Take a Second Look

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for that kind, kind introduction. 

“We shall not cease from exploration. At the end of all our exploring shall be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

Before we solve the problem, we must first ask who defined it. 

Esteemed faculty and staff, amazing friends and family and of course our lovely graduates the warmest afternoon to you all. My name is Alegra Jade Dreanda Istar. I'm 20 years old and I'm from Jakarta, Indonesia. I'm so humbled to stand here before you graduating amongst the constellation of the brightest minds at this bright place, the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Thank God it's a beautiful and warm day out, otherwise I don't know if the brilliant part would be as apparent. That’s a joke, of course. 

HGSE in all types of weather is beautiful, and I'm here to share with you a moment here that changed my thinking about education and turned it on its head. Spoiler alert, it involves a bicycle in Dr. Fernando Reimers’ office and Gutman Library. Hi, Dr. Reimers. But before we go there, here's the lesson that I took from it, that what we think we see is not always what is there. 

When I first entered HGSE, I knew that I wanted to solve problems for people. Growing up seeing a lot of education inequity in my hometown, I wrote in my Statement of Purpose that my purpose was to change these educational realities for students back home, an ambition that I think many of you share. So I took the course here with Dr. Fernando Rivers where we worked with policy analysts and research consultants with real clients to solve real problems, which is just what I wanted.

My team's problem fittingly for me for me was based in Papua, Indonesia. The problem our client had was that teachers were not coming to school and therefore children were not learning. We had to solve this problem to get the children to learn. Now, in real world practice problems never present themselves as givens. They're messy and layered and they're never certain. And maybe this is true, not just in policy, but in everyday life. When we as humans are faced with problems, we tend to want to solve them quickly, simply, elegantly. And for my team in this project, the more research we did, the more convoluted the problem became. And we began to believe that a big systemic problem required a big systemic, complex solution. So at this time believing that I had the best research solution ever, I went to Dr. Reimers' office hours with a lot of earnest and said quickly and confidently, okay, so this is me recreating the world:

“We'll monitor teachers with this app and then they're going to upload pictures and we're going to use those pictures and we'll tie them to the incentives and then that's how we're going to get all the teachers to come.” But Dr. Reimers’ only looked at me, and there was a pause between us. He said, "Allegra, have you thought about giving the teachers a bicycle maybe?" 

And I said, "What?" He said, "Feel what the teachers feel. Know the reason of the problem. They cannot get to the schools in the first place." 

And that was my realization that the teachers were not refusing to show up, they just couldn't even arrive. Who was I to recommend all these cameras and incentives? In that moment, I realized I wasn't solving the problem, but I was redefining it from far away. I thought that the research and the theory gave me the full story that I needed, but that was not correct.

Failure in this situation was of the conditions and not the people, similar to what Liya (Escalera) had said earlier. Once again, failure was of the conditions and not the people. This situation taught me that sometimes the most important thing we can do is take a second look, but not at the problem and all its layers from far away, but by looking at the heart, the people. Because that's who education is for, correct?

Our solution in the end wasn't just the bicycle, but this metaphorical bicycle helped us think about things differently. It allowed us to go back to the people, ask better questions to the people, listen more carefully to the people. And now I understand the importance of a human-centered solution. The solution belongs to them. 

So graduates, when you face a problem, you may be tempted to create a solution that is elegant and Daedalian, reflective of your education and all that you've learned. But whether it's in your classroom or your company or your policy work or even in everyday situations when there is a person standing in front of you, think first, ‘what am I not seeing and what does this look like for this person in front of me?’ Question what the problem feels like for others before deciding what it is. That's what HGSE taught me. Otherwise, we risk treating people as objects to be managed rather than people to be understood. 

So graduates go forward from today and remember to always take that second look because we shall not cease from exploration. At the end of all our exploring shall be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. And when you arrive there, may we have the courage to always see clearly that is how we will change the world. Thank you.