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