Sick society needs better orientation toward human values: Experts
Sick society needs better orientation toward human values: Experts
Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Education in Indonesia should be more humanistic in order to
heal our sick society, experts say.
This lack of orientation has contributed a great deal to a
decrease in the level of human values among Indonesians, they
point out.
"We need a big push, beyond just teaching the younger
generation about basic social etiquette," social psychologist
Darmanto Jatman of Semarang-based Diponegoro University told The
Jakarta Post recently.
Teaching etiquette, according to Jatman, was indeed important,
especially given that many young Indonesians did not express
condolences over the Oct. 12 Bali bombings that claimed over 190
lives, thus demonstrating their failure to show a sense of
humanity.
"But that's not the whole problem. There's something wrong
with our education system. It lacks that fundamental direction
that is oriented toward the acquisition of basic social skills,"
Darmanto said.
In fact, he said, it was these skills that could help students
sharpen their cultural and social sensibility.
"Unfortunately, our education system is not oriented in this
way and students are not taught to be sensitive toward other
people's feelings," said Darmanto, adding that a similar
phenomenon was also apparent at the family level.
Citing a report on the high level of domestic violence in the
country, Darmanto said that even from their early years, children
witness their parents' frequent quarrels, desensitizing the
children as a result.
"Children then create a self-defense mechanism by pretending
not to see anything when they are exposed to violence. They
become insensitive," he said.
Analysts earlier said that years of exposure to injustice,
violence and bloody killings throughout the country, with, at the
same time, no legal steps being taken against the perpetrators,
had contributed a great deal to an erosion in the sense of social
concern shown by Indonesians.
The remark initially came in response to the "public show" put
on by National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar and Bali bomb
suspect Amrozi who laughed, shook hands, waved and posed for
photographs during their face-to-face meeting at Bali Police
Headquarters last week.
Education expert and rector of Yogyakarta State University,
Suyanto, agreed with Darmanto, saying that the country's
education system had focused too much on intellectual and
cognitive aspects, while societal values were ignored, resulting
in graduates lacking in "social capital".
"In fact, according to the new paradigm in education, it's not
the intellectual capital but the social capital that is
significant for the glory of a nation," said Suyanto, who defines
"social capital" as collective values shared by many to achieve
common objectives.
Indonesians, according to Suyanto, have for some time not been
taught about the values of tolerance and empathy, and how to
express them well. In the past, people were even exposed to
violence on purpose. Broadcasting the film, G-30-S/PKI (the Sept.
30, 1965 communist coup) annually on state TVRI television
station was an example, he said.
"You may teach people about communism, but that (showing the
film) was not the right way to do it. It is not education," he
said, adding that movies and television soap operas that mainly
adopted the three main themes of violence, adultery and power
struggles, further sped up the eroding sense of humanity among
Indonesians.
At the same time, he said, education was very pragmatic. NEM
(assessments in the final national examination) have become the
only standard of achievement. No room is given to non-NEM
achievements, including singing, literary skills and story-
telling, regardless of the fact that these fields of study are
considered significant in the building of a student's character.
"Literary skills, for example, are important to teach students
about beauty and patience. But, you see, no such skills are
taught at present," Suyanto said, adding that the lessons were
scrapped from the national curriculum in the 1970s.
The nation must pay a high price for the decision that was the
result of the lack of the government's political will to consider
education as important, he said.
"We are now trapped in a crisis, unable to get out of it, more
or less because we do not have the necessary social skills," he
said.
Providing an example of how important social skills were,
Suyanto said that in a country whose citizens had high social
skills, a traffic light failure would not lead to a traffic jam.
That is because the people knew how to behave with consideration
toward others, despite the absence of compulsion.
Suyanto suggested, therefore, that the present education
system be totally changed to provide a balance between
intellectual and social aspects.
"Our task is therefore to create human beings who are not just
clever intellectually, but also smart socially, sociable, are
able to listen to others, tolerant and empathic," he said.
"People are conditioned to think that mathematicians are cool,
which is not necessarily the case. Bad mathematicians won't make
a nation chaotic, but bad politicians will," he said.
Suyanto also reiterated that modifying the country's education
system toward a social capital-oriented one would restore the
people's eroding sense of humanity.
"But, it will surely take time, a very long time," he said,
adding that the time needed to reeducate people who had already
lost their sense of humanity would be as long as the time they
had taken to become what they were at present.
"If someone is 15 years old, for example, he will need at
least 15 years to recover. Therefore, those who are already 50
years or 80 years of age will not be able to recover before they
die," he said.