All are responsible for moral education<\/p>\n
By Mochtar Buchori<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Since the Reform movement broke out in 1998, the
\nissue of educational reform has frequently come up as a topic of
\npublic discourse. Popular opinion has been that educational
\nreform will never be genuinely accomplished without improving our
\nmoral education at schools. Proponents of this view insist that
\nimproving moral education must constitute the first agenda in the
\nnation's program for educational reform. And what they mean by
\n\"strengthening moral education\" is to increase the number of
\nhours allotted to the teaching of religion.<\/p>\n
For a number of reasons I don't share this view. Moral
\neducation or the task of molding the character of students is the
\nresponsibility of the entire teaching staff. Teachers teaching
\nsubject matters other than religion - mathematics, physics,
\ngeography, history, and physical education, also share this
\ncapability and responsibility.<\/p>\n
This is because moral education is the \"act of guiding
\nstudents towards voluntary personal commitment to values\". And in
\nevery subject matter, the teaching of sets of knowledge or skills
\nalways involves guiding students in gradually committing
\nthemselves to values inherent in the knowledge or skills
\nconcerned.<\/p>\n
This is to say that values as references for morality do not
\ncome from religion alone. Morality within the context of real
\nsocial life cannot and should not be measured by one's adherence
\nto the values or norms prescribed by religion alone. There are
\naspects of social morality that do not rest upon religious norms,
\nbut hinge primarily upon norms from sources outside religion:
\nethics, traditions, social customs, and organizational
\nregulations, etc.<\/p>\n
Corruption, an undoubtedly immoral act, does not, in most
\ncases, take place because the perpetrator purposefully intends to
\ntransgress religious norms. Usually the person involved is quite
\naware that he is violating an ethical, social, or any other kind
\nof norm, except a religious one. Morality and religiosity are not
\nidentical. They are concepts that are neither identical nor
\nequipollent, and should not be treated as such.<\/p>\n
In educational practice, religious education is an endeavor
\nthat must be placed above, and that contains more complexities
\nthan, moral education. To paraphrase Professor Philip H Phenix,
\nreligious education can be defined as \"the act of guiding the
\nyoung in their spiritual journey toward the ultimacy.\" The term
\n\"ultimacy\" is, he writes, a general designation for ideas such as
\n\"infinitude, absoluteness, the unlimited, transcendence,
\nperfection, completeness, all-inclusiveness, and the supreme.
\nThese ideas are the opposites of ideas like finitude, the
\nrelative, limitation and limitedness, partiality, and the like.<\/p>\n
So whereas moral education purports to bring students toward
\nthe understanding and acceptance of yardsticks concerning
\ngoodness, religious education tries to guide students towards the
\nunderstanding of transcendental existence, and also the linkage
\nthat theological systems have established between the \"present
\nlife\" and the \"life hereafter.\" It has also been postulated that
\nreligious education is the effort to instill the idea that the
\nsource of earthly beauty, earthly truth, earthly justice, and so
\non is the Ultimate. Hence, expressions like \"ultimate Truth\",
\n\"ultimate Justice\", \"ultimate Beauty\", and the like.<\/p>\n
Another important proposition in religious education is that
\nteachers of religion can guide the young towards the ultimacy
\nonly to a certain point. Beyond that every person has to go on
\nhis own. No one can accompany us in this journey and place us at
\nthe door of Heaven. Every person is responsible for his or her
\nnext life in the hereafter.<\/p>\n
Confusing religious and moral education, and using the same
\npedagogical and didactical approaches to teach the two, is
\nvirtually subjecting the school and students to educational
\nreductionism. This mistake has been most frequent in the teaching
\nof history. This is usually caused by teachers' desire to make
\nlearning material easier to understand.<\/p>\n
But the result is usually that students reach a level of
\nunderstanding that is below the one originally intended by the
\ncourse. In history, this reductionism has made most students
\nacquire only knowledge concerning the chronology of events, and
\nnot the meanings of historical events.<\/p>\n
What is the result of reductionism in religious education? It
\nwould likely bring about pseudo-religiosity among students, which
\nwill fall far short of the genuine faith in the Ultimate or the
\nAbsolute. Worse, it can bring about greed for heavenly rewards
\nand constant fear for eternal life in hell. And reductionism in
\nmoral education will bring about only knowledge on what is
\nprohibited in life on the one hand, and what are the imperatives
\nof life on the other. It will not bring about personal
\ncommitments to values. In the worst format, it will bring about
\nhypocrisy.<\/p>\n
Another reason for my objection against entrusting moral
\neducation to teachers of religion is that moral education in our
\nschools is not intended to mold only the moral or character of
\nindividual students. It is primarily intended to mold the
\ncollective character of the students. When moral education was
\nnot conducted as a special course, but as a general discourse of
\ncharacter building (pendidikan budi pekerti), no effort was made
\nto mold the individual character of individual students.<\/p>\n
Such a discourse usually consisted of lectures and discussions
\non the basic fundamentals of morality or civility, which were
\nderived from social and ethical norms that were considered valid
\nat the time.<\/p>\n
It has also been said, sometimes, that moral education aims to
\nmold a \"collective personality\" among the students, a personality
\nconsidered as the \"trade mark\" of a given school. Schools with a
\ngood reputation --\"favorite schools\" or \"popular schools\"-- are
\nschools that succeed in building a distinct collective
\npersonality among their students. This distinct personality is in
\nturn looked upon by the public as the school's institutional
\n\"trade mark\". Collective personality among students of a school
\nis in general achieved through institutional approaches and
\nmethods, and not through tutoring by individual teachers.<\/p>\n
Building individual character, on the other hand, is done
\nthrough educative interactions between individual students and
\nindividual teachers. Here it is only teachers who can win the
\ntrust of individual students who at the end will be able to
\ninfluence students in their choice of personal value systems, and
\nhence in the development of their personal character of morality.
\nOnly teachers capable of accepting students as they are, and
\ntreating them as their \"equals\", will be able to win the trust of
\nthe students.<\/p>\n
Teachers who put themselves \"above\" the students will never be
\nable to contribute anything to the development of personal
\ncharacter among students. Religious teachers who adopt a \"holier-
\nthan-thou\" attitude towards students will encounter very strong
\nresistance when they try to influence them in their choice of
\nvalues and value systems. Only religious teachers who exhibit
\n\"democratic\" or \"egalitarian\" attitudes towards students will
\nfind it possible to guide the young in their search for a format
\nof religious personality that they can consider their own.<\/p>\n
Is moral education really such an important part of reforming
\nour educational system? It is -- but this does not mean that this
\nreform can be accomplished without giving due attention to other
\nimportant components. Improvement in moral education without
\nimprovements in the teaching of languages and mathematics,
\nnatural, social, and human sciences will not, I fear, adequately
\nprepare the young to meet the tough challenges of life that lie
\nahead.<\/p>\n
The writer is a former rector of the Muhammadiyah University in
\nJakarta and a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of
\nStruggle.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/all-are-responsible-for-moral-education-1447893297",
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