No picnic, but a school that's losts of fun

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Sitting quietly in a circle on the floor of a two-story gazebo, the children can see their friends planting seedlings and playing on a rope climbing frame in the garden.

"Can we learn math first today?," asked Alfa, one of the third grade students.

His two teachers responded at once, asking the other students for approval before kicking off the day with Math.

"It is acceptable here for students to negotiate with their teachers. This gives them the feeling of learning because they want to, not because they are obliged to," said Pepen Supendi, the 29-year old headmaster of Sekolah Alam (School of Nature) in Ciganjur, South Jakarta.

The school occupies some three hectares of land, mostly grassy areas and gardens, and has 270 students.

"People think that quality education comes at a price due to the cost of facilities," Pepen said. "In fact, we can minimize all of that by learning from nature."

First grade students, for example, can learn the word "leaf" better in a garden than in a classroom, he said.

Keeping expenses to a minimum, the school provides 12 wooden gazebos as its classrooms. "Most of our activities are conducted outdoors, anyway," Pepen said.

The school also awakens children's curiosity as they learn through experience.

Though the national curriculum is adhered to in part, teachers have a different way of evaluating students. "We do not want to make them learn just to get good grades," said the headmaster, an agricultural college graduate.

The school's 30 teachers are trained to evaluate their students' progress in leadership, logic and moral values.

"We evaluate their skills by reviewing whether they know what they have learned here, and what more they want to learn," Pepen said, showing a sample assessment card on which there were only symbols showing a child's progress instead of the common A, B, C or scores.

"We are providing children with knowledge that is useful, including the importance of being independent," he said.

In its annual camp, even 5-year-old students are asked to wash their own clothes.

Dasayoga Isbanu, the father of three girls who attend the school, said his daughters' knowledge was broader than other children's. "The two younger children, who started studying there earlier, show more maturity than the eldest child in terms of empathy, emotional intelligence and leadership," he said. "That kind of education is rarely offered, it is worth the sacrifice."

Fees for enrollment in preschool to junior high school grades range from Rp 1.5 million to Rp 2 million, with monthly fees between Rp 300,000 and Rp 500,000.

Though school is never a picnic, the School of Nature offers a learning experience with a difference. (003)