, explore myself, and study at the Maulana Rumi Islamic Boarding School nurtured by Kiai Kuswaidi Syafi’ie.
I did not read as many books as before but rather “experienced” life there. I have no doubts because Pak Kiai Kuswaidi Syafi’ie (familiarly called Cak Kus) was also a famous poet in the 1980s and 1990s in Yogyakarta. Even though I didn’t study there for long, the scars are still felt in my heart, giving rise to ideas and enthusiasm to get back to writing.
If I’m not mistaken, the end of December 2020 was my first time writing on duniasantri.co. As I said earlier, I started with poetry. Others don’t. Incidentally, I heard the information from my sister. She was managing the treasury department at duniasantri.co at that time.