Instilling learning discipline in schools worth retaining

By John Phillips

This is the second of two articles exploring the good and bad sides of American and Indonesian school learning processes.

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Early childhood education experts have stressed, for many years, the importance of the example of the parents and their attitude towards education as being crucial in a child's socialization to education. Thus, we did not just say how important we thought education was, we lived it and in the process provided a strong foundation upon which Iin could build her own educational values and her willingness to participate in learning, not just attend to it. The lesson here is that parents (and teachers) lead best by example.

The fact that we had a house filled with books is another factor in our daughter's success. In fact, it is an absolutely crucial factor in national development as well.

President Soeharto struck the right note of urgency in exhorting the nation to read more books. For in them one finds the keys to economic development, technical, political development, basic skills needed for democratic institutions and social development, adapt to increasing international integration and cross-cultural communication.

In fact, the decline in the effectiveness of the "American" educational system can be traced directly to a decline in literacy and a decline in the ability of children to acquire lateral and critical thinking skills as a result. Reading is a "habit" that once acquired is almost never abandoned. Readers, in turn, by virtue of the act of reading and reading widely, become thinkers adept at processing information and, even more importantly, ideas. Knowledge (not just information) is the ultimate power and it leads to the ability to control one's own destiny to the extent human beings are capable of doing so. Thus, another lesson of our daughter's success is that reading is the foundation of education and a society that does not promote it, promotes its own decline.

Importantly, Iin also had plenty of opportunity to achieve educational excellence. Her schools in the United States, even the average ones, had a lot of resources that would be considered a luxury here in Indonesia. The teachers had a lot of education and training. They were also paid a "living" wage though not an extravagant one, meaning that most had to work only one job.

And, the society itself has a lot of media resources including extensive libraries, educational television, and "free" educational materials. More importantly, Iin has benefited not only from our example and willingness to sacrifice for her education (including allowing her to remain in the United States), but she has also benefited greatly from her "guardians" providing her with not just a place to stay, but also a place in their hearts and minds.

These people who were unrelated to her and who received really only enough money from the living arrangement to take care of her needs still provided all of those things that children need to succeed in school, including love and understanding.

In many ways, their sacrifice in terms of "privacy" as a retired couple and inconvenience was much greater. This is a lesson that cannot be ignored, and that is that "opportunity" is not just an abstract idea but combined efforts of individuals and society to provide whatever is necessary to ensure that each generation has the opportunity to become educated and productive members of the society.

This includes paying taxes, committing money and time, and making choices that lead to increased opportunity for those willing to take it. In recent years the American commitment to providing this kind of opportunity has been declining at the same time that the Indonesian commitment has been increasing. It seems to me that in terms of the direction these societies are going in, Indonesia has the right idea. However, there has also been another decline in educational "health" in the United States in an already weak area in American schools, "discipline". By this, I only partly mean the same kind of discipline I think Lee Kuan Yew means.

Basic discipline which is taught by parents and by schools is only the first stage of learning how to be disciplined. This kind of discipline is often based on social and legal restrictions specified by authorities who "sanction" any violation of these restrictions.

As any parent or legal authority can testify, this kind of discipline is the most transient and least effective means for "controlling" behavior and it is even less effective in persuading people to do "what is good for themselves" when they have a choice in the matter.

In fact, since it removes from the individual the real responsibility for making choices and attempts to coerce them into the "appropriate" behavior, there is little if any commitment to the desired behavior. There is an old saying that "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" which expresses the essence of the problem.

People, especially children, who have to be forced to do something, do so unwillingly and half-heartedly. Unwilling and half-hearted learning is not learning at all; it is simply conforming.

A nation needs citizens who do not "just conform", but who willingly participate in the hard work of building a nation, of which learning is no small part.

So, the kind of discipline that a system needs to encourage and to build into its educational system is "self-discipline". Students, like everyone else in the society, must make choices for themselves which include postponing gratification, working hard for "future rewards", and willingness to expend time and effort beyond the minimum requirement.

Former U.S. president Richard Nixon may have had an abundance of faults and may not have been the most brilliant of statesmen, but he "succeeded in accomplishing many of his goals by having what he called an 'iron butt'." That is, in order to achieve his goals, he knew what he wanted and he was willing to work harder, sacrifice more and persist longer despite setbacks, unlike most of his contemporaries.

This then is the true meaning of discipline in the educational context as it is in the social context. If citizens are to be truly educated, it must be accomplished by them, not for them, through hard work, sacrifice, commitment, and "self-discipline". And this is the true meaning of my daughter's success. In the final analysis not only must one has the will to succeed but one must also have an "iron butt".

John Phillips, is an American educator working at the Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta.