Mangunwijaya's dreams for education

Yusup Priyasudiarja, Contributor, Yogyakarta

Mangunwijaya or affectionately called as Romo Mangun was widely known as an architect, priest, intellectual, social worker and novelist and also regarded by many as a fighter for the liberation of the poor from stupidity, powerlessness and injustice.

He toiled to help poor children and people in repressive situations to be independent and to act on their own choices. Born in Ambarawa in 1929 and involved in the struggle for independence as a young soldier.

During the independence struggle, he was deeply touched by Major Isman's speech during a reunion of Tentara Pelajar Indonesia/TPI (Indonesian student battalions) in Malang in the early 1950s. Isman said that the real heroes of the revolution in the independence struggle were not soldiers but the people who suffered during the war.

His valuable ideas on education have been collected in this book, which consists of 39 essays published in Kompas in the period 1974 to 1998. Even though some of his essays were written before 1980, they are still relevant to today's educational issues. This book, then, can serve as the heritage of his great ideas on education for the young generation.

In most of his features, Mangunwijaya, the author of the novel Burung-burung Manyar argues that basic education in elementary school plays a significant role in the whole process of education. The quality of basic education will determine the quality of higher education. As children are by nature explorative, creative and curious, teachers should provide students with activities to stimulate them to be explorative learners and critical thinkers.

Mangunwijaya notes that students should be stimulated to be more critical, to ask a lot of questions, to observe their surroundings, to analyze data and find their own answers. As basic education is very vital, teachers in elementary schools should also be creative, well-educated and qualified.

Jean Piaget, a Swiss philosopher and psychologist, best-known for his pioneering work on the development of intelligence in children, shows the stages of cognitive development of children. He believes that children are not empty vessels to be filled with knowledge but active builders of knowledge: little scientists who are constantly creating and testing their own theories of the world.

Children are basically explorative; they are the ones who teach themselves. Hence their learning process can be optimally achieved through active exploration. It seems that Mangunwijaya was inspired by Jean Piaget's ideas on developmental psychology.

Besides, all children are basically clever, but it is the teaching-learning process in class that makes them slow, as illustrated by Jean Jacques Rousseau's "God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil."

One of Mangunwijaya's strong criticisms on education rests on the educational system. He points out that we have oppressed (not to mention "killed") our 30 million children every day through our educational system in formal schools, in which methodology, evaluation systems and management structure inhibit the creativity, spontaneity and explorative natures of children in their learning process (p.48).

In our educational system, evaluation systems such as THB, NEM, EBTA, EBTANAS and many others, are considered the factors that hamper the development of our education. The mushrooming of courses (nonformal education) and the high interest of parents in enrolling their children on courses indicate clearly the failure of formal education in Indonesia.

Mangunwijaya put his ideas on education into practice by running an alternative elementary school, Dinamika Edukasi Dasar (Basic Education Institute) in Mangunan, Yogyakarta. He applied the curriculum used by other formal schools but modified it by adding some subjects such as question formulation and music lessons.

Here, students are given the greatest opportunities to explore and develop their creativity. SD Mangunan has become one of examples of Mangunwijaya's work on education, in which its education system is children-oriented. He also highlights the importance of language mastery among his students. According to him, language is the key to grasping as much information as possible and to comprehending any culture.

As a product of Dutch colonial education, Mangunwijaya has picked up some goods points on the colonial education system. He points out that instead of the negative effects of Dutch colonialism, we can learn positive things from their education. Colonial teachers, with their humane educational background, taught students to be gentle, to think progressively, consistently and logically and to dared to say "waar of neit" (right or wrong).

Hence the colonial education system incredibly manages to produce good graduates having universal values, analytical thinking and a strong character, such as the country's national heroes Soekarno, Hatta, Syahrir, Soetomo, Agoes Salim, Adam Malik, Maramis, etc.

Education is carried out through TV, which can serve not only as a medium of entertainment, but also of education. Despite the apparently negative aspects of teaching, such as low salaries and overbureaucratization of education systems, teachers in China are still dedicated and have self-esteem. Education should be the main concern of our government if we really want to build a great nation.

In this book, there are at least three points highlighted by Mangunwijaya. First, it is hoped that there will be a law which effectively protect children in all aspects of life from any unfair treatment from other people, including parents and teachers.

This book gives us a deeper insight into Mangunwijaya's vision and concern for education in Indonesia. Now it is our task to continue his great work to build the nation through better education.