Muthahhari enlivened by classical music

By Rikza Abdullah

BANDUNG (JP): Muthia and her colleagues from various parts of the country find a fresh but challenging learning environment in their new school here as they are exposed in the classrooms to baroque classical music while listening to their teachers explaining lessons in English with visual aids.

"Listening to all our lessons in English, except those on Indonesian and Arabic, is challenging to us but we continue to feel relaxed and fresh the whole school day because the music helps reinvigorate our spirit," she said here earlier this week.

Headmaster Yusuf Bachtiar said that music, according to the quantum teaching and learning method, is part of the requirements for creating a conducive environment.

To create physically conducive conditions, the Muthahhari Senior High School has equipped each of its classrooms with easy- to-move chairs, a centralized sound system, black and white boards, an air-conditioner, an overhead projector, flowers and visual aids. All the walls are painted brownish red, a color that is said to stimulate the blood flow.

Listening to music during the learning process in the classroom is deemed important to balance the activities of both sides of the human brain. Because most communication in the classroom is conveyed in verbal and written forms, the learning process activates the left side of the brain, which is responsible for logical, sequential, linear and rational thoughts . Meanwhile, music will activate the right side of the brain, which can recognize non-verbal messages like music, art, colors and space.

Furthermore, the learning process raises blood pressure, intensifies brain waves and increases muscle tension, while music can help reduce all of these. Musical works that are most suitable for accompanying students in their learning are those composed by Sebastian Bach, Handel, Pachelbel and Vivaldi, whose rhythms are synchronized with the heartbeat.

"The relaxation brought about by the music, therefore, will help students to continue to concentrate on their lessons," commented deputy headmaster Asep Durahman.

He said that to create a conducive environment for learning, Muthahhari also engineers the psychosocial environment of the school by, among other things, developing warm relations between teachers and students, respecting the privacy of students and recognizing the strengths of individual students.

The students' weaknesses are not disclosed publicly, so that they will not feel disgraced. Teachers, therefore, keep the results of the students' exams confidential and do not announce them on notice boards.

A positive competitive environment is created through celebrations for students who have notched up outstanding achievements in the academic or other fields. Thus, the self- confidence of students' can be developed.

Shulhu Khoiriyah of the third grade said students are also allowed to eat snacks or have a drink in the classroom.

Yusuf said Muthahhari has chosen to adopt the quantum method, which was first introduced by Bobbi DePorter and Mike Hernacki in San Diego, the United States, in the 1980s, because it combines various methods in order to optimize learning results.

"Besides the quantum method, we are actually also employing the role-model and riyadhah (spiritual exercise) methods," he said.

Under the role-model method, stories about certain religious figures or scientists are narrated to students, so that they can be used as models of achievement. Teachers are also encouraged to act as role models for their students. Also under this method, students of the second grade are given an opportunity to visit professional persons, whose positions become their ideals, to interview them about their job descriptions as well as good and bad experiences in doing their jobs.

With the riyadhah method, students are expected to develop their religious feelings together with their empathy for others.

On Wednesdays, Muthahhari students are allowed to learn subjects of their own choice, which are not included in the school's curriculum. Some of them learn music and dance while others learn foreign languages.

The teaching methods introduced by Muthahhari have apparently encouraged parents to send their children there, so that the school was forced to close its doors to new enrollments in the middle of May, long before state-run senior high schools had even started enrolling new students. Because the number of this year's applicants was so high, the school was also forced to open five new classrooms accommodating 35 students each, instead of the three originally planned.

Realizing that a large part of its students come from Jakarta (31 percent as compared to 25 percent from Bandung and 44 percent from other parts of the country), Muthahhari is now opening new classes in the capital, where a new school complex will eventually be built, Yusuf said.

Jalaluddin Rachmat. a co-founder of the school, said that recruiting teachers is a tough job because they must be able to deliver their lessons in English and satisfy the requirements for teaching the quantum method.

"To select qualified teachers, we also allow students to criticize their performance openly," he said.

Yusuf acknowledged that the costs to running the school with some 400 students is so high that it usually suffers a deficit of some Rp 300 million (US$33,333) a year, which is normally covered by donors.

"We once wanted to ask for financial aid from the Islamic Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank but the complex bureaucratic procedures for processing the application discouraged us," he said.