What actually matters, new curriculum or what?

Khairil Azhar, Jakarta | Opinion | Sat, December 08 2012, 12:03 PM

Paper Edition | Page: 7

“I won’t be at school on Saturday,” said a 12th grader, “since my mom told me to prepare for a final exams try-out.”

“Aren’t we having such a great program ‘the Slovakia Day’ that the Slovak ambassador himself is visiting our school?”

“Yes, I know. But what can I do?”

The good female student wished to join her friends running the program, especially because she is an active and creative member of the students council. Besides, being a 12th grader, she realizes that involvement in the organizing of a big school event is a learning activity itself.

She was trapped in a dilemma. Her mother, trapped in the myth of national exams and a cognitive oriented paradigm in education, forced her to go to a Bimbel (non-school learning center). Her “real” school, where more actual and creative learning was facilitated, offered her something more fitting to her own choice.

Yet, what could she do? She is in an educational system where not many choices are available.

The Education and Culture Ministry has just disseminated a new curriculum which will be effective in the next academic year, 2013/2014. The subjects are fewer and the learning periods are longer.

There is, for instance, no English or science at primary level and the emphasis is now on moral or character-building education and basic academic skills.

We surely do hope that it is not just “the exchange of a macaque with a monkey”, as a Malay proverb says. There is a big hullabaloo but we have nothing new other than the noise itself.

Our educational history has frequently shown our preference for a panacea to cope with the problems. We are accustomed to referring to metaphysical reasons to understand problems instead of taking the reality itself as the ground.

What reliable and valid research does the ministry have, for instance, to support its argument for the new curriculum?

Meanwhile, in practice, the endorsement of new curriculum never means much. It just makes the school administrators and teacher busy for a while to adjust the costly administrative or procedural documents and then arrive at the same amnesia: Running a school and teaching are the same routines since the olden days.

Back to our story above, what matters in schooling is actually how the students can be better served with fruitful activities. “I hear I forget, I see I remember, I do I understand,” taught Confucius more than two millennia ago.

“Education” should be the processes of learning, through which students actively and creatively actualize themselves. Understanding is the problem of being able to do or make something instead of merely taking an exam.

Education succeeds best when the students are not objects, listeners or memorizers, but conversely when they are the subjects, actively finding knowledge through concrete experiences.

Sudents’ knowledge is built on the bricks of fun and creative activities. Learning is facilitated to enable students to construct what their senses perceive from the reality and at the same time use their imagination as the active medium to glue up the perceived concepts which in turn materialize into greater and fruitful knowledge constructs.

The academic knowledge of the students — different from what they acquire in the conventional learning based on textbooks or chalk-and-board — will be mainly obtained through self-endeavor. It is not only because of their being excited psychologically but also because of the atmosphere intentionally or unintentionally created.

As such, the less-motivated students — who are often improperly handled in the conventional educational system — will be encouraged to participate more actively.

With this conditioning, the students obtain both the width and the depth of academic skills compared to conventional learning. Quantity and quality of the explorations will multiply. Well-motivated students will search for sources and resources which previously were unthinkable and unusable.

In the psychomotor domain, a program like “Slovakia Day” helps students to materialize concepts, imagination and their abstract knowledge into a product. In building a castle miniature, for instance, they not only have to work out with their psychomotor organs but at the same time must apply what they learn from history, math or science in order to ensure the miniature represents its original being.

Affectively, the program enables the students to wisely function in organizing it. They learn to come up with initiatives as well as be responsible and solve problems in teamwork at various levels. This fact is different from what they learn conventionally, where abstract concepts of ethics are deductively introduced in a teacher-centered pattern if not through rote learning.

Such program encourages students into cross-cultural understanding, acceptance of the diversity of cultures, religions, or races. They must be able to present themselves as an entity with dignity, being proud and fully respected as a part of world society. Here, tolerance disseminates and civilized attitudes are fertilized.

So, what matters in our education is actually applicable initiatives and commitment to run them, not to repeated changes to the curriculum. Willing teachers and administrators are the main actors, whose mentality should be enlightened.

The writer is a teacher in Jakarta and researcher at Paramadina Foundation.

Trimming primary school subjects toward character building

A.Chaedar Alwasilah, Canterbury, UK | Opinion | Sat, October 06 2012, 12:11 PM

Paper Edition | Page: 6

Deputy Education and Culture Minister Musliar Kasim recently stated that the government planned to trim the existing primary school subjects into four, namely religion, Indonesian language, civics and mathematics. The plan implies that the current primary curriculum does not work as well as expected.

At this juncture, it is wise to realize that the curriculum is not the only factor of success in primary education. Education is problematic in many aspects and pointing the finger at the curriculum is erroneously simplistic.

The curriculum is a sacred document, but when it does not work or is not implemented well, it will be judged a waste.

The inclusion or exclusion of school subjects is always controversial. Many schools have expressed their worries over the exclusion of social studies and science. It is crucial that all stakeholders are well informed about the rationale. When a decision is made, everyone should be committed to it.

Primary age children have huge learning potential that will otherwise be wasted if this learning potential is not developed optimally in schools.

The existing primary subjects include religion, civics education, Indonesian language, math, science, social studies, arts and skills, physical education, local content and self development. The last two are actually a generic name for areas that are subject to individual school policies.

By way of comparison, in England what is to be learned by primary school students is defined by areas rather than subjects, namely language, mathematics; environmental studies (society, science and technology), expressive arts and physical education, and religious and moral education with personal and social development and health education. Information technology is cross-curricular, i.e., to be used in teaching all subjects.

In this regard, there are two competing groups: subject-oriented and area-oriented academics. On one hand, subject-oriented academics believe that science and social studies are too important to be excluded from the curriculum. They have no patience to postpone teaching those subjects until the students reach secondary school age when the subjects will definitely be taught.

These people overlook the fact that children are in the golden age to acquire knowledge and skills and develop their character, such as self-confidence, self-esteem, independence, creativity, skills of collaboration and cooperation and respect for others.

Recurring interethnic conflict and high school student brawls are indicative of a failure to instill character in school.

On the other hand, the area-oriented academics believe that in primary education what counts is what students feel, do, and appreciate; while the labeling of subjects such as social studies, science, geography, history, etc…, is insignificant and sounds too academic for primary school students.

Further, it is feared that within subject-oriented paradigm teachers would tend to be theoretical.

Primary education is no more than character building. Religion, Indonesian language, civics and mathematics are to be taught for building children’s character. Stay away from conceptualizing learning a subject for the subject’s sake.

Primary school teachers are expected to be generalist practitioners for teaching all subjects to develop character. Religion is taught mostly for teaching theology or strengthening students’ beliefs and to teach jurisprudence or normative ways to worship God.

Nothing is wrong with this. However, religion, Islam in particular, does not end there.

Take the haj pilgrimage as a potential example for teaching mathematics, geography, social studies and science. Over 200,000 Indonesians perform the haj every year and there are around three million people flocking at the same time for haj. How much do they contribute to Saudi foreign exchange?

Teachers may challenge students to locate Mecca in relation to Indonesia, Oman, England and Japan for teaching geography. They may also be encouraged to think of diversity of pilgrims in terms of language, ethnicity, skin color and social status. The concept of relativity of time is also explorable in the topic of haj. Why is there a time difference between Mecca and Jakarta? What causes the difference?

Those examples illustrate how the topic approach rather than subject approach is flexible for critically teaching almost any school subject. Such an exploration will strengthen their belief in God, their conviction of scientific truth and appreciation of social differences among peoples.

Being a class teacher rather than subject teacher, primary teachers should feel very confident to explore topics for intercurricular discussions. Besides, they should be flexible in moving from topic to topic as the class moves on.

However, caveat should be taken that in every act of teaching, teachers should identify clearly the intended focus of teaching, say, mathematics, geography, social studies, or science.

We have revised the curriculum quite often, and the barrage of directives, requirements and regulations has left primary school teachers feeling insecure and, probably, confused and undermined in their profession.

In their perception, curriculum is a battlefield for bureaucrats and politicians, and they are just the fallen victims. We should trust our professional teachers to flexibly approach the imminent change to the curriculum.

The writer, a professor at Bandung Indonesian Education University (UPI), is currently a visiting researcher at Canterbury Christ Church University, England.