Ciganjur school fosters a love of nature in the young

Ciganjur school fosters a love of nature in the young

By PJ Leo

JAKARTA (JP): On a tranquil morning in the southern Jakarta
suburb of Ciganjur, the students of SAC began to arrive in cars,
on motorbikes or on foot, escorted by their parents and other
family members.

They lug large school bags containing their textbooks,
clothing and food, descending 46 steps from the parking area to
their leafy school compound.

There are three school buildings, with a teachers' common room
and library, all built on stilts in the architectural style of
Bengkulu. There is also a mosque on the 6,000 square meters of
land at Sekolah Alam Ciganjur (SAC), a school which puts the
study of nature at the top of its curriculum.

"It took us a long time to find a location which was
sufficiently lush and green in the Jakarta metropolitan area like
Ciganjur to build SAC," said Yusriana Lendonovo, wife of
Lendonovo, one of the school's founders.

"The owner of the compound is Citra Nurul Falah Foundation
which originally planned to build a Muslim boarding school. But
because of the unresolved financial woes, the construction of the
boarding school was not realized, so we from Alam Semesta
Foundation sought cooperation to build a school based on nature."

SAC, established in 1997, currently has 119 students, ranging
from play group to the third grade of elementary school. There
are 16 teachers, all of them graduates of either the Bandung
Institute of Technology (ITB), the Bogor Institute of Agriculture
(IPB) or the University of Indonesia.

There is an average of 20 students to a class, and two classes
for the play group, based on age. The first is for under-threes,
the second for those over three years.

When the school bell rings to mark the start of lesson, the
students remove their shoes before entering the classrooms one by
one.

After filing out an attendance list on the whiteboard under
their respective teacher's guidance, the students yell in delight
as they leave their classrooms without walls for their weekly
morning physical education session.

"We do morning physical exercise on Wednesday only, followed
by outward bound games, such as an adroitness game to develop the
children's physical and mental faculties," said the school's
principal, Iman Kurniawan.

"In the outward bound games the children's bravery is tested,
such as how to cross a river by walking along a rope tied to two
tree boughs at a height of 10 meters, or how to climb a steep
slope and go up through a net."

After the outward bound games are over, the students get
dressed in suitable clothes for their next activities.

Some of them set off to do some gardening, such as planting or
observing flora. Others look at livestock, feeding the cattle and
jotting down their observations. The reports are submitted to
their teachers.

"The method we apply at this school is to learn in the realm
of nature, using the media of nature, and learning from nature,"
Yusriana said.

Despite the school administration's good intentions, it has
encountered difficulties in obtaining an operation license from
the education ministry. The regional office has yet to issue the
document.

"I'm disappointed by the government's procrastination in
issuing an operation license, as this school is aimed at studying
nature," said Dian Kartika Sari, a private company employee and a
supporter of the school. She and her colleagues have contributed
to the school from their earnings teaching foreign children in
Jakarta.

She argued the government should take the school as a shining
example.

"The government should have been more responsive to this
school for nature. If children already know how to preserve
nature, when they are adults they'll probably have a greater
appreciation of it, unlike now when the forests are denuded and
wild animals are hunted."

Another supporter of the school, Endah Sarawati Adhiguna, said
the education ministry was doing the children a disservice by not
issuing the accreditation.

"It doesn't matter to those still in the play group or
kindergarten, but what if the parents of some elementary school
students move to other cities, and the children who are already
in the third grade have to start from scratch because their is no
letter from the ministry?"

SAC also emphasizes lessons about Islam in addition to its
regular curriculum.

Registration fees are Rp 1.5 million for the play group, Rp 2
million for kindergarten and Rp 3 million for elementary school.
The monthly fees are Rp 150,000 for the play group and
kindergarten, and Rp 200,000 for the elementary school, although
Yusrina said needy parents were only required to pay what they
could afford.