Effective education calls for critical, intellectual teachers
Effective education calls for critical, intellectual teachers
By Mochtar Buchori
JAKARTA (JP): Joko Kusmanto's article in the Jan. 9 edition of
The Jakarta Post stirred ambivalent feelings in me. On the one
hand, I completely agree with his vision that our teachers should
become "critical and transformative -- or transforming --
intellectuals".
On the other, I have grave doubts such a vision can
materialize in our present society.
Granted, we had teachers in the past who were real
intellectuals by any standard. There was the late Ki Mohammad
Said of the Taman Siswa educational system, for instance, who was
consistently critical of social conditions around him.
And he was not afraid to act or behave in a way that he
considered right or appropriate, even though it bucked popular
beliefs and expectations.
One day in 1966, after he was made education minister by then
caretaker president Soeharto, he courageously came out of his
office to face students shouting anti-Sukarno slogans.
He shouted back "Yes! I am a Sukarnoist! Just what do you
want?"
As I remember, he went against the tide of opposition against
the country's first president because he was tired of all the
empty political slogans of the time (he was education minister
for only three months).
He wanted students to be more critical, using reason rather
than their emotions in facing the tumult.
Many times during his lifetime he acted in ways which made the
establishment uncomfortable.
Another great teacher-intellectual was the late Ir. Djuanda,
who was, if I am not mistaken, prime minister of this republic
during the last eight years of his life. He was an engineer by
training, a graduate of the prestigious Technische Hooge School
in Bandung, today's Bandung Institute of Technology.
He could have enjoyed a comfortable life using his engineering
expertise to work with the colonial government.
Instead, he preferred to teach, and toward the end of the
Dutch colonial era he became the director of a private teachers'
training school, the Hollands Inlandse Kweekschool Muhammadiyah
in Jakarta.
According to one of his former students, someone whom I later
looked upon as a critical and transforming educator himself, the
late Ir. Djuanda was not only an excellent teacher of
mathematics, but a transforming political force as well within
the school.
He groomed students to become teachers highly critical sense
toward existing social and political conditions in the country.
It made some of his students overtly nationalistic at a time when
it was politically dangerous, but Ir. Djuanda was always ready to
protect them against the suspicions and probing of the colonial
police.
Through this kind of pedagogy, he prepared many young
Indonesians who, in their own way, contributed to the preparation
of their homeland to become an independent nation.
There were many other teachers like these two in the past. And
it is a matter of historical record that our educational system,
once quite respectable, was the result of hard and persevering
labor by Indonesian teachers who can be rightly called
"transforming critical intellectuals".
The skeleton of our present educational system was the product
of highly imaginative endeavors performed during difficult times
of the Japanese occupation and the period of physical revolution.
In light of these historical precedents, why then am I
skeptical of Joko's vision for our teachers in the future?
Because times have changed, and conditions within our society
have also altered. The very social and political conditions of
the past that made it possible for Ki Mohammad Said and Ir.
Djuanda to become great transforming teachers-cum-intellectuals
were void during the Soeharto regime, and are still missing in
our present society.
During the last three decades, any teacher with the potential
to become a transforming intellectual like Ki Mohammad Said or
Ir. Djuanda would, within the existing political climate, be
thwarted in his or her attempts to advance.
What is an intellectual?
According to James MacGregor Burns (1963), an intellectual is
a person whose basic inclination is to examine, ponder, wonder,
theorize, criticize and imagine.
An intellectual is also a person who is "concerned critically
with values, purposes, ends that transcend immediate practical
needs".
By this definition, an intellectual is someone who deals with
both analytical and normative ideas. He or she is thus both a
theorist and a moralist, a person who unites data and values with
disciplined imagination.
And what is the essence of being critical? According to James
Alcock (1996), it is the willingness to be open-minded, the
willingness to submit observations and conclusions made by a
single individual for independent verification and validation by
others. Being critical thus implies willingness to put collective
validation above individual validation.
Being critical and open-minded will, according to Paul Kurtz
(1996), enable us to distinguish between speculative conjecture
from objective, reliable and confirmatory evidence.
An open-minded and critical person is willing to have his or
her ideas subjected to critical examination, and is receptive to
new ideas. But such a person will not gullibly accept anything
and everything without a responsible filtering process.
And what is the essence of being transformative or
transforming for a teacher?
Borrowing from the analysis of James MacGregor Burns, we can
say that for a teacher to be transforming entails being ready to
identify the potential motives of the students, being ready to
help them satisfy their higher needs and willing to engage them
as full people of equal merit.
This kind of relationship requires mutual trust, and through
this kind of relationship transforming teachers guide their
students in the process of acquiring their better selves.
We see from these explanations why it is almost impossible for
our teachers in our present conditions to become "transforming
critical intellectuals". Our teachers are never in a position to
question the validity of opinions held by those above them. They
are always required to accept without reservation the opinions
and ideas formulated by their "superiors".
They have never been allowed to be critical.
Does it mean Joko's vision is a utopia? No!
It means that we have to work hard to make it possible for his
vision to become reality. From the perspective of building
democracy in our country, the presence of teachers as
transforming critical intellectuals is a must.
Democratic society presupposes "thoughtful, educated citizens
who can deliberate reflectively and think critically". Without
such citizenry, it is not unthinkable that we will revert to our
previous stage of a totalitarian society inching perilously
toward a totalitarian state.
The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.