Teaching must not thwart learning

Teaching must not thwart learning

This is in reference to Prof. Bambang Sutjiatmo's comment at
the recent commencement of Open University in Bandung. He said
that a good teacher should be able to create a learning
atmosphere to make his students active and creative without fear
of making errors or being scolded (Pikiran Rakyat July 11, 1999).

Since education in general or teaching in particular is a
crucial commodity of a nation, I would like to contribute some
ideas about what I have in my literature. First, to implement the
above concept, teachers must be able to convince themselves that
they are able to create such an atmosphere. James E. Alatis said
that "as a teacher, I am unique and powerful".

Judging this point of view, there is no excuse for teachers
not to fulfill their duties in the classroom. To support this
idea, Gape (1970) defined teaching as "an activity on the part of
one person intended to facilitate learning on the part of
another". From this, we may conclude that good teaching is any
activity which facilitates learning, while bad teaching, by
extension, is any activity which fails to facilitate learning
(either by failing to affect learning at all or by affecting it
negatively, by obstructing learning).

The question for a teacher is: Have we facilitated the
students by helping them earnestly or have we affected them
negatively by obstructing them from their learning creatively.

ODO FADLOELI

Bandung