School tries for a calm start to year

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Wed, 07/18/2007 11:19 AM | National

Prodita Sabarini, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

Hundreds of high school freshmen sat on the floor with big name tags made of colored cardboard placed on their chests. Their wicker hats, compulsory for participants of students' initiation week, sat neatly in front of them.

Scorching sunlight entered the room from the wide windows of SMUN 2 Denpasar, Bali high school's hall. Some freshmen had the unfortunate position of sitting next to the window, exposing them directly to the sun.

""Those who sit under the sun could faint. You can move and sit to where the shade is,"" SMUN 2 principle I Gusti Gede Raka said Monday in front of the students.

The students quickly moved to the much cooler area of the hall. Seniors acting as the initiation committee and called instructors, quickly helped their juniors.

This was the first day of student initiation. However, the sight in SMUN 2 was far from the conventional senior-oppressing-junior rite of passage.

In previous years, when student initiation was a bullying ground for seniors, sunstruck students would not have been offered to move to shaded areas.

However, Denpasar Education Agency head I Gusti Lanang Jelantik made it clear no violence should occur during student initiation week.

Some 44 high schools and 46 junior high schools in Denpasar have commenced initiation week, which runs from July 16 to 19.

""The Education Agency gave us orders that no violence should occur during the initiation week,"" Raka said.

The previous but unwritten initiation convention stipulated seniors must be obeyed and were never wrong. But this has been phased out, authorities said.

The Bali Education Agency provided the materials for initiation week which ranged from basic background about high school life, to a campaign against drugs and an outdoor activity to clean up the environment from dengue-fever-virus-carrying mosquitoes.

""We do not practice violence in student initiations,"" Gede Raka said.

""Bali has a non-violent culture, and we focus more on that.""

The same convention was being implemented by the Catholic junior high school, SLTP Santo Yoseph.

""We follow the Agency's guidelines and the seniors from the student body here give guidance to the freshmen,"" teacher Anastasia said.

As part of the newly-introduced non-violent policy, SMUN I teachers and seniors Tuesday morning escorted their 350 fresh juniors into a densely populated neighborhood in East Denpasar.

The juniors were told to conduct an anti-dengue fever (DB) campaign by checking the residential houses and gutters for mosquito larvae.

Working in pairs, they thoroughly inspected houses along Sandat, Suli and Trijata streets.

""We ask each student to inspect at least five houses,"" one senior said.

""We have also distributed sachets of anti-larvae salt to the students to be placed in the gutter and water containers of the houses.""

Denpasar Mayor Puspayoga said Monday during the opening of the student initiation week the student body should be active in social activities, including monitoring the implementation of the initiation week so it would not defy the rules.

Raka said he had personally told the instructors to avoid any practice of violence.

""I told the seniors that they are the first people that would give color to the freshmen's first day in high school,"" he said.

""So they should give a beautiful color that would make their juniors feel enthusiastic with school, and avoid presenting the new students with grim colors.""

Initiation usually becomes a place to unleash seniors' vendettas for being trampled by other seniors when they were juniors.

High school senior Agus Suseno, the committee head for SMU 2 initiation week, said they would not abuse their seniority over freshmen.

The committee even put on the same attire as the freshmen. The female students were obliged to tie their hair according to the number of days they had participated in the initiation. And on the last day, male students had to cut their hair in a military style.

""If we don't dress like them, they would feel that they're being discriminated against,"" he said.

""We want to show them they're part of the school.

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