Flexible curricula

The headline Kids learn boxing to stop brawling (The Jakarta Post, Sept. 9, 2000) has really intrigued me as I am interested in education and, more particularly, in curricula.

Dudi Effendi, a teacher at SMK Grafica Lektur who watched the bout, said he was hopeful that the program could reduce the frequency of student brawls.

Such a move is indeed an innovation in the application of curricula, especially the flexible curricula in which local content needs to be taken into account. I certainly agree with this idea considering that Mochtar Buchori suggests that a good curriculum consists primarily of subjects each of which has an integrative power (The Post, Aug. 23, 2000).

This idea is supported by Tresna Dermawan who says that it is necessary to have a national curriculum which is more locally adaptive, which he termed membumi or down to earth in nature (Pikiran Rakyat, Aug. 23, 2000). For this reason, education as power means being competent and strong enough to enable us, the majority of the people, to decide what kind of world we want and how to achieve that kind of world (Theodore Brameld, 1977).

Studying the ideas of the experts, I fully support the inclusion of boxing and other physical activities such as mountaineering in local curricula. Note that intelligence includes not only linguistic and mathematical capabilities, but musical, bodily-kinesthetic and sport's intelligence as well (Colin Rose & J. Nicholl 1997).

ODO FADLOELI

Cimahi, Bandung