Schools should enlighten, not indoctrinate students

Schools should enlighten, not indoctrinate students

Simon Marcus Gower, Executive Principal, High/Scope Indonesia School

Jakarta

Many people, it is clear, fret and worry about how Indonesia
is going to survive in our "age of globalization". This is
understandable as the challenges are considerable. But we must
not fret too much and become overwhelmed; response is necessary.
With the perceived growth in global competition many commentators
warn of the tests and potential threats to Indonesia's position
within the global economy and world order.

Understandably educators must be concerned about their role in
helping to equip the nation with the skills needed to perform.
But what are those skills and how can a schools' curriculum help
to target them?

In the context of Indonesian education investment and
financial support is, of course, a major worry. An education
system that suffers from a lack of sufficient investment will, of
course, face major obstacles along its pathway to success.

However, there may be certain alternative ways in which
Indonesia's education system may rise-up to the challenges of
globalization without being too demanding of financial input.
Indonesian education and educators would be far better equipped
for future challenges, if mental change and input, rather than
just material/ financial change and input, was encouraged.

In order for schools to genuinely contribute to their
graduates' abilities to progress and succeed in the competitive
arena of globalization they must increasingly contribute to
students' thinking skills.

This means that schools must more and more aim to equip their
students with skills such as problem solving ability, creative
and critical analysis of data and information, research and
report writing skills and a general autonomy of thought that
allows students to perform as independent learners and thinkers.

This in turn means that schools must work towards personal
character traits within students that will allow them to develop
and flourish as active participants in the era of globalization.

In this sense education must become more flexible and
encouraging of originality and creativity of thought as opposed
to merely presenting knowledge and expecting students to memorize
and remember in a rote fashion.

Modern and progressive schooling, then, has to foster
characteristics of creativity, organization and self-management
skills, perseverance and mental strength, mental and moral
discipline, inquisitiveness and curiosity to explore and discover
and punctuality and consistency in attendance and meeting
deadlines.

Many would propose that there is little new in such ideas and
many of those "character targets" have long been part and parcel
of "traditional", existing school aims.

However, the real difference between "traditional" schooling
and more progressive modern alternative views may lie not so much
in the aims of education as in the methods that are applied in
trying to develop students towards such aims.

Prime examples of this kind of "difference" are to be found
within the existing Indonesian schooling system. For example,
more traditionalist educators would claim that traits such as
discipline and punctuality are targeted within the existing
system; but it is necessary to examine how those good character
traits are targeted.

Unfortunately, most consistently discipline is not nurtured as
a trait that comes from within each individual. Instead it is
imposed in a dictatorial manner that demands compliance rather
than shows that disciplined behavior is best for one and for all.

Within many Indonesian schools there is a consistent
misappropriation of education as a means of indoctrination.
Students are barely thought of as individuals and are goaded and
forced down an education path that does not permit them to view
the world from a broader perspective.

Instead of enlightening students and opening their minds up to
the world, schools are often placing blinkers over the eyes of
students that leave them naive and narrow-minded.

In such a mode of education, sadly, curiosity becomes curious
and even unacceptable. Inquisitive students often find that there
is little room for them to explore subjects within an Indonesian
classroom or the Indonesian curriculum. This is a particularly
sad condition and it is a condition that is contrary to what
education should be achieving.

An example of one active and really rather thoughtful student
in an Indonesian high school illustrates this point. Throughout
the year this student was criticized by his teachers as being
disruptive and "always asking too many questions."

At the end of the year, unfortunately, his grades were
"designated" as being "borderline" and regrettably his teachers
decided that he should not be allowed to pass to the next year of
study. This was regrettable and unfortunate because the student
had, effectively, been allowed to fail by his teachers and even,
more accurately, his teachers had failed too.

This student simply had a different learning style. He
consistently wanted to find out for himself and be creative in
his studies. Multiple-choice questions did not suit him but that
was all that he was exposed to at his high school and
consequently he did not succeed in his tests.

But instead of helping this student with different teaching
and learning strategies, the teachers consistently misinterpreted
his behavior and character as disruptive and ultimately
unsuccessful. The lack of success, though, lay both with the
student but perhaps more so with his teachers.

Many students have healthy and inquisitive minds but the
structure of the school system and curriculum is prone to inhibit
and restrict their thoughtfulness. Their intellect is not given
the opportunity to develop because of the system's need to
confine and conform.

Many Indonesian schools, and indeed teachers, end up requiring
memorization of facts by the students. True learning and
understanding is thus sidelined. Instead of making learning
experiences memorable and so stimulating to the intellect,
schools in Indonesia often conform to rote memorization that
limits thought.

In the age of globalization the ability to think critically
and creatively with openness to different points of view is an
increasing requirement. Adaptability and flexibility become key
success factors and the intransigence and limitation of
indoctrination becomes debilitating. If schools merely
indoctrinate rather than liberate students' thinking, then they
are in effect disabling rather than enabling students to succeed
in the world.

Leonardo Da Vinci once noted that "just as iron rusts from
disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect." Schools must
enlighten students to encourage active thought and development of
the intellect. Passive, inactive and mindlessly obedient students
will suffer a "spoiled intellect".

The globalization of our world demands that students are
equipped with the power to think for themselves. School
classrooms should be an open forum in which students get the
opportunity to exercise their intellect and so become thinkers.

The opinions expressed above are personal.