Towards better cooperation between home and school

Towards better cooperation between home and school

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Education starts at home, many say, and school
education is said to be merely an extension of education provided
within the family.

In reality, the situation is not that simple. There are
instances indeed where a child receives good education at home,
and that the school has to continue the education provided at
home. Thus in general the school has to reinforce the foundations
of personal development that have been laid down at home and to
enrich the child's repertoire of knowledge and values.

However, not every child enjoys ideal education at home. A
young teacher once complained that one of his pupils used very
obscene language, which disturbed the entire class. It turned out
that this child lived in a poor neighborhood where such language
was normally used.

Here we have a case where the school cannot simply extend
family education provided at home. What the young teacher did in
this particular case was to correct this influence from home. It
is only after remedial steps have achieved satisfactory results
that the school can go ahead with providing further education.

The most tragic situation is when a good education at home is
undercut by wrong educational practice at school. In one family,
religious tolerance was considered a very important part of
family education. The children had been trained to respect
friends who embraced religions other than their own. One day a
daughter came home from school crying.

The child said her teacher told the class that wishing "Merry
Christmas" to Christian friends is a sin for Muslims. This
"instruction" came exactly on the day the girl received a
telephone call from a Christian friend, wishing her "Selamat Hari
Raya Idul Fitri". She wanted to reciprocate by wishing Merry
Christmas. But mindful of her teacher's message, she could not do
this and cried.

The mother tried to convince her daughter that she was not in
the wrong, and tried to explain how respecting different
religions was important in a pluralistic society. She said in the
family it was not wrong to wish Merry Christmas to Christian
friends.

The child was then torn between two contrasting opinions,
between two different value systems. And she has not reached that
stage of development where she can make her own decisions in face
of a moral dilemma.

The question here is, can we allow such a conflicting
situation to persist? Is it educationally right to leave a child
torn between two conflicting value systems without help?

Such a conflict should not have surfaced at school in the
first place. Leaving children torn by conflicting values can make
them morally indecisive, or worse, it can make them become
hypocrites. This is not merely an innocent shortcoming in our
educational system.

In the long run children could, to paraphrase Homer, become
men and women "who hide one thing in the depths of their hearts,
and speak forth another." And according to the French writer
Andre Gide (1869 - 1951) such people will cease to see their own
deceptions, and "lie with sincerity".

How can we prevent such situations in our schools? The school
must have an idea what kind of education each child gets at home
prior to their enrollment. This can be easily done if the school
is willing to establish rapport and cooperation with the parents.
The school should not one-sidedly decide which practice is wrong
and which is right in sensitive and debatable issues.

An exchange of ideas is very important. Do we really accept
the idea of religious tolerance? Do we have a common
understanding concerning the dictates of a multireligious society
for education? Is it morally and politically right in cases like
this to impose the views of the "majority" on "minorities?"

Congratulating friends embracing different religions on
particular days cannot be simply "right" or "wrong" according to
the precepts of a particular teacher. This matter affects the
social well-being of the community. No teacher has the right to
impose his or her personal judgment on a community's social
norms.

Conflicts like the one described above is only one example of
current conflicts between school and the community.

There are also conflicts in academic education. Tests
evaluating students' progress have been found to contain
questions which are academically questionable -- to the effect
of sometimes imposing wrong answers to the questions for the sake
of a good mark.

Some parents feel this practice can never be justified.

In one quiz for third graders in a Jakarta elementary school,
students were asked: "Showing respect to a guest is the
characteristic of (a) a person with strong religious faith; (b) a
Muslim; (c) a person devoted to God: (d) a good person." It was
not clear which response was considered correct by the test
maker, but the (d) option was considered wrong.

Can you see any logic in this evaluation practice? What I see
is only an act of marshaling children toward a blind quasi-
religious belief.

Such evaluation practices could subvert good education laid
down at home, in the family. It is tragic that when a
confrontation occurs between what parents believe to be right and
what the school thinks is right, parents and families have so far
been the losers. The school is never wrong. Teachers are
"professionals", whereas parents are "amateurs".

This situation can no longer continue. If we genuinely want a
community-based school management system, the school must learn
to listen to and comprehend the views and aspiration of the
community, including, and especially, those of parents.

Are teachers and educational bureaucrats today really willing
to do this? As long as they persist in their old views and
attitudes, school committees and school boards representing the
community and educational bureaucrats will not significantly
improve the social climate in schools. This is because when
bureaucrats and parents come together, it has always been the
bureaucrats who have the final say.

Establishing good interactions between the family and the
school in pursuit of good education for our children require,
among others, humility on the part of our teachers and the
educational bureaucracy.

The writer is an educator and former rector of Muhammadiyah
University in Jakarta.