Teachers as a liberating force

Teachers as a liberating force

Alpha Amirrachman
Jakarta

The threat by former Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung to sue
teacher and school textbook author Retno Listyarti is quite
alarming for the teaching profession, the members of which have
suffered for decades from low salaries and poor social status in
society.

In our country, teachers are regarded as being members of a
profession that has high moral integrity, so "high" that money or any
kind of material reward is often considered too "low" to be
presented to teachers in appreciation for their earnest
efforts to mold the character of this nation. That's why they
are labeled, almost officially, as "heroes with no reward", which
-- due to their lowly social conditions -- looks more like
humiliation than appreciation.

During the independence movement, parallel with our physical
struggle to liberate this nation from colonialism, an education
movement was also significant in liberating this nation from
backwardness. Riding his bicycle, a teacher would be warmly
welcomed and be assisted by his students to park his bike at the
school. In circumstances where the desire for independence was
high, the teacher would enthusiastically impart his zeal for
independence to his pupils, who would attentively listen to him.
Teachers were not only members of a noble profession, but also a
liberating force.

Times has changed, values have evolved. During the
developmentalism era of the New Order, teachers still had their
political role, but they were used more as "state agents" to
indoctrinate their pupils with the New Order's authoritarian
ideology. At a time when teachers and students needed to develop
creative thinking, the old paradigms of the colonial era were
preserved for the sake for preserving the New Order regime's
thirst for power. Development thrived, but not intellectuality in
the true sense of the term, and the welfare of teachers remained
rock bottom.

During the reform era, teachers' welfare has remained near the
bottom. Nevertheless, a new idealism on the part of teachers to
reorientate their roles in society has emerged. The movement,
unfortunately, appears to be highly fragmented and some brave
teachers have already fallen victim. Nurlaila, for example, was
fired from her position of a teacher in a state-ran junior high
school (SMP) in Jakarta when she blew the whistle on alleged
corruption in a land-swap deal involving her school and the local
government.

Just recently, a senior high school civics teacher, Retno
Listyarti, came under intense political pressure after Akbar
Tandjung, a powerful Golkar Party politician, threatened to sue
her over a textbook she wrote that highlighted his high profile
graft case (in which, incidentally, he was acquitted by the
Supreme Court).

What can we infer from such cases? They show a new pattern of
relations between teachers and society. Under the New Order,
teachers were detached from society and were often accused of
presenting something remote from students.

Now, however, with the new spirit of openness, the teacher's
role is something that has evolved and is tailored differently --
inevitably different as each teacher may have a different
interpretation of his role. Conceptually, a teacher's role sparks
a sense of universality, something that all teachers need to
adhere to, but realistically the "self" of teachers cannot be
ignored.

As one expert argues, "The teacher brings into the classroom
his views of his job, his prejudices, his personal fears and
inadequacies, his ambitions, his humanity and affection." Despite
drawbacks and difficulties, the recently introduced competency-
based curriculum should be able to convert the "anxiety" of
teachers into something pedagogically beneficial for the
development of pupils.

This is the area where teachers can strike a balance, meaning
that if given enough room to creatively maneuver, teachers can
maximize their potential to meet societal demands and
concurrently "realize" their ideal perception of society in the
classroom. Thus, it could help narrow the gap between the school
and outside world.

While the issue of teachers' welfare can be advanced as
something that retards teacher creativity, as one writer argued
in this paper a while ago, one school might be materially poor,
but spiritually rich. This analogy can also be applied to
individual teachers. He might be materially poor, but
resourcefully rich, such as is the case with Retno Lisyarti, who
ingeniously turned a critical thinking lesson into something more
contextual by relating it to the factual case of a public figure,
Akbar Tandjung.

What is most important now -- since the state is nearly
bankrupt when it comes to providing decent teacher training -- is
to at least provide teachers with a supportive atmosphere so that
they can professionally develop themselves without fear of being
constrained.

Issuing an ambiguous press statement merely stating that
the case is the publisher's responsibility and teachers have the
right to choose factual cases as discourse topics is hideously
insufficient; the Ministry of National Education should provide
concrete legal assistance to Retno. Although the teaching
profession bill has not been passed into law, the case will
reveal to what extent the state is genuinely concerned with the
protection of teachers' academic freedom.

Suing a high school teacher like Retno for Rp 10 billion does
not only humiliate her, but also all teachers, who still are
forced to live in unacceptable conditions. This also constitutes
blatant intimidation, which might kill off teacher creativity and
academic freedom.

It would be more gracious for Akbar Tandjung to concentrate on
doing good deeds that benefit the people so that he can be more
favorably portrayed in the next edition of Retno's civics
textbook.

Above all, preparing students to be critical of their own
society is crucial to helping this nation escape from its
entrenched problems. So, let the teachers once again be a
liberating force!

The writer is an education and social affairs observer at the
Public Sphere Institute.