Putting fun back into education<\/p>\n
Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
What Dony remembers about his elementary school days in Sydney
\nis the immense fun he had and the games he played while at his
\nAustralian school.<\/p>\n
When it comes to what the 24 year old recollects about his
\nschool days back here in his homeland, however, he puts it in two
\nwords.<\/p>\n
\"No fun!\"<\/p>\n
If anecdotal evidence is anything to go by, there is something
\nseriously wrong with the national education system, Most of the
\npeople The Jakarta Post interviewed recently said the only fun
\npart of school was found outside of school hours.<\/p>\n
\"During school we had to memorize things all the time ... the
\npace of the lessons was much too fast, before we could understand
\none we were already forced to learn the next lesson,\" Dony, now a
\nstudent at Brawijaya University in Malang, East Java, said.<\/p>\n
Others said the only enjoyable part of school was meeting
\nfriends, and extracurricular activities, such as the marching
\nband and the school magazine.<\/p>\n
\"I had fun (in school) because of other factors, because of my
\nfriends and because I'm laid-back by nature, so I don't let the
\nstressful lessons get to me,\" said Sena, 24, a University of
\nIndonesia student.<\/p>\n
Child psychologist Seto Mulyadi said this attitude of students
\nindicates the failure of the education system to instill a love
\nof learning.<\/p>\n
\"Students are only happy when the school bell rings, when
\nthey're outside school. This is exactly the reason why we should
\nrevamp our education system,\" he said.<\/p>\n
The effective way to learn is through enjoyable experiences,
\nSeto said, explaining that a child learns most effectively when
\ncognition is combined with the affective, or with feelings, and
\nthe psychomotoric, or elements of movements and activities.<\/p>\n
\"The songs you remember most are those you hear when you're
\nfeeling happy, when you're in love. And it's through outbound
\nexperiences that adults easily grasp leadership values. Why do
\nyou think that is?\"<\/p>\n
Sena said the lessons he most remembers were those he learned
\nwhen in elementary school because they were the most basic, \"They
\nwere the ones that were most applicable in real life.<\/p>\n
\"The additions and subtractions are those I mostly use even
\nnow -- what do I care about sine, cosine and tangent?\"<\/p>\n
He believes the failure of education here is due to the fact
\nthat the teacher never tries to help the student understand the
\nimportance of a lesson by showing the relationship between theory
\nand practice.<\/p>\n
Children love learning, they love discovering new things, and
\nit is only after they become \"institutionalized\" in a rigid
\nsystem that they start having reservations about learning, Seto
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
\"In only three years (of life) a child can absorb 80 percent
\nof his mother's language, no matter how difficult, because they
\nare taught with love and affection, there's no such thing as
\nfailure,\" he said, explaining that only when failure enters a
\nchild's vocabulary is a phobia of school created.<\/p>\n
The real aim of education, Seto believes, is to change
\nbehavior from ignorance to awareness, to be aware of abstract
\nconcepts and of good morals, instead of having theories drummed
\ninto passive students.<\/p>\n
\"This aim is often misinterpreted, as if the child is (there)
\nfor the school, the child is (there) for the curriculum, it
\nshould be the other way around, we don't live to learn but learn
\nto live,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, each person is created differently, including
\nwith different interests, and even the ability to absorb lessons
\nand experiences varies from person to person. Each child should
\nbe approached with different teaching methods and taught with
\ntheir individual best interests in mind, Seto said.<\/p>\n
The government should allow each school to modify and form its
\nown curriculum, according to the children's needs, and limit its
\nrole in providing broad guidelines, he added.<\/p>\n
The sobering reality now is that children as small as three or
\nfour years old are already taught to read, write and do
\nmathematics.<\/p>\n
Harini, a mother of a four-year-old boy, is concerned at
\nseeing her son being already taught to write in script, composing
\ncomplete sentences and doing mathematical equations, in his first
\nyear of kindergarten.<\/p>\n
\"Truthfully, I don't approve (of the method) but the teacher
\nsaid that if they don't give such lessons, my child will never
\nget into a good elementary school,\" she said, explaining that
\nmany schools expect children to already know the skills before
\nentering first grade.<\/p>\n
The situation creates a vicious cycle, of the child going to
\nschool and studying only because it is the only way to get to the
\nnext level of schooling, and eventually to a well-paid job.<\/p>\n
The repressive situation is why children never seem to enjoy
\ntheir school experience, and in the case of Dony, after returning
\nhome, he had to repeat a grade because he could not keep up with
\nthe lessons.<\/p>\n
Sena has his own way of dealing with the problem. \"That's
\neasy. When a lesson stresses me out, I just skip the class,\" he
\nsaid with a laugh.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/putting-fun-back-into-education-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}