God,
grant me
the serenity
to accept things I cannot change
the courage
to change things I can
and the wisdom
to know the difference.
(Serenity Prayer)
Few years ago, one of my cousin gave this to me. At first I thought it was a poem, but years later I realized it was a familiar prayer among people who battle with drug and alcohol addictions. Anyway, for me it was something I chanted to myself over and over whenever I suffered from disappointment.
Last year I gave scholarship to 11 kids from the music faculty at one of the state university here in Bandung who wanted to joined my first music camp. They were so grateful and at the end of the camp they gave me a gold ring as a thank-you note for being so generous. The scholarship was paid from my personal account (which also resulted in my being in debt to my parents), but at that moment I was so happy to do it and they did me proud by giving their best at the camp. So, everybody's happy.
When I started planning for my second camp last year, I called back these kids and told them wholeheartedly that I wanted them back in my camp again. The catch was, I wouldn't be able to give them full scholarship, so they had to work on it. So we planned on doing fundraising concert to finance their own education. I set their chamber groups, found them music, made time to coach them, and then we started practising.
That was early October. By December nobody came to see me anymore and everybody apologized about being too busy and about how difficult it was to get together to rehearse.
And I never saw any of them again for rehearsal ever since.
It shouldn't be a suprising thing, actually. I very, very seldom found (Indonesian) string players who are keen learners, and a lot of them stop learning once they can make some cash. However, when my first camp ended, I somehow secretly hoped that the 11 kids would develop a different way of thinking and that they would be the troop that carries an air of improvement in the classical music scene in the city, simply by realizing that education is the only way to help your attain a better life.
Sadly, I learned that it is quite impossible to change people's way of thinking and living in 10 days. They would probably feel motivated and enthusiastic about being educated, but when it comes to paying for education, it's another matter altogether.
Last week, I sent a text messages to them saying that they could pay only 25% of the tuition fee for this year's camp. For a quartet, it means that each individuals will only have to pay 25 dollars for an 8-days intensive training programme with faculty members from overseas. It would be shallow to say: 'C'mon, what's a 25 bucks for you guys?' After all, money is all about relativity. But if you can afford to spend money to buy 3 mobile phones, go out to dinner every night and even buy second instrument, I think I am right to say that if you don't want to pay that much for your own education, then you don't deserve to be educated either.
What I learned is that not only every single person has the right to education, every one has also the right to refuse education.
Yesterday, I said my serenity prayer and moved on.
(Imported old blog, originally written on May 11, 2009)
