Improving teachers skills is imperative for the future

Improving teachers skills is imperative for the future

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Fellow columnist Ignas Kleden recently asked
that I write something about the importance of intellectuality
for our teachers. He was worried about teachers' lack of general
knowledge. Most of them know very little or nothing at all about
anything outside of their respective areas of teaching. Worse
still, many teachers have serious shortcomings within their area
of specialization. This, Ignas said, is a dangerous situation
that must be remedied immediately.

I entirely agree with him. Our conversation made me think of
an old proverb which says that learning from a teacher who has
stopped studying is like drinking from a stagnant pool of water.
It is unhealthy. And learning from a teacher who is constantly
learning is like drinking from a pool of running water. It is
invigorating.

Is a teacher without sufficient general knowledge really
harmful?

Seen individually, such a teacher could not be considered
harmful. The worst one could do would be to produce students with
outdated knowledge and a myopic view about the world around them.
Seen in a collective and accumulative way, however, I think a
stock of teachers with poor general knowledge would in the long
run harm the nation. Especially during this time of knowledge
explosion, teachers with static and narrow knowledge are real
liabilities. They could unknowingly arrest the development of
healthy curiosity among students. They could, without realizing
it, become boring by continuously teaching isolated pieces of
knowledge in a time where knowledge is becoming increasingly
interrelated.

From past experience I have observed that learning from
teachers who lack general knowledge is not as exciting or
enriching as learning from teachers rich in general knowledge. To
use modern jargon, it can be stated that learning from teachers
with unidisciplinary vision is not as exciting as learning from
teachers with multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary vision.

How can we stimulate our teachers to become academically
curious? How can we make them crave more and more knowledge
throughout their teaching careers?

There is no simple answer to this question, I am afraid. One
important factor is, I think, income. Increasing our teachers'
incomes to a level where they can meet the financial demands of
daily existence would, I think, make it easier to prod them into
learning drive. But I am also sure that increased incomes alone
would not automatically make them more academically curious, nor
more willing to accumulate and digest information from available
resources.

More important than raising their incomes is, in my opinion,
improving the system of teachers' education. General knowledge is
the result of sustained curiosity. And curiosity is a
characteristic which has to be nurtured. No one is born curious,
or capable of sustaining his or her curiosity. The present
absence of satisfactory general knowledge entails unpleasant
consequences, whereas if during prospective teachers' preservice
education they were put in an environment where curiosity was
encouraged and the actual possession of general knowledge
praised, then it would be possible to generate a generation of
teachers imbued with curiosity and equipped with the capability
of expressing their curiosity into learning activities leading
toward relevant general knowledge.

Is it possible to create this kind of institutional climate
within our teachers colleges?

I am not sure there is an appropriate answer to this question.
There is conflicting evidence. On the one hand there is the
general opinion that teachers colleges today attract only those
who would be rejected by any other higher education institution.
If this is true, then it would be very difficult to implant
academic curiosity among prospective teachers. Difficult, but not
impossible.

On the other hand, I have met many students from various
teachers colleges throughout the country who are very aggressive
in their search for new and better knowledge, for the kind of
knowledge they feel they cannot get from their professors and
lecturers. They are hungry for the type of knowledge which would
make them understand the political and social contexts of
educational problems within our schools. And they are
dissatisfied with the kind of knowledge they receive from their
professors. What they want is a comprehensive map of our national
problems within the field of education described within the
context of the political and social situation of Indonesia. What
they have been looking for is general knowledge which would
enable them to become intelligent practitioners of the teaching
craft.

I think this kind of intellectual yearning constitutes a
natural basis for creating a program which would lead students
toward vital academic life. Activities leading toward this type
of knowledge would broaden their outlook regarding their teaching
assignments in the future.

I am convinced it is possible to generate a climate in
teachers colleges which would prod some toward a genuine
intellectual life centered around their teaching activities. It
would not be easy, but once again, it is possible. Even if the
majority of people attending teachers college are of the second-
rate mind category, this should not deter our teachers colleges
to create conditions which would encourage a portion of their
students to become teachers with an intellectual touch.

What if we fail to create a climate within schools and society
which encourages teachers to develop into intellectually-minded
educators? We would face a national catastrophe. We would see the
growth of a school system which is so uniform and rigid that any
attempt to rise above intellectual mediocrity would be frowned
upon and punished. That would be the end of our dream of a modern
nation capable of competing with its neighbors, and capable of
taking care of itself. A school system without enough teachers
with sufficient broad knowledge and intellectuality would be
unable to give the young generation the foundation to become what
is required in the future: highly retrainable knowledge-workers.

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.