Has school system contributed to violence?

The national education system has been repeatedly criticized. Poor thinking skills contribute much to the current social ills, says Bachrudin Musthafa, who graduated from the Ohio State University and who leads the Bandung-based Center for Research on Education and Sociocultural Transformation.

Question: How would you relate the country's problems to national education, which many say needs an overhaul?

Answer: Our overloaded curriculum has forced teachers to teach at the surface level, spoon-feeding students a little bit of everything, which precludes them from really understanding the material. This "malpractice" is encouraged by centralized entrance and graduation exams, which focus on superficial knowledge of facts and recitation of mindless formulas in a multiple-choice format.

With their instructions to cover the curriculum and survive the multiple-choice tests, the system from elementary to high school levels has successfully kept students too busy to get involved in the kind of thinking processes needed to engage in real life.

Not surprisingly most graduates cannot think for themselves.

Worse still, under an authoritarian government, critical thinking was never encouraged. The reverse is true: unquestioning obedience in pursuit of social cohesion has been encouraged as a virtue.

When in disagreement the other side (becomes) the "enemy." We tend to be emotional. Predetermined "consensus", instead, has been engineered as a perfunctory resolution for differing perspectives. Alternative voices, if articulated at all, are mistaken as a threat to social cohesiveness.

What are the underlying factors?

What is vital here is our cultural value system. Children are required to listen without giving them a fair chance to speak their minds. "Silence is golden."

Good students are those who sit still and keep quiet, listening to teachers who position themselves as the only source of knowledge and holder of the truth.

Learning is successful when students can reproduce the knowledge imparted by the teacher ... and demonstrate mechanical operation of a given formula. Tests ... only accept one correct answer. Submissive students are rewarded, and students with dissenting minds are singled out.

These formulas have also been adopted and popularized by informal institutions and media such as television stations that now seem to be competing to develop various quiz programs, presented by a "cool" celebrity. It seems that the person who can come up with the quickest answers, rather than the deep-thinking or reflective one, is regarded as the most knowledgeable.

What is the impact of this lack of critical thinking?

We cannot afford to ignore the horrifying manifestation of this neglect of critical thinking skills. Students facing national exams have been reported to have cheated by securing question sheets prior to the tests.

Many parents have been reported as bribing school officials to upgrade academic transcripts.

Such cheating, bribing officials for special access to an educational institution and lack of confidence in reasoning are only a few of today's painful examples.

What do these flaws in educational systems have to do with current social and political problems?

We often take test scores as the only acceptable measure of academic success without considering the process of how the grade is gained. The same recognition is also given to material gains and academic titles as shown in bribery and forgery.

This often happens in a system where a product is more highly valued than its enabling process, a value system that negates the virtues of hard work, honesty, and responsibility.

In our discourse about democracy, many seem to enjoy expressing themselves by way of physical threats and violence rather than resorting to reasoned arguments.

When trying to understand public policy issues, some people tend to be preoccupied with the logic of power and disregard the power of logic. Recent riots in Jakarta and other cities involving "paid" protests against government policy-making are clear examples of over-reliance on emotional, egocentric urges and disregard of critical thinking.

When talking for instance about issues relating to religion and belief systems, people tend to take emotions as the only valid guide for action ... Interfaith understanding becomes unlikely, if not impossible, to achieve beyond a superficial level.

Examples here are the endless "civil wars" in Maluku and other inter-racial or inter-group social riots

How have we reached such a sorry state?

Abuse of power -- both physically and politically -- has for the past three decades gained justification, perhaps inadvertently, as a result of ideological malpractice.

Rules of conduct have taken second seat to personal gains ... When a selfish agenda is justified at any cost it sends a message to other members of society that correct procedures, civility, and honesty are not important.

A short cut is the preferred route ...

This implies that our democracy as we presently practice it will not get refined without critical thinking ... which cannot be effectively developed without education. It is vital that education (authorities) take this issue is seriously if our new democracy is to develop in a healthy way.

What should do be done to correct the situation?

A concerted effort is needed ... Law enforcers, educational leaders, and parents certainly have a major role to play.

Educators should review the curriculum and make a more realistic setting of priorities. The curriculum should be reviewed to incorporate critical thinking as a central guiding objective and should be trimmed to cover only those essential concepts and competencies, so teachers (encourage) more understanding (among students). The principle to adopt here is "less is more".

We should also revise the testing system ... tests should direct students to think deeply about issues and problems of importance to them. Questions should encourage ... creativity. (Rani R. Moediarta)